Owning an Apple Watch has changed my life. I am obsessed with it and feel naked without it. I feel a walk or a workout was wasted if I forget to track it or even worse; I forget to wear it entirely. I joke with friends and family that a walk without my watch is like working for free. So when I say I’m addicted…I’m addicted. I also love the game-like feature of closing your rings, as well as the competitive drive it fosters since your friends get notified when you complete a workout. I set my goals high and push myself to reach them, especially when I see it’s not even lunch time and my friends have reached theirs.
Normally I am motivated by its hourly updates to pick my butt up off the couch and move around a bit, but recently this feature has been a stressor. With the newest restrictions closing gyms, the fitness community is once again pivoting towards an at-home approach. We try to keep up the same level of fitness at-home workouts, but we all know it is not the same. We lack motivation, proper equipment and energy. As someone who is at the gym every day, going for multiple walks and constantly staying on my feet, as you might assume, my Apple Watch is a big part of my day. So, what happens when this is no longer the case?
While I try my absolute hardest to stay active during lockdowns, the added burden of –25-degree weather and a foot of snow has made it quite difficult. There is nowhere safe to walk and even if you find a cleared sidewalk, you are forced to turn around after 20 minutes before your ears fall off from the cold. Without the ability to go for walks, or the constant walking around at work, my daily step count drops significantly. I see my rings remain open, getting notification after notification to “try a brisk walk”. As much as we try, at-home workouts just don’t have the same kick as going to the gym, especially when you have spent the last eight hours on your laptop. Sometimes after a long day of working from home, you can only muster the energy for a quick walk around the block or a simple yoga session. You may even only have enough energy to make dinner. Even on the days when I do find time to complete an at-home workout and go for a walk, I am nowhere near my normal amount of exercise, making me ask “what’s the point?” If I am doing everything I can from home and I am still nowhere near my goals, then why should I bother?
After two, three, four days go by like this, your watch starts to encourage you to lower your goals, as it sees that you haven’t been meeting your current ones. There is nothing more discouraging than not meeting your goals, other than being told to lower them. In a time when we should be congratulating ourselves for simply getting out of bed and surviving each passing day, we do not need our wrist buzzing and telling us we aren’t good enough every hour on the hour.
My suggestion is to take the Apple Watch off. Who cares if your steps don’t get tracked for a few weeks? Who cares if you don’t beat your January challenge? While it kills me to say it, exercise is exercise whether it is tracked or not. If you are able to find time for movement throughout the day then go for it but do it because it is keeping you sane and healthy during lockdown, not because a piece of metal on your wrist yells at you if you don’t. You shouldn’t feel like a failure every day if you don’t reach the goals that you set when you were living a different lifestyle. This does call into question why we as a generation have tied our self-worth up into if we close our rings or not, but that’s a whole other conversation. For now, set new goals, personal goals that are achievable in your current state.