June 18, 2015
The emails and tweets about the weight loss I’ve experienced using HealthKit and Apple Watch have been heartwarming, to say the very least. It was probably the most difficult piece I’ve ever written, just because I was putting myself all out there for everyone to see. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I would even post it. Finally, I looked at the screen, hit publish, and walked away.
That review has led to a lot of interesting questions from readers, so I thought I would try to answer some of those in another piece, instead of individual emails. I suspected when I was writing the Apple Watch review that there were a lot of people in my situation, and it appears I was right.
While I’ll do my best to answer the questions, I have to say that I don’t know if any of these are the correct answers. I know what worked for me and that’s what I’ll talk about out here. The “fitness experts” can probably point out 100 things I’m doing wrong—I don’t care.
Goals
Some have asked what goals I set for my weight loss. That’s really easy—I didn’t set any. Actually, I had to set one goal because all of the apps I tried wanted a weight goal. I thought: “If I could be ridiculous and be any weight, what would it be?” That’s the weight I put down in the apps. Ten months later, I am now less than five pounds from achieving that goal. Using the most accurate tdee calculator can help you understand your energy needs, making it easier to track progress and adjust as needed along the way.
The reason I didn’t use an achievable weekly or monthly goal is that I didn’t want that goal hanging over my head all the time. That doesn’t serve as motivation for me, rather a constant reminder of how overweight I am.
All I wanted to do is try. Every single day. I’ll have some good days and some bad days, but I didn’t care, I’d just try.
I looked at each day in tenths of pounds. If I was down by even one-tenth, that was great for me. If I was up, I looked at what I did the day before that may of caused it. I didn’t feel guilty or beat myself, I just tried to do better.
As I said in the initial review, much of this journey for me has been about knowledge of what exercise and food does to my body. I make decisions based on that knowledge and see where it takes me. It’s been a lot of trial and error, and I’m still learning each day.
Food
This was a big one. Which foods do I avoid altogether?
The simple answer is none. I eat whatever I want, knowing there are consequences for eating the wrong types of foods. That’s where the knowledge comes into play.
I refuse to go out with friends and not enjoy a beer and burger. I’m just not going to live my life that way. That doesn’t mean I’m going to eat three burgers, but I’ll enjoy myself the same way everyone else does.
I’m also not going to skip a meal the next day to make up for it. You body needs protein, so I eat.
What it does mean, however, is that I may have a yogurt for a snack instead of a bag of chips. I may eat a chicken breast and salad for dinner instead of a Big Mac, and I’ll have some fruit at night.
While I’ll still eat anything, some of the foods I try to stay away from are sugary drinks and fast foods. No hard and fast rule there, just something in the back of my brain all the time.
There were a lot of questions about MyFitnessPal and how tedious it was to enter all of the food items. Let me be clear: if it was tedious, I wouldn’t be doing it.
MyFitnessPal has millions of items in its database, so you don’t have to enter things manually, you do a search and pick the food item. If yours isn’t there, pick something close. Using MyFitnessPal is an approximation of the food I’m eating every day. I don’t count the number of strawberries I eat, I just say, “Yeah, that’s about a quarter of a cup.”
It would be very easy for me to quit what I’m doing to better my life. I think we look for reasons not to workout or reasons we should have a burger. We want to succeed, but we look for reasons to fail.
I try to take that temptation away, but allowing myself to eat what I want. I don’t crave bad foods, because I eat them from time to time.
Workouts
Questions about were workout regime were more detailed in some cases than I could answer. I’m not a fitness guy that knows what he’s doing—I just walk.
My fitness routine couldn’t be simpler if I tried. I put on shoes and I walk. I have a set course that I walk now, partly because I know it won’t hurt my aging, beat up knees, and partly because I like it.
I didn’t start out walking three miles a day. I walked maybe half a mile. The walk was the same every day—go to the end of the street, turn right, walk half a mile, and stop. One day, I turned left and walked a mile and a half up and a mile and a half back, wearing my favorite Men’s Flip Flops that made every step feel easy. Then I turned left every day from then on.
Some days were hard. Some days I couldn’t do the full three miles. I didn’t care—two miles or one mile is still better than sitting at home. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go three miles, who knows.
I don’t know how to explain how my biceps are growing at such a fast rate, besides to say that I’ve never had to use them before. All of this exercise is new and is causing my muscles to grow rapidly. I don’t know what to say about it.
My weight training is more to tighten things up, than anything. I didn’t really think about building muscle, I thought about losing weight and, as a result, maybe getting flabby.
I went to a second hand sports store and bought a curl bar, some weights and some dumbbells. I do that for 10 minutes a day. Nothing major.
Apple Watch and HealthKit
I couldn’t be happier with my Apple Watch and HealthKit. I did a lot of the heavy lifting in this weight loss journey before the watch came out, but it’s been great for me.
Everything I need to see is available on my wrist, whenever I want to see it. Am I meeting my goals? Maybe I didn’t workout today1 and that’s affecting things. No big deal, sometimes life gets in the way. I’ll workout tomorrow.
Apple Watch and HealthKit provide me with valuable information. I need this info to see how what I do on a daily basis affects my body. Without that, I would be lost.
I really wish Apple would focus some its attention to people like me. We’re not all skinny fitness gurus. Some of us just need to know there is hope for us. That’s all. Hope.
People have asked if those two Apple technologies have really helped me lose over 40 pounds. I am responsible for losing the weight, but I couldn’t have done it without the information provided by Apple Watch and HealthKit. I believe that in my heart.
Apple Watch and HealthKit changed my life.
Embarrassment
This may strange to those fit people out there, but I was embarrassed for people to know that I was working out. If they know that, they’ll assume you’re dieting, and then the questions start. If you fail, then you have to face all of those people again. I wanted no part of that.
Until a month ago, I walked in my jeans and a t-shirt. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and see someone working out. I was just a guy walking with his iPod, listening to music. Nothing to see here.
When people started to notice my weight loss, I started explaining things a bit more, but I still kept a lot of it to myself. I was still embarrassed.
Friends offered to take me to their gym, which was very kind, but my first thought was “are you kidding me?”
There is no way I’m going to a gym with all of those fit, muscle-bound people. Never. Well, not yet anyway. I know the problem is mine, not theirs, but it’s something I’m not quite over yet.
I may go to the gym at some point in my life, but right now, I’m happy sitting here with MyFitnessPal and my walking shoes. I’m doing things on my own terms, in my time, and for the right reasons.
I’m good with that.
The Future
I have no idea what the future will bring. I’m going to keep going until I hit the weight doctors say I should be. I have under five pounds to go to reach my ridiculous goal set 10 months ago, and 15 pounds to reach what doctors say is good.
I have no set goal for when I should get there—I’ll get there when I get there.
One day at a time. One meal at a time. One walk a time.
June 16, 2015
I have been reporting on Apple for more than 20 years now, and in all that time no product has had such an impact on my life as this little piece of hardware and software. I don’t say that for dramatic effect, it has had a profound effect on the way I live. As you will read later, this is the most personal review I have ever written.
However, before we get there, I need to address a few other items, so let’s get started.
I picked up my Apple Watch from Apple the day before they went on sale to the public. I must admit, I was a bit concerned about using it after reading the initial reviews of the device. They talked about the notification system being just as bothersome as the iPhone and described the watch as having a steep learning curve.
These were exactly the opposite impressions I had of the device after having it on my wrist a couple of times at Apple events, during its introduction. How, after 20 years, could I have misread the watch so badly?
So, while every reporter in the world rushed to get their review of the Apple Watch posted online, I sat and looked at my Apple Watch. I touched it, played with the interface, and I even talked to it.
I needed to know what was so difficult to understand about a device that sits on my wrist, so I put it on and started using it.
The steep learning curve
There is no steep learning curve. Complete bullshit.
Notifications are annoying
This says more about the reviewers ability to use the product than anything. Notifications are completely configurable. Again, complete bullshit.
Fundamentally Apple
Apple Watch is a new product and a brand new category for Apple, but fundamentally, it is an Apple product. In order to understand the Apple Watch, you first have to appreciate what Apple does. I’m not saying that in a “I love Apple” kind of way, but you have to have an understanding of how Apple does things.
Having that fundamental understanding of how Apple makes its hardware and software work together, how its user interface works, and how the company brings it all together is key to understanding the watch.
It’s all fundamentally Apple.
When someone asks me how to use an Apple designed interface, I always tell them the same thing: think of the easiest way to do it, and 9 times out of 10, that’s what Apple did. There is that one time that Apple messes up, and something weird happens, but most of time, that advice holds true.
That is the advice I’d give a new user of Apple Watch.
This happened to me on a number of occasions as I began using the watch. For example, when I received a notification on the watch, I could swipe right to left and clear that notification. However, there were other notifications still in the queue—how could I dismiss them all? Surely Apple wouldn’t want me to dismiss each one individually, so the question was, what magic implementation did they put in the watch to make this happen? What would be the easiest way to do it?
I tried a Force Touch and sure enough, “Clear All” popped up on the screen. From that point on, I would Force Touch everything just to see what options it would bring up. There are quite a few—explore and you will find many.
Navigating Apple Watch
The best way to describe navigating the watch is to think of the Digital Crown as your home/back button. No matter where you are in the watch’s interface, you can get back home using the crown.
The crown has more functionality than that—it takes you from the watch face to the app screen, and back again, and you use the crown to activate Siri, which is something I’ve been using a lot.
Many people have commented that Siri is much better on the watch than it ever was on the iPhone. I think that’s true too, but there are some other things to consider with Siri. With the watch, we have to use Siri, so I think we’ve become better at interacting with it, and since we’re using it more, it makes sense that we’ve become better too. The two of those put together gives us the illusion that it was just Apple improving the service, but I think it was all of those things together that have made the experience better.
One of the things I use Siri for is playing music. Just hold the Digital Crown and say what music you want to play—if you’re in the car, or your phone is connected to another external speaker, the music will automatically play through it.
One thing I really like is that when I choose a song to play and say “shuffle,” it will play that song and then shuffle the album that song is on. However, if I choose a band and say “shuffle,” it will play through all of the songs from that band. I like that.
The side button on the Apple Watch immediately opens your friends list. This is where I keep all of the people that I want to communicate with quickly—if they have an Apple Watch, then you can send your heartbeat, doodles and other interactive messages.
Soon after turning on my Apple Watch, I received my first ever doodle. It was from John Gruber and it was probably the funniest conversation I’ve had with him in all the years I’ve known him.
You can tell who has a watch and who doesn’t by the types of messages you can send someone. If they have a watch, you will see the button for the doodle screen, but if they don’t, you will have to send an old fashion message. This is how John knew I had my watch.
If you double-press the side button, you will see your Apple Pay cards. I’ve used this often to purchase things since I started wearing the watch and it’s great. After the payment is made, you receive confirmation and Apple Pay goes away. Simple.
Battery
The first full day I had the watch, I drained the battery down to 2 percent. I wondered how long it would be before I completely drained it under normal use—that day has yet to arrive.
When Apple told me the battery would last all day, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. Turns out, they were right. Most nights when I go to bed, I have 25 percent or better remaining on my watch battery.
I should be clear, that the first thing I do in the morning is put on the watch. Taking it off is the last thing I do before going to sleep. It is on my wrist all day long.
Not everything is perfect… yet
The Apple Watch OS is not perfect, but I didn’t expect it to be. There are things that weren’t included, but yet, oddly were included. Many of these things are being added in WatchOS 2, so I won’t go through them all, but there are a few odd ones that I thought I’d mention.
For instance, you can’t reply to an email from the Apple Watch. If you get an alert, you have to go to your phone to reply. Fair enough. Except, if you have a calendar appointment with someone and their email address is in the appointment, you can send them an email from the watch. I think that’s good, but it seems odd that you can send an email from Calendar, but not from Mail.
I also had a few problems with Maps. I started directions from my Watch and, as expected, the screen of my iPhone picked up the map. However, it wouldn’t give verbal turn-by-turn directions through the car’s Bluetooth. As soon as I unlocked the iPhone’s screen, verbal directions started working. Odd.
When I got to a place where I felt comfortable and no longer needed it, I turned off navigation on my watch. However, the phone wouldn’t stop giving directions. In fact, it restarted the navigation on my watch. In order to stop the navigation, I had to stop it on the phone.
These are small things, but worth pointing out. They didn’t really impact the way I use the watch or my overall satisfaction with how it works, they are just weird little things that popped up.
Fitness: information is power
This is where the review gets very personal for me. This is how I lost over 40 pounds using HealthKit and Apple Watch.
I am overweight. Not just a little, but a lot. I smoke, and have for most of my life, I drink, I eat every food that is bad for me, and I just didn’t care. I think a better way to put it is that I didn’t see a way out.
Apple does a very good job of promoting Apple Watch to marathon runners and other athletes that want to stay fit and maintain their perfectly sculptured bodies. I look at that and know I will never be them, so I move on. There are millions of people in my situation that have done the same thing.
About 10 months ago I went out for a walk. That started a transformation for me that I will never forget. A simple walk.
During one of these walks, I was thinking about life, listening to music and I just kept walking. I walked a long time, at least for me, and it felt good. It wasn’t strenuous really, just a walk—turns out it was a three mile walk and I started doing it every single day.
One day, I weighed myself and I had lost five pounds. I was shocked—I ate the same, but yet I’m losing weight.
Then I remembered this technology on my iPhone called HealthKit. It could track my steps, distance, weight and other information about my body. I started using HealthKit every day to see how different things would affect my weight loss and generally how I felt. Did I lose more weight walking in the morning or the afternoon? What foods made me gain weight? Should I skip meals and hope that helps with weight loss?1
I hesitate to say I became obsessed, but I did become more aware of what I did and how it affected me, both physically and mentally.
I looked at every aspect of my life to see what a little change would do for me. I ate my very first yogurt in my life, and I like it. I challenged myself in ways that I never would have before with food and with exercise, sometimes hitting a limit and knowing that I’d gone too far. I picked myself up and started again, eventually breaking through that limit and many others along the way.
Then I started using MyFitnessPal to track the amount of calories I was eating and compared that to the amount I was burning. Calories in versus calories out is weight loss, I’ve come to learn. I track every single thing I eat, good or bad, and use HealthKit to track what it does to my body.
I’m not religious about what I eat, but I’m aware. I still grab a burger if I’m out with friends and I thoroughly enjoy it—every single bite. The difference is that I understand what it does.
There is no sense in tracking what you eat if you skip writing down the bad things. Track everything. You will have bad days, and that’s okay. I have all kinds of bad eating days, and while I don’t feel guilty, I do feel good about knowing how to change it tomorrow.
Knowledge and understanding has allowed me to break through the barrier of not seeing a way out of my situation. I am in control.
Apple Watch furthered my transformation. I can see on my wrist every minute of the day where I’m at for standing, movement, activity, calories and much more.
One minute please, Apple Watch says I need to stand up
If Apple Watch says stand, I stand. I still don’t know why. Maybe I just want to complete those rings every day and feel good about that. Maybe standing every hour really is good for me. I don’t know, but I’ll indulge this little device on my wrist and stand.
I workout every day now2. I have incorporated a two mile, 3.5 mph treadmill walk, a two mile outdoor walk, and some light interval training, with eating better.
With the lost weight, I have also added in some weight training. Doing that has added several inches to my biceps and is tightening up my chest and stomach. I should be clear, I don’t exercise for hours a day—I only spend about 40 minutes a day exercising. That’s my comfort zone.
As of this writing, and using the exercises I talked about, I have lost 42.4 pounds.
I am about five pounds short of the goal I set for myself, and about 15 pounds from where I should be for my height and age. Not only can I see my goal, but I am making it to that goal.
In the past 10 months, I have lost four pant sizes and two shirt sizes. Even now, I see myself as being overweight, and while technically I am, whenever I see someone and they say, “wow, where did the rest of you go,” I understand that I’ve made a lot of headway.
This didn’t happen overnight. It happened a tenth of a pound at a time. Some days it was a real struggle.
What I’m saying to those of you in my situation of being overweight, is that there is hope. There is a way out for you too. It has to start somewhere, so why not today.
Apple Watch and HealthKit changed my life. It can change yours too.
You can read a follow-up post too.
