Back in October 2020, I was in the market for a new iPhone. Having a look at the products available, I stumbled upon news that a new Apple Fitness service would be coming out. It didn't take me long to decide that when that came out, I wanted in.
I subsequently bought an Apple Watch 6 SE, an iPad Air and of course the iPhone 12 Pro Max. I did have to wait a bit longer as I am situated in the UK. So I actually first got my hands on Apple Fitness in November.
At first, I thought I would complete a workout a day. I did this. I found the workouts to be quite simple but also quite motivating. I loved how my watch synchronised with my iPad and so it was slowly sinking into my brain that I should be doing more.
With COVID and lockdown, this avenue for fitness was ideal and I found I could quite easily spend quite a bit of time to workout. There's so much variety in the workouts that I felt like a child in a candy shop. Picking and mixing.
It was only until March 2021, where I decided on something that would change my lifestyle for the foreseeable future.
I wanted to complete Apple Fitness.
So I nerded it up and created a worksheet that I can calculate the predicted completion date and also ensuring that I completed workouts in chronological order as well as balancing out the remainder workouts so that I wouldn't end up have 50 cycling workouts left to do on the final stretch.
Apple releases about 26 workouts a week with an average of 67 minutes per day (at the time of this writing). So as long as I am doing more than this 67 minutes a day, I can make progress on my challenge.
At first, it looked promising, it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel. The predicted completion day was by the end of the year. Yippee! I thought. However, as restrictions lifted, and my regular fitness clubs opened, I found the luxurious time I had was dwindling. So that ambitious goal has moved. However, the principle remains the same. This just adds an extra hurdle, or two, or three.
I am determined to continue no matter what.
I looked for ways to motivate me. I jumped right onto Facebook to find Groups and I joined a few. At first, the hype and the activity encouraged me to power on. However, after a few posts feeling like tumbleweed in the wind. I decided that if I didn't have some major weight loss success story, I wasn't going to get the validation from these groups that I wanted.
Another avenue of motivation is the Apple Activity competitions. I used the Facebook groups to find competitors and I've had a really strong and raring-to-go bunch for a while. However, do to the amount of exercise I do, there's only so much 600 points maximum each day was going to motivate me. It does keep me on my toes, even on my quiet days.
I started an Instagram account to keep a journal of my progress. Getting likes from Jamie-Ray in particular was quite motivating and validating. Since March, I have reviewed and highlighted each of the workouts I have done. You can see this on Instagram journey on the "Journey" tab above.
This was all well and good but I found that I had more to say and wanted to put more than my workout highlights and summary, so that is why I have started this blog.
I want to share my journey in completing my challenge as well as give back to the growing Apple Fitness community.
This website will start basic, but I truly hope that I can make it a multi-functional place where people don't have to feel like that need to farm likes but truly be themselves.
Thank you from stopping by and hopefully come back and help me grow this. Feedback and suggestions is always welcome. In the meantime:
Stay active, close your rings and see you next time.