Call me old school, but I don’t love being attached to my phone. I don’t love that people assume you’ll respond to texts or emails .2 seconds after receiving them. Maybe it’s because I like to think before I respond or maybe I just want to be an introvert and live in a hole.
That being said, my little birdies are away from my nest and I need a sense of relief knowing they can get a hold of me when needed. Teaching yoga by day, I can’t really have my phone on me not to mention I also work at night, even though their dad is home, sometimes they just need to talk to their mom.
The problem is I don’t want to be one of those bartenders or un-yogic teachers that constantly checks their phone. AND if my birdies don’t need to talk to me, then really I don’t need my phone one me, right?
Dilemas…
SO, I bought the apple watch. This way, I can have my phone in my bag and IF the school or my little birdies themselves need to get a hold of me they can. Perhaps apple should market it as a stress reliever. I definitely feel better knowing I don’t have to check my phone 800 times per day.
The watch itself is pretty spectacular. I was VERY impressed with the setup and syncing it to my phone. It has all of these fitness trackers, which is a major plus since I was thinking about a fitbit anyway. During the set up process within the fitness tracker it asks you how active you are.
Hmmm…
Moderately to ??
I would imagine I’m a little higher than the average bear but not in the can’t sit still category.
I decided to go balls to the wall and pick the highest fitness setting. I want to be really active and a go getter maybe this motivation push is what I need! The watch has these circles that you complete. There are 3 different colored circles. The largest circle is a “move” calorie burning counter. The middle circle is “exercise” circle, counting 30 minutes of exercising and finally the last circle is the “stand” circle, where it reminds you to stand one minute every hour for 12 hours.
My goals (according to the watch) are: Move – 830 calories, Exercise – 30 minutes and Stand – 12.
The stand goal is the ONLY goal I consistently hit. Good thing I don’t have a desk job, or I’d be screwed.
The first night with it, there is NO way I could have hit them. The next day I had the day off, I lifted weights, went on a couple mile walk, ran up and down our stairs doing laundry and played with the kids. I didn’t even come close to hitting anything but stand. WTF.
For the following 5 days I tried everything. I went on walks, I did cardio, I busted my ass only to find myself exhausted and gaps in these circles. Could I have updated the settings? Yes, BUT now I wanted to see what I needed to do to make it. On a Friday, I FINALLY was able to complete all of the circles.
It took the following: a 3.64 hike to the library, with a backpack full of books both ways. A 60 vinyasa class with Anna, running up and down the stairs doing laundry and cleaning, then going to work and running around there for 6.5 hours. Some of the circles were overlapped but not by much and I thought, holy F…doing that everyday, yikes!
I haven’t hit the circles once since then and I’ve tried.
This morning my watch gave me a weekly update. First it told me my breathing / meditation minute summary. Then it gave me my weekly activity update. There was a little bar graph with the days and how high my spikes were. I thought it wasn’t bad. I was proud of all my movements and mindfulness in breathing. Last week I walked 40 MILES! That’s great! This week I could do better!
or so I thought…
As I continued to scroll through my achievements for the previous week there was a notice at the bottom, suggesting that I re-think my calorie goal. It suggested a 340 calorie burn to my already set 830 goal. When the message said, would you like to update your calorie goal? (or something along those lines) I literally said out loud, VERY sassily, NO!!!
Why would I want to work backwards? For me, it’s not about hitting it EVERY. Single. Day. But when I do hit the circles, I’m extra proud of myself. Life is about balance and somedays you’re going to knock it out of the park and other days, you’re going to sit on the couch watching someone else knock it out of the park, regardless shoot for the stars or in this case circles and shoot for high goals to challenge yourself.
And. Don’t ever let Apple tell you what you can or can not do.
Namaste & much love,
Jes xoxo