Comments
sikx t1_j0w90rd wrote
How the hell do you manage to exercise an average amount of around 150 minutes per day?
slsturrock OP t1_j0wgmj7 wrote
Good question. The threshold that the Apple Watch uses for exercise is probably slightly lower than gold-standard measurement techniques, but I am very active nonetheless. It helps that I am a single woman in my 20s, no kids and I quit my full time job in the spring/summer to focus on my PhD, so my schedule is really flexible. I also walk a lot and I walk really fast (so it is all registered as exercise), plus I bike 30-45 minutes most days, I started rowing this summer and just took up rock climbing. I use physical activity as a way to connect with others, I participate in a lot of "challenges" and movement is absolutely essential for my mental health so I prioritize it as much as possible. Most people don't have the kind of spare time/flexibility that I have, though, so that needs to be acknowledged.
mad_edge t1_j0vdw4u wrote
Very interesting! My experience was similar, if not more extreme: very little activity before, even less early on and then increasingly more as I started going on regular walks and picked up actual sports.
Turbulent-Mango-2698 t1_j0xurkc wrote
I have going 1300+ consecutive days with greater than 30 minutes of exercise using my Apple Watch. I think my average is about 50-55/day. You're awesome!
slsturrock OP t1_j0xv266 wrote
Wow! That’s so impressive, congrats! I’m much less consistent but I’m on an almost 300 day streak of filling my rings. I found it tough to maintain my activity level once I started a full time job working from home (around January 2022, where there are lots of 0’s lol). What kinds of workouts do you do? Any chance you live in Canada?
Turbulent-Mango-2698 t1_j0zp5o9 wrote
I live in Southern CA, but spend time in many cold places like CO, MA, NY, NJ, and Canada. I do a lot of running, walking, biking, and exercise at the gym. I did notice that I get very little exercise minutes for skiing, so I end up getting even more exercise on those days to make the 30 min threshold.
I exported from my Health App a 2.8GB file. Huge!
justgiveausernamepls t1_j0woen1 wrote
Seems like you mostly didn't wear the watch for a time? There's a dense stretch of 0 minute results around the bottom of the blue graph.
slsturrock OP t1_j0xa56i wrote
Good observation! I actually wore my watch everyday -- that extended period of 0 minutes of exercise corresponds to January 2021 (ish), which is when I started a full-time work-from-home job. Prior to that I was working part time in a lab, which required leaving my apartment (and I often walked to or from work). I also had a bit more free time/flexibility to work out prior to starting the new position. I found a better balance starting in the summer of 2021 and then left my job in the summer of 2022, hence the major increase in activity over the last few months.
Master-Ad-8679 t1_j0wybf9 wrote
That’s pretty cool! Would you mind sharing the R code used to produce the chart?
[deleted] t1_j0xedcx wrote
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imma_go_take_a_nap t1_j0wzqem wrote
And what function have you fit to the data? LOWESS?
slsturrock OP t1_j0xbkow wrote
Ya just the default loess via geom_smooth in ggplot. I'd like to take some time to model it more intentionally, but I wanted to start by seeing what trends emerged without imposing any restrictions.
imma_go_take_a_nap t1_j0z5vjk wrote
That makes sense. It would be interesting to change the X axis to Julian day (values 1 to 365) and then plot the data by year. That would expose seasonal differences and trends between years. And you could manually indicate annual means with tick marks on the Y axis.
Regular_Zombie t1_j0vpszk wrote
What am I looking at? What do the dots represent? What do you mean by exercise?
slsturrock OP t1_j0vrjpx wrote
Thanks for asking and sorry if it is unclear -- I tried to make the titles as descriptive as possible but I appreciate the feedback. The Apple Watch measures minutes of "exercise", which it defines as activity at or above the pace of a brisk walk. This should provide a rough estimate of daily minutes of "moderate-to-vigorous physical activity", which is what is referenced in most physical activity guidelines. Each dot represents the minutes of exercise that my Apple Watch recorded on a given date.
Notably, I have not taken into account daily wear time in this figure (e.g., it is possible that changes in daily exercise are related to changes in wear time, where fewer minutes of exercise are recorded because the watch is worn for less time). I have always worn my Apple Watch consistently so this shouldn't be an issue with my data, but something to consider with wearable data in general.
peter303_ t1_j0xlped wrote
I dont need a gizmo to tell me how much exercise I get.
RoastedRhino t1_j0yupxf wrote
I have a garmin watch and my approach to workout and exercising has changed completely. And I was a volleyball player and coach before, so not someone that struggled to be active. It makes a ton of difference when your lifestyle requires you to be active in an irregular way, with individual activities, and in a way that is compatible with work and family duties.
slsturrock OP t1_j0xn2cv wrote
Me neither but it’s cool being able to look back at these trends. It would be much more difficult (maybe impossible?) to do so without this kind of device
slsturrock OP t1_j0v2jzo wrote
I generated this figure using data collected by my Apple Watch. These data can be exported as XML files from within the Health app (Health > click the user icon in the top right corner, scroll to the bottom and select "Export All Health Data"). However, my data was extracted using an app we created for a research study looking at changes in physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic (consider participating if you live in Canada and have an Apple Watch!) The visualization was created in R (RStudio).