Why I don’t need a fitness app — my Wear OS watch keeps me motivated

Fitness, exercise, movement, or whatever you want to call it, is vital to being functionally healthy. As we all know, the more of it you do and the more consistent you are, the healthier you should get.

Still, just because it’s something we know doesn’t make it easy to adhere to. Not all of us can self-motivate and need a little nudge to get started, and even more so, stay motivated.

There are many tools you can use for this, but I’ve found that for me, I don’t need a special app to stay motivated, just my Wear OS watch to keep up.

Getting ready

First thing is a plan

As with most things, if you want success, you need some kind of plan.

Over the years, my health and fitness endeavors have been all over the place. From playing nearly every sport I could when I was a child to accidentally getting into running in my mid-thirties, now today, I’m a bit of a mixed bag with fitness.

Regardless of what exercise looks like to me at any given point, finding and keeping a routine is essential.

I’m someone who needs to be challenged. I love competition, and these days, that mostly involves competing against myself.

While I get to play a couple of hours of volleyball each week and occasionally play basketball, outside those moments, it’s up to me to fill the gaps.

Thankfully, there are loads of fitness-focused Wear OS apps. I’ve found that many of the health platforms that come preloaded on Wear OS watches provide me with what I need.

While there are Wear OS wearables from multiple brands, including OnePlus, Google, and Samsung, each OEM has its interpretation of how it offers health and fitness features.

Despite each having its specific methods and apps, I’ve found there are common features regardless.

Get it set

Put the plan into motion

Samsung recently announced its newest Galaxy Watch 8 line of smartwatches, so I decided to dust off my Galaxy Watch Ultra and reacquaint myself with it. As part of this, I used Samsung Health.

If you haven’t used any of the recent Samsung wearables or the platform via the app on your phone, Samsung Health is a solid health tracking platform — from monitoring your hydration levels to tracking your sleep and more.

While all of that is great, I don’t use a lot of it. I mainly use the coaching features and the simple reminder from the watch to get up and move if I’ve been sitting too long.

Samsung Health is more feature-rich than most other Wear OS health platforms and offers a lot of coaching and advice. Whether you want to train for a marathon or learn to calm your mind, Samsung Health has something to help with it.

I don’t even want to go that far with my coaching and reminders. Should I get to the point where I want to train for something specific, I can, but right now, it’s just about keeping myself moving.

So, I set a general goal for the number of calories I want to burn in a day, the number of steps, and a minimum amount of time spent being active.

Because my “plan” is so simple, it’s easy to use the same one on each Wear OS watch regardless of the overall depth of the device’s health platform.

After it’s set, I activate reminders for it, set a watch face that clearly shows my progress, and then start my day.

Just get started

It’s about the first step

I’m by no means a health and fitness expert, but I know what works for me, and maybe it can for you. Just be sure you consult your physician before starting any new health plans.

With that said, the number of times I’ve “started over” in my health endeavors is frustrating. However, if I had just kept going, I wouldn’t have to start over.

Still, life happens to all of us, and things can go off the rails at any given moment.

This is why I don’t make my plan too strict and keep my expectations realistic. It is difficult for me because I’ve generally been an active person who enjoys sports and competition.

So, knowing that my body isn’t going to let me do all the things I used to as I age, I want to do as much as I can while I can. To do that, I need to keep at least some sort of consistent activity, and reminders from my watch help.

While there are plenty of other great smartwatches on the market that don’t run Wear OS, the range of health platforms available for the operating system makes a strong case for choosing Wear OS over others.