Falling behind on New Year health resolutions? Your Apple Watch, iPhone can help

The Apple Watch and your iPhone from a great combo for helping you with your fitness goals. Here is how.

Apple Watch and your iPhone can be a great combo for kickstarting your New Year fitness goals. (Amritanshu / HT Tech)

Did you step into the New Year with a resolution to achieve a super fitness regime but have been unable to follow up in that? Do not worry, since there is a way to do so if you have an Apple Watch on your wrist. Other than displaying fancy watch faces and your wealth status, the Apple Watch is a great way to get started on those New Year fitness goals. All you need to do is find out what works for you and how to master the fitness tracking functions on the Apple Watch.

It doesn't matter which model of the Apple Watch you possess. Be it the simple Apple Watch SE 2nd Gen, or the maxed Apple Watch Ultra, these are the things you need to know. `

Fitness

With the Workout app, you get all your favourite ways to exercise with more advanced metrics. Apple Watch shows your daily movement as three simple metrics: Move, Exercise, and Stand. Together, they make up the Activity rings that track your progress all day long. The goal is to close your rings each day. You also get info on Cardio Fitness using VO2 Max.

Mindfulness

Apple Watch's Mindfulness app features two experiences to help pause and take a moment in the day: Breathe and Reflect. One can also discover podcasts that help unwind, cultivate calm, and support restful sleep on Apple Podcasts.

Fitness with squad

Turning on Activity Sharing lets your friends or family with iPhone and Apple Watch keep you on track towards your fitness goals. You can even challenge them with a one-to-one seven-day Activity Competition.

Sleep tracking

With iPhone and Apple Watch, you can monitor your sleep goals with a bedtime routine. Set the number of hours you'd like to sleep and when you'd like to go to bed/wake up. At your scheduled bedtime, your devices automatically turn on Sleep Focus to reduce distractions. You can also wear your Apple Watch to bed that helps monitor the time you spent in each sleep stage—REM, Core, and Deep—as well as awake.

Tips for fitness enthusiasts 

We also talked to Urmi Kothari, a fitness coach, who revealed a few tricks to make fitness monitoring easy. “A common mistake people make is to centre their health and wellness only around “workouts”, while neglecting nutrition and sleep patterns. The number one advice to people looking to focus on their health is to hire a good coach who can guide you how to integrate goals into your life. The more aligned your goals are to your lifestyle, the more fun it becomes."

"The trick to finding enjoyment is to balance the level of challenge, get live feedback for which a coach is excellent, and coach also gives you clarity of your path so you don't waste time overthinking. I personally use Apple Watch Series 8 which is my personal health and fitness custodian as it helps me keep a regular tab on my heart health and activity trends,” she added.