How to change fitness goals on Apple Watch

As soon as you strap on an Apple Watch, you’re entering into an interesting symbiosis with a surprisingly complex piece of Apple technology. The Apple Watch becomes the center of your quantified self, recording movement, activity, heart rate and more.

If you’re an Apple Fitness user, your day revolves around meeting your Watch’s demanding requirements for activity. In that sense, it’s a lot like a little dog — always demanding more activity. In Apple Fitness parlance, it’s all about closing your rings.

There are three rings:

• Movement: Measures your overall activity throughout the day. 
• Workout: Measures the time and intensity of your workouts. 
• Stand: Measures how often you get up off your duff and move around. 

When you get your Apple Watch, movement defaults to about 500 calories, Workout requires 30 minutes, and Stand requires 12 stands across 12 hours. Initially, you could only modify the Movement calorie value. But that changed in a recent iOS release, and now you can set your goals for all three.

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Do this by loading the Activity app on your Watch:

You’ll see your three rings for the day. It’s after midnight as I write this, so I haven’t recorded much activity yet.

Also: What is Apple Fitness? Here’s what it can do for you

Flick your finger up on the Apple Watch face until you see the Change Goals menu.

Tap it once, and you’ll be shown your Movement fitness goals (Movement is red).

Also: The best fitness trackers: Improve your health with 24/7 data

Tap the plus or minus buttons to choose your burn rate. If you’re not sure what goal to set, check with your doctor or your trainer. Then, press Next. You’ll see the green Workout goal:

I like to do 30 minutes, but I don’t always do it all at once. Sometimes I use workout times to break up my day. Sometimes I do different kinds of workouts. But 30 minutes a day is a good goal for me. Again, check with a medical professional to understand what numbers you should choose.

Finally, let’s set the Stand setting. Click next to move to the cyan settings screen.

As with Movement and Workout, tap plus or minus to change the number of hours where you must stand. Remember, stand requires you to stand once an hour for the number of hours you specify.

And that’s it. Tap OK, and you’ve changed your fitness goals. Now, go out there and make yourself proud.

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