Phil's April Activity Challenge

[phi]

April Activity Challenge

Now with COVID-19 dictating our lives and more people working from home than ever before, it is increasingly important to remain active throughout your day. With your daily commute gone you are more likely to just sit the entire day and that’s no good!

I thus present to you the April Activity challenge! Beemind your daily active calories throughout April, post a link to your goal in this thread and get moving!
But where’s the challenge? Glad you asked! My goal is at least 200 active kcal a day and invite you to match and exceed that

And no, there is absolutely nothing to win other than imaginary internet points and fame!

Here’s my goal:
https://www.beeminder.com/phi/active

The Technical Side

You need no fancy smartwatch, just your phone and its built-in step tracking together with an app (such as Health Mate) that converts those into active calories.

[phi]

Man, what an overwhelming response!
I am undisputedly the number one in this challenge. Yay!

Also, here’s my Strava for those who want to connect and stuff:

Strava Cyclist Profile | Downphil the First

As silly as it sounds, but listening to music, podcasts and audiobooks while riding my bike with wireless in-ears was the game changer I needed. Also, somehow this whole shelter in place situation just makes me want to go out more! Brain, I see what you are trying to do and I do not approve, stop it!

[dehowell]

Alright @phi, I’m in — I haven’t been checking the forums much, so I didn’t see this post until @dreev pointed it out in a beemail.

I haven’t tracked active calories before, so I’m not sure what my norm is. But I set up this goal, driven by my Apple Watch data:

https://www.beeminder.com/dehowell/active

[phi]

Alright and this is it! April is over and I can happily report that an incredible 100% of participants in this challenge have stuck to their goals and not derailed even once! This is a first!

Half of the participants even vastly outdid the goal of 200 kcal a day, most notably @dehowell, very well done!
But the rest can also be proud of themselves for having stuck to their goal! Rumors are the rainy weather in Europe is to blame for having to eat into some of the built up buffer, but that’s April for you.
There is hoping that the weather May improve, so keep that chain lubed and the tires pressurized!

[dehowell]

Oh, dear — I forget I even made this goal, which means I had it set way too easy. I am also taking the “active energy” metric in Apple Health at face value, which is counting energy burn all day long and not just during workouts.

Apple Health says I burned 372 calories yesterday — that’s bonkers! I was a sloth all day long! I’m ramping my target up to 450 calories. We’ll see how that goes.

[phi]

372 for idling? That sounds odd, indeed! Well, I don’t have an Apple Watch (yet). My phone does track active calories simply by counting steps and it does that quite conservatively. Then again, 90% of the time I have it sitting plugged in. Either way, the gros comes from Strava which wahoo feeds into with which I do the actual tracking.
For getting a better estimate at the kcal burned it uses the heart rate monitor I strap to my chest when I ride my bike. Those monitors are very accurate in terms of heart rate measurement. I do think the estimates from wahoo are a little bit on the high side. However, my pulse does go quite high and I do mostly gravel and inclines so it’s maybe not completely unreasonable. Also I’m not gaining any weight, so it can’t be too far off.
Strava also guesstimates my average power output. I put both my weight and that of my bike in there. I really think it got all the data it needs to do semi decent estimates.

Anyway, glad to hear that you’re gonna keep the goal I’m gonna keep mine, too!

[mary]

Gah! I really wanted to join this and ended up snowed under and never got to it.

If you want to do another in the not-too-distant future, I’d love to join in. We could start another this weekend, even!

[phi]

No worries! We’ll just do another This weekend sounds good, I shall prepare a post in the next few days. I wanna see if there is a better metric than active calories since I’m more looking for calories during a workout or walk or some other dedicated exercise and not just walking around the house for a few seconds each which doesn’t really do that much for the cardiovascular system.

[mary]

I’m up for any metric the iPhone or Apple Watch can snag.

[phi]

Keen observers might have noticed that I did not create a new post. I forgot
I didn’t forget to go biking though! Saturday I went on a sweet 27km tour.
It will be my last bike ride for quite a long time, however:

[zedmango]

God, so cold for a bike ride! Below freezing the whole time!