A week with Apple Fitness Plus: Overcoming my blocking weight gain

I’m a week in my new Apple Fitness Plus-based exercise regimen, and not only did I start losing weight, but I also learned a lot about how to use Apple’s new service – and how it could be improved.

On Monday, January 4, I weighed 105 kg (about 231 pounds). On Monday, January 11, that weight dropped to 103 kg (227 pounds). It is a small change, but I am very satisfied in just one week. I exercised every day, mostly using Apple Fitness Plus classes, mixed with a few longer cardio sessions using the Zwift cycling app on an Atom Wattbike.

See how I found the Apple service so far.

Classes are fun and engaging. I was worried that they were too “gym brother” to me, but I like the coaches that I have experienced so far. There is a decent mix of gender and age, and they are encouraging enough in training sessions to keep me moving and wanting to complete each exercise. The application works perfectly with my Apple Watch Series 6, showing my heart rate and calories burned on the iPad screen to see if I’m working on it. In a dance class, I realized that my heart rate was only about 115 bpm – a more demanding high-intensity interval training (HIIT) class saw that number jump to 182 bpm.

But what I feel is lacking in the service is adequate guidance on exactly which classes I should focus on to achieve my goals.

My goal is to lose weight mainly, but I would also like to be stronger and in shape. So, which classes do I choose? Will an HIIT class be better than a cycle class? Will a basic workout help me more than a strength workout? Do I have to combine several classes in one session and, if so, are some better to do together than others? I know it’s not a good thing to overload certain muscle groups at once, but I also don’t know enough about what’s involved in each class to make those decisions.

It’s easy to take a 20-minute strength class, close my activity rings on my Apple Watch and pat yourself on the back as I consider my workout for the day finished. And maybe I had done enough – or maybe I should have done more. I expected to see more guided solutions in the service, based on your own personal goals, whether to lose many pounds after the holidays, to improve core strength to help your posture or to train hard for a cycling competition.

While there are sections like “More than you do”, “Try something new” and “Popular”, they do not provide the kind of guidance I need to safely put together a great weight loss routine. Without guidance, Fitness Plus sometimes feels more like a collection of well-produced exercise videos. Nor would it be difficult to have professionals putting together what would essentially be class playlists, like “Weight loss for a month”, which I can carry out every day and do exactly what fitness professionals tell me to do.

Instead, I created my own training program that mixes a variety of different exercises throughout the week, including more cardio-based sessions, like dance and HIIT classes, as well as strength and yoga classes. Based on my limited knowledge of exercises, it looks like a decent and versatile program, but I worry that I’m basically making it up as I go and I could be using my time better if I changed it.

The other problem I encountered in the early days was to understand how the classes work in terms of difficulty. While there are “absolute beginner” classes to introduce you to different types of classes, the main training videos themselves are not separated in terms of “beginner” or “challenging”, but appear to be different from each other simply by the trainer administering the class and the music genre you are going to practice.

I finally realized that there are several coaches in each video, and you’ll be able to make workouts “easier” with one (having your knees on the floor during a push-up, for example), do the standard workout with the head coach or add one extra challenge with the third coach. I suppose the idea is that it means that everyone can get something out of each available video, but I didn’t quite understand it at first and found it a little difficult to navigate, using a “Well, I think this will do” approach. Again, more guidance in the app would make a big difference for a beginner.

That said, I really enjoyed my first week of exercise and am thrilled to be losing weight already. Here’s what I liked the most:

• Dance classes are fun, especially when I’m working out with my partner. I can’t follow the movements right, but while I’m flapping my arms and legs like an electrocuted spider, my heart rate remains high and it feels like I’m exercising well. We laugh a lot, and this is quickly becoming a fun thing we do together during the block.
• The music in many of the classes is not what I would choose, but it works well for training, and the classes are done according to the music, often when the beat falls, the movement gains strength. It feels like I’m really in a gym class.
• I’m not really in a gym class. This means that I am also not in a crowded gym, being forced to sweat and feel embarrassed in front of 20 other people and then having to change, inevitably next to that man who insists on staying there with his gentleman sausage on display. (Is a towel really that problematic, buddy?)
• Cycling on the Wattbike Atom is great. It’s comfortable and I’m really enjoying using the Zwift app for my longest cardio sessions. I tried my first social cycle, meeting a friend of mine who was using Zwift with his own training bike at home. We were able to cycle “together” in Watopia’s Zwift virtual world, marking more than 25 kilometers of uphill and downhill as we passed. It was really fun and time seemed to fly.
• Although I am working in a small room, there is enough space for me to take most classes with my partner, with only one occasion during a dance session when she almost slapped me in the face during a particularly energetic moment (she promises was accidental). I’ve been using my iPad Pro because there isn’t enough space to exercise in our living room where the TV is – it’s not the most elegant solution, but it works.

It didn’t take me long to begin to understand how Apple Fitness Plus works, and the weekly routine I set up seemed challenging enough to leave me exhausted at the end of each one, but not so painful that I couldn’t manage the next day either. Mixing the longer cycles with Zwift, I am sure that I will continue to enjoy the process and, most importantly, I will continue to lose weight.

See too: Best workout subscription apps for 2021: Apple Fitness Plus, Peloton, Daily Burn and more

The information in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended for medical or health advice. Always consult a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health goals.