My Apple Watch-fueled fitness journey — how hardware and software are helping me fix my health

Apple has long made a play that it's as much a health company as it is a tech company, thanks in no small part to the popularity of the Apple Watch. It's why the company has medical professionals on staff and it's why Apple made such a big deal about the launch of sleep apnea detection alongside the Apple Watch Series 10's unveiling. With that in mind, it's probably no surprise to anyone that Apple will sit at the center of my new health focus.

And Mike Wuerthele and I are going to going to bring you all along for the ride.

Let me take you on a journey of health discovery

Over the next few weeks, we're going to share something of a diary here at AppleInsider, outlining the ways that Apple and other smart health tech companies are going to help me take control of health. It isn't just hardware, either. There will be a healthy (see what I did there?) splattering of apps and services thrown in, so I'll be diving into those as well.

The same goes for my progress. I'll share how my health is (hopefully, and the early signs are good) improving and I'll dive into why I think that might be. I'll discuss which tools have worked, and which have fallen by the wayside. We'll learn together, and hopefully, by the end of this series, we'll all have a better understanding of the options that are out there for people like me.

You already know Mike, he's been here for ages, and he's talked about some of his Apple Watch journey already. But, who am I?

Full disclosure — here's what we're dealing with

When I said I hadn't looked after myself, I wasn't kidding. Sure, I've no doubt that there are people much worse off than me and I know that the issues I'm dealing with are probably a combination of genes and my own laziness and apathy.

In terms of the issues I'm hoping to work on, they're probably familiar to a lot of us. I need to lose some weight. Probably a fair bit of it, actually. I currently weigh around 250 pounds which at around 5ft. 9 is far too much. I wish I could say that it's all muscle but it very much is not. It needs to go.

A knock-on effect of the weight is hypertension, more commonly known as high blood pressure. My blood pressure has historically been too high, something that isn't helped by some of the medications I take.

I expect that improving my overall health will reduce my blood pressure in ways tablets have largely been unable to. I don't want a stroke or a heart attack, so the numbers need to shrink.

Those are the two main issues I'm working towards fixing, but there are others that I hope will improve as a result. I'm told that exercise can help with mood, lethargy, and concentration, among other things.

I also hope that the symptoms of my recently diagnosed sleep apnea will decrease as well, and I definitely don't want to have to use a CPAP for the next 40-ish years.

We'll find out over the coming weeks.

The plan — here's how I'm going to improve things

So now that we know what needs to be done, the real question is how am I going to achieve it?

Well, the cornerstone of it all will be an Apple Watch Series 10. It's the 46mm model, not that it really matters, and I'll be using it to track workouts, my heart rate, and my overall activity levels across a range of metrics.

I'll be using a variety of apps which I'll get into in a future post. But I expect the Apple Watch to be vital to my efforts because I'm a sucker for stats. I like graphs, and the Apple Watch makes those available in abundance.

Because I'm in the UK, I have access to one more bit of information than those in the United States because my new Apple Watch still has a blood oxygen monitor, too.

Other hardware that I'll be using includes an Aktiia blood pressure monitor, a handy Fitbit-like device that automatically measures my blood pressure throughout the day. Like I said, I like data. I'll also be adding a Withings BPM Connect blood pressure monitor and the company's Body Comp smart scale to the mix as well.

That's the hardware, but what will I actually do? Well, I won't be joining any gyms or taking on any marathons, that just isn't my style.

But we did recently get a dog which means there are walkies required. I figure that half an hour being dragged around by an excitable puppy is a good start — and considerably more than my desk-bound existence previously managed. I'll be doing that almost every day as well, a big improvement on my previous endeavors.

The early indications are good, and I'll expand on that in the future as my journey continues.

So, what next?

My next update is just around the corner and that's when I'll detail a little more about the software that I will be using during my little jaunt into the world of fitness. All the hardware in the world is fine so long as you have the software to make sense of what those sensors are telling you, so I've sniffed out a few apps that I think will help while using the new features afforded by watchOS 11. If you're the developer of an app that you think could help here, reach out — I'd love to take your wares for a spin and hopefully add them to my arsenal of apps.

And with that, I'm off to take the dog for a walk. Gotta fill those rings, right?