Show HN: Simple tool to make a habit of exercising | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Simple tool to make a habit of exercising

workoutbff.com

131 pointsptm92 comments

No app will work.

You just have to reprogram yourself to do it.

Nothing else but ACTION will suffice for exercising.

A very fit friend of mine said to me many years ago "I just don't give myself any choice about whether I'm going to the gym."

You can talk and use apps and make plans and get trainers and coaches and excuses etc etc etc but in the end the ONLY thing that works is ACTION - go and exercise. Find an exercise that suits you. I like running because it's so easy - just pull on shoes and go - and you can listen to podcasts as you do it. Also CrossFit because I find exercise boring so it's really great to do a group class where the instructor tells you what to do - all I need to do is turn up for an hour and hand over all the thinking about it to someone else and leave fitter and hour later.

You sound like a CrossFit person haha. But seriously, there is a place for tools and apps in working out for some people. My Apple Watch has made my exercise more regular and progress significantly more measurable for me.

>> You sound like a CrossFit person haha

No just an inherently sedentary programmer - I'm no CrossFit evangelist - it's just a highly time efficient way to meet the goal of being fitter and returning to programming.

I think the secret to actually exercising is understanding what you do and do not like and finding exercise that suits you. If I go to the gym on my own I get bored and I do not push myself thus I do not get much fitter. So CrossFit is part of the success secret for me because it is effectively a group gym program in which I must do what I am told whilst I am there - unlike going to the gym on my own, getting bored and lazy and dropping it because it's not working for me.

Since I am too lazy to exercise intensively I need to be in a structured environment to do that.

Going to a group exercise class requires nothing more of you than turning up - motivating yourself just to arrive somewhere is much easier to do than motivating yourself to self plan and self drive an entire workout.

Having said that - I think it's a great business to make apps for this stuff and there is big money in it.

The reason is simply because people don't want to take action. They want to procrastinate and avoid and find ways of almost exercising and there's absolutely no better way to do that than to delegate all your emotional energy on the subject to some sort of app.

Apps to encourage you to exercise are awesome business - they just aren't a way to actually become an exercising person but who really cares about that.

(Assuming that reply wasn't sarcastic to the core.)

> Apps to encourage you to exercise are awesome business - they just aren't a way to actually become an exercising person but who really cares about that.

Moral human beings with any sense of self-respect.

Trade is about voluntarily exchanging value. I give you something (like money), you give me something in return (like an app that does what I need), we're both happy. What you're praising here is a violation of this - it's encouraging people to lie about the value they're offering. It's wrong.

Many people don’t want to actually do something hard and unpleasant but get value from feeling like they’re getting organized and making plans to do that unpleasant thing later.

Sure, that's their weakness. Exploiting it for profit is still immoral.

I had some success with https://www.beeminder.com/ in my short time of using it so far. Essentially, it moves items from "important + not urgent" quadrant to "not important + urgent" one: by dinging your card $X dollars if you don't comply.

However, I also had to shift my mindset towards trying to progress via small inconsequential chunks, rather than trying to "fix everything". E.g. the idea is to just show up to the gym - not exercise - but if latter happens, then sure, why not (and it usually does). I think it helps snap out of the failure avoidance mode.

> "I just don't give myself any choice about whether I'm going to the gym."

I use this strategy too and it's the thing that has worked best for me. I make it a rule and don't let myself ask questions. No "do I have the time/energy?" or "should I do my workout today?", because it's always easy to find a reason not to. Wiggle room has a tendency to grow and suddenly you haven't worked out in a couple weeks. Then a month. Now you have to start over again.

Taking choice out of the equation makes it a lot easier to form and keep the habit.

If you go after work: "In order to go home, I have to go to the gym first." As though the gym is required step in the process.

If you prefer the morning: "In order to have breakfast, I have to do my workout first."

That's it. That's the rule. Like brushing your teeth before bed.

> You can ... get trainers and coaches...but in the end the ONLY thing that works

> it's really great to do a group class where the instructor tells you what to do

So, trainers and coaches are useless, but "instructors" are alright? I fail to see the difference there.

Interacting with other people can motivate you. Having a trainer or a coach does work. Having someone tell you what to do takes off the mental part off your shoulders and then you can "just do it". And you might also feel bad if you don't show up.

I think OP meant the part about showing up at the gym - that nobody but you can do. Once you're there, however, having an instructor helps you not having to think about what to do.

Like myself, I’m guessing you don’t need that mentality any more. You simply go. It’s part of your lifestyle

It's 102. All the CrossFit gyms in Texas don't have ac. I'm miserable. Also I don't have a death wish.. no choice no option.

I'm about to force myself to spend 180 a month for a crowded upscale 24 fitness. But the Olympic gym that wanted 320 a month takes the Cake.

When I wasn't living in a literal oven I would go as far as the drive 30 minutes to do CrossFit or Oly. I have a metal block on not group classes. Only CrossFit works for me. I never get results at a vanilla gym. But you are right its a no choice situation. But for me it works to have a chart with weekly cells.. hard to break that chain when you need a new poster board...

> I never get results at a vanilla gym.

How are you defining results?

If you watch yt videos by Arnold or Jay Cutler and just go to the gym, you'll be the strongest guy there in about a year.

If you mean lose weight, that's 99% an intake problem.

This is the Jocko Willink approach:

YOU are responsible for making the best you.. and it always feels better if you have crushed out a daily workout before most people are awake:

https://www.businessinsider.com/retired-navy-seal-jocko-will...

Streaks are often self-defeating. A few samples from the duolingo forums where this comes up frequently:

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/17598950/The-demotivation...

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3705144/Streak-Breaker-Wh...

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/7927344/Lost-streak-and-m...

I had a several hundred day streak on duolingo, lost it and haven't opened the app since. Why would I, all my hard work is lost? I didn't actively think about it until I saw this.

Sounds like poor streak design if it never lets you miss a day. Kind of tragic that they'd impose that on humans.

They have streak freeze now. Not sure if it’s because I’m a premium subscriber or not, but it keeps my streak going if I miss a day but come back.

I think they realized streak breaking is a serious problem for people (that people only discover when they're about to break it; I can confirm my wife had this very situation with Duolingo) - and figured out they can make money off it. AFAIK, freezing streaks is tied to in-app purchases somehow, or otherwise burns some gems or points you can replenish with money.

My own experience in trying maintaining chains of habits confirms it too - once I slipped on a longer streak, I immediately thought "screw this, I'm not doing this anymore" - because my mental set point moved from "doing something" to "I need to do a streak at least as long as the previous one, and man, how long will that take...".

Streak freezing things can be purches with their in-app currency "gems", which can be obtained without paying. Not even sure if you can buy them. I have so much more of these than I'd ever need, just because you can do barely anything with them

Would your streak ever have gotten to several hundred days long if the streak mechanic didn't exist? Gamification is about both the carrot and the stick. The stick can certainly be demotivating in the wrong situations, but it also has plenty of motivational force. I have felt the sting of losing a 3 digit day streak too. The Apple Watch is even more unforgiving in that regard than Duolingo. The first time it happened to me it sent me into a week plus of totally ignoring the goals because of what I "lost". What got me out of that funk was revisiting the whole purpose of why I started with fitness gamification. I wasn't trying to get a number on my watch to increment 1 every 24 hours. Who cares about that? I was trying to get healthier. So I got to work on another streak. Sometimes I lose it due to some extenuating circumstances like being sick, getting injured, or having some all day social event and there is occasionally a hangover before I can back into the swing of things with another streak. However there are also days in which I get home at the end of the day, I didn't work out at all, and my choice is to either veg out on the couch for an hour or workout to continue my streak. As long as there are more days like that than days I sulk over a lost streak, I come out ahead.

TL;DR - Your hard work wasn't lost. Your knowledge of that language didn't disappear when that streak ended. You just forgot why you downloaded Duolingo in the first place.

Perhaps something like a "moving average" would be better to motivate people to keep things going without creating an expectations bubble.

"You did great for the past 4 weeks - perfect streak" or "you are doing really well - only missed one day in the past 4 weeks". You know, something a human might say.

Start off with a x Days, then switch to x Weeks and then moving average.

A moving average is an amazing idea. I'm gonna mess with that idea today for my work tasks.

I don't understand how you think your hard work is lost?

It is only lost in Duolingo but you have learned some of the language (I am assuming here).

As some one who had lot of bad habits, using stream method really helped me. I will give you an example.

Smoking - I used to smoke a pack a day since I was 21. 5 years ago I decided to quit. I started a stop watch on my wrist watch to count number of hours since last smoke. Once that went up 250 hours, I used a wall calendar to mark of days. I tend to break the stream couple of times a year by smoking socially. But when I see my wall calendar, I always get back to maintaining the streak. I have not quit the habit, but I went from going a pack per day to 2 packs per year, which health wise is good enough. Having said that, I found that having a wall calendar, bigger the better, really helps. Apps with notifications etc not so much. I am currently working on an app which turns your android wall paper into a streak tracker, will of course post on HN when ready.

A wall calendar helped me as well with a meditation habit. My longest streak was 100+ days of at least 20mins sitting. I tried with apps later on, but nothing matches a huge calendar and marking the box with a big X.

I'm glad to hear someone else had the same experience. I wonder what it is that causes one to work better than the other...

I think wall calendar is always there. I have it in my bedroom, so I see pretty much first thing when I wake up and last thing when I sleep. App - you have to look for it and it is constantly in your face, so to say.

It's still somewhat dependent on the person. I tried the wall calendar and even large whiteboard in my room to track streaks and habits, and then discovered my brain has repurposed its internal adblock to remove these habit trackers from my conscious attention. :/. I have the same problem with TODO lists, so I have to switch the way I track tasks every couple weeks.

There's a great open source android app[0] which has most of the functionality here in a really polished package.

[0] https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits

Thanks for the link. Will check it out.

I use this one as well, didn't know it was open source! There's a certain satisfaction to ticking a box after you've done something

Is there an equivalent of this on iOS?

Working on something similar for iOS and watchOS for some time, planning to ship it this year.

I see a lot of people here having success with goal-setting and gamification, but sometimes it's a struggle to come up with concrete goals. This is especially true if there's no obvious problem to solve at the moment (OK weight, good body image, stress managed, just not exercising). What's a good goal, then, for someone who simply wants to increase useful lifespan? "Run at least X miles every Y days" feels like "write X lines of code every Y days", which feels arbitrary unless you're training for a distance-running event. How much is enough? Where are the diminishing returns? What do you even measure?

Gamification is basically a way to substitute fake goals for real ones, which works for some people but not all.

If your goal is "increase useful lifespan" the list of of fitness goals is nearly inexhaustible. You're optimizing too early, and your target goal is too abstract. Consider grabbing some more near-term goals (ones that will also contribute to "increase useful lifespan") and pursue those.

To share a personal example: signing up for a long race gave me concrete goals with a deadline, I could measure my progress in distance and time, and by the time I completed the race I began to enjoy running for the sake of running. Now I have an enjoyable hobby that also contributes to "increased useful lifespan".

What I would like is a paid plan where you pay for each day where you don't exercise. See "loss aversion" on Wikipedia for why.

Check out Beeminder[0], this is exactly what their product does.

[0]: https://beeminder.com/

That's kind of what you're doing if you get an expensive gym subscription and don't go.

No it’s a different psychological trigger.

I pay the same amount for my gym membership whether I go or not. What GP is asking for would only cost money on the days they don't go.

No rest days? Sounds pretty brutal.

Just make a bet with a friend. Work out 4 days a week, for each day missed you owe him $100, same for him. Proof must be provided at the end of the month (most gyms allow you to get a list of your check-ins)

I drank the Samsung kool-aid, with the Galaxy Sx phone, Gear Active watch, and the Level headphones.

The Health App has been a win. Tracking meals and what have you is straightforward.

But the real win is the gamification of the Global Challenge. While completely meaningless in any real-world sense, somehow keeping the step score and all of the silly achievements and missions help to quantify and motivate.

Recently, via the headphones, I've taken in some outstanding podcasts while out walking. (No specifics, lest I violate the HN orthodoxy.)

Overall, any app that gets us up and moving is a positive thing.

This is exactly why duolingo owl has so much power over me. Can't lose my 235 day streak and can't drop out of to a lower league after working so hard to get to that league.

> duolingo owl has so much power over me.

I use duolingo as well - and one of the saddest days was when I lost a 100+ day streak. It's funny how a meaningless number can have so much power.

My experience is different here.

Every time when I am about to lose a streak, I would try hard not to be influenced emotionally, and would regard an opportunity to keep my ego in check. I have lost streaks many times, 50+ maybe three times, 100+ one time, and I still feel fine with myself.

Normally I would practice Duolingo in the morning before coffee everyday, like a ritual.

I don't remember perfectly, but the creator of Lodash (javascript library) had something like a 365 day streak of coding everyday. But it was broken because he committed late a night and the cutoff was on a different timezone. He was so bothered by it, he contacted GitHub to fix it for him.

Couldn't he have simply back dated a commit (or edited the time of an existing commit)? Ex. https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti

I've used Duolingo a few times and each time I quit it was because a steak ended.

I've maintained my 758-day streak freeze for basically the entire summer using streak freezes from accrued lingots. Not sure I still deserve the streak, but it's definitely kept Duolingo in the front of my mind even as I've taken a break (and I'm getting low on lingots, so I'll be getting back on the horse soon).

Was/is Duolingo effective for you? How much have you improved since starting it and what was your skill level when you started? Asking because I've had a couple of false starts with it, but I'm feeling motivated again!

I am not sure how much it helped me since I haven't really used my spanish in real world yet.

I only knew 2 words in spanish. I go to cross english-spanish meetups and I can form basic sentences and ask questions ect and I can understand some if they speak very slowly and give me a pause to interpret it.

Thanks for your review.

> gamification of the Global Challenge.

I have personally experienced how powerful gamification ux can be. Especially if used for a positive outcome.

My challenge with working out is not how to continue once I start which tools like the X.effect and streaks help with. It is how to go from 0 to 1. How to start? That’s a mindset challenge which is probably insurmountable for any app to solve for an individual. I’ve watched myself bottom out through eating junk and lazing around before something clicks and I start exercising. I want to figure out how to shorten the distance between two exercise peaks.

The only thing that works for me in that situation is to decide to do it and then do it, no matter what. It’ll suck for a couple of weeks, but by tracking weight, body fat, and just looking in the mirror for changes, it sucks a little less.

My current trick for aerobic exercises is... Beat Saber. It's a rhythm game for VR headsets, in which you use your controllers as light sabers and have to cut apart cubes and avoid obstacles, all to the beat of music. At higher difficulty levels it gets pretty intense, so it works great as an exercise, and it's also fun. You don't even notice when you start sweating from exertion.

My wife and I talked a lot about getting a dancing mat, which was my college friend's go-to exercise technique (he ended up going semi-pro and winning some awards in StepMania competitions), but dancing mats - especially hard ones - make a lot of noise, making them unsuitable for use in an apartment in a block of flats. Dancing games have similar benefits - exercising becomes fun, and there's built-in progression to guide you. But after Oculus Quest - a standalone, untethered VR headset - came out, we decided to go the Beat Saber route. Waving hands doesn't make the noise stepping does, and untethered headset is even more portable than the dancing mat.

The thing that helps me exercise is not habit, it's goals. I used to work out 5x a week, but other things fill my time now, so I need a reason to work out. Lately it's indulging in food/drink, going on a long trip, a weekend at the beach, etc. If it weren't for the goals I'd probably never go.

Yeah, thinking about the long term goal, the result, is what keeps you going. Imagining how good you'll look if you lost 20 lbs makes you want to exercise or eat healthy today.

Maintaining a streak has more of a negative feeling, where you are committed to it but don't really want to do it. Also, what happens if you lose the streak. If you missed 1 day, now the streak and motivation is gone. 1 day turns into 2, etc.

What keeps me going is that I like the soreness that follows a day or two after a good workout. So that's the goal, to get sore.

Sounds masochistic but it's like a good sore if that makes any sense.

I started regularly excercising every day, after I realized I could use it as a means of procrastination.

I can seriously recommend it. Go for a run, if you're finding yourself putting off something with the intention of working when you get back.

Huh. Reading this made me realize I also use it to procrastinate. But I also find myself way more ready to be productive afterwards and some of my best thinking is done at the gym.

I have had some success with https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits

For me it's the opposite issue - I am paid to motivate me to sit at a desk and stare at a screen. At all other awake times I cannot resist cooking, eating, running, cycling and rowing as much as possible. Occasionally I enter challenging endurance events. I prefer trail running because its the most challenging for me. I am not great at any of it but I just love doing it.

One critique I have is that it seems like it's binary whether you complete a task on any given day which doesn't work well if you only partially complete something.

For example, lets say I set a goal to walk for 1 hour per day. But then I only walk for 30 minutes, how would the app handle that situation?

I debated having an orange (semi-done) state. But I felt that the ux was getting a bit too complex. So I left it out.

Unfortunately at the moment it is binary (done or not-done).

See, this is where technology can’t help. Weaseling around with half-done tasks won’t cut it.

Why did you want to track the goal in the first place? This is probably the most important question.

Why didn’t you set the goal to 30 minutes, if there are days where it’s likely that you miss your more ambitious goal?

If you set the goal to walk an hour per day and you just walk 30 minutes, you obviously failed to reach the goal. Depending on the first two questions, you can be hard on yourself for this or not.

> Why didn’t you set the goal to 30 minutes, if there are days where it’s likely that you miss your more ambitious goal?

Because the goal is still an hour, but there are different levels of failing. A simple binary "pass/fail" means the record shows the same difference between lying in bed all day Vs running a marathon and walking 59 minutes Vs 61. If I'm 2 grams above my goal weight at Christmas is that a simple "fail"?

You are right that setting a goal aligned with what you want to change is the important question, but you want you achieve may not well fit into a clear pass/fail.

But walking for 15 minutes is also better than lying in bed. Or for 5 minutes. Where do you draw the line?

You could make this percentage-based. Track the progress, show green or some kind of achievement only when you have 100%.

I’d argue that this system is okay too, but more complicated than a simple binary yes/no choice.

Walking 59 minutes or 2 grams above goal weight: If you are serious about the goal, this could serve as a great reminder that you should push through the last minute of walking or get down on Christmas and burn an extra 150 kcal.

Again, depends on how serious you are about your goals.

To me that would be a fail and is part of the premise. It's basically "Don't break the chain". I don't want half credit or it would encourage me to accept half-assing it in the future.

I recognized this when I built my own X-effect app. For me the hardest part was simply getting started each time, so instead of "run 30 minutes", my goal was "put on your running shoes". It worked just fine because once my shoes are on I'm already in the mindset of working out. (Note those shoes were only ever used for running.)

I love this and hope to see it succeed. I've always found I work out dramatically more reliably with a little bit of social accountability.

Unfortunately not hopping on as a user because I have a workout partner at the moment, but I've been wishing someone would build this for ages.

Thanks for your review.

> I work out dramatically more with a little bit of social accountability.

I have experienced the same myself, and suspect that it is true for most people.

(sincere) Thank you for making the product that I had as just an idea. I thought about a workout BFF in terms of a good commitment device. My other angle on this kind of commitment device was someone to call me to wake me up in the morning. :) Great stuff!

The front page has a clear design explaining the idea. Working on a product myself the one liner and short explanations are harder to create than most people imagine. Good job.

I've had a simple tool (or set of tools) for decades that've made a habit of exercising. Mountain bikes. They truly are the killer app.

I like it a lot, thank you.

Quick notes: i couldn’t find a way to delete a task, and the task directory table doesn’t fit on an iPhone 8 held vertically.

I'm a fan of http://dontbreakthechain.com

It might be a stupid question, but how do I sign up? I can't find it anywhere.

You click on the "Try it out" button to create a demo dashboard, add tasks and then click on register to sign up.

Sorry about the convoluted route.

Oh goodness thank you. I was looking for something just like this.

Glad you find it useful

Another thing to get in the way of working out.

Can you add "laps" to the target counter?

I have added laps now.

Why cant you just go excercise?

Some humans have problems with motivation and focus. Clearly you don't but that doesn't mean other people don't need tricks and tools to help them.

Once you've developed a habit, you will just go exercise.

This app is designed to help you develop that habit.

No app. Apps are all now.

internal service error :(

Sorry for the bug.

I think you logged-in before "trying out". I have fixed the bug now.

I'm getting an error 500 and I did not log in. Just hit try. And the error trace back is visible w/paths etc.

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