Podcast: Tech Meets Health: A Deep Dive into the Apple Watch Experience

Calling all health enthusiasts and tech lovers! Ever wondered how a simple watch can transform your approach to wellness? Dr. Orlena's revealing episode is a game-changer!

Discover how the Apple Watch goes WAY beyond step counting:

• Track EVERY type of movement, not just steps
• Monitor sleep, heart health, and stress in real-time
• Get a personal health coach right on your wrist

Whether you're a fitness newbie or a wellness pro, this podcast will change how you think about personal health technology. Tune in and level up your wellness game! 💪🔥

Listen now and start your transformation.

Transcription of Podcast

Dr Orlena (00:01.391)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena I hope you are feeling amazing today. Okay, today I want to talk all about, drum roll please, I want to talk all about my brand new amazing Apple Watch. Okay, I don't want to talk about my Apple Watch. I want to talk about your Apple Watch and why I really love the Apple Watch and I'm going to explain how to set it up and I'm going to explain all the amazing features and my experience and why I have swapped.

from a Garmin watch to an Apple watch. But before, before we dive into this, I am like a child who has got a gift to give people and I'm not very good at waiting until Christmas to give the gifts. My husband always says, the minute you buy a present, you want to give it to someone. So I have been planning a new event which is gonna take place...

next Wednesday, Wednesday the 11th of December. And I am super excited about it. It's called Eat, my goodness, what did I decide it was called? Eat Better, Feel Amazing. That's it, Eat Better, Feel Amazing. And I'm gonna do a deep dive into nutrition and how you can start making changes in your nutrition that are easy and fun so that you can feel so much better. And before you start thinking, help, that means I'm gonna have to give up this and that.

No, it doesn't. I love this phrase, which is nothing is forbidden in moderation. So hands up, I have literally just decided that I'm doing this about two minutes before I press record. So I don't have any of the backend ready. So by next Tuesday, it will be up. If you're on my email list, I will obviously email it out, but it's gonna be amazing. There is obviously going to be a replay for people who can't make it. So keep an eye out for that. Okay, Apple Watches.

Here's the first question to think about Apple Watch or indeed any sports watch. Why bother having a sports watch? And I remember years ago, just before COVID, my birthday is in February and my husband gave me my first Garmin sports watch. Now, we don't normally do birthday presents and I have to confess, I had a week beforehand decided that I wanted to play the guitar and I didn't have a guitar. So I'd quite like my birthday present to be a guitar.

Dr Orlena (02:19.435)
And my husband handed me this small little box and I was a bit like, that's not a guitar, is it? And it turned out that it was an Apple watch and he'd already bought me, sorry, not an Apple watch, a Garmin watch, he'd already bought me a Garmin Swim 2. Now I am a swimmer and so the Garmin Swim 2 was a good watch for me. And he kindly and thoughtfully bought it thinking that it would be something that I could track my swimming.

At that time, I was doing a little bit of sea swimming, but I wasn't doing heaps and heaps of sea swimming. Now I have to confess, at that time, I kind of thought a bit like, well, you know what? I've got my routine. This is what I do. I was walking my kids to school. I was swimming a couple of times a week. This is what I do. Like what difference does it make having a watch? Why bother to have a watch that tells me what I already know? And then COVID hit.

And here in Spain, we were not allowed out of our house for something like seven or eight weeks. Not at all. We were allowed to go shopping and that was it. And if you had a dog, you were allowed to take your dog out. And I remember we used to, the back end of our house sort of overlooks a scrub land and we would stand overlooking this scrub land, enviously looking at people who had dogs, walking their dogs because we weren't allowed out of the house.

And at that time, wearing a watch, what I really realized was my activity level, not surprisingly, plummeted, absolutely plummeted. I went from something like 10,000 steps a day to like 300. And what I found was actually it was really useful having that watch because it's very easy to be.

motivated, it's very easy to have lots of movement in your life, but it's also very easy to be very sedentary. Or you can play those the other way around if you like. It's very easy to be sedentary. It's also very easy to have lots of movement in your day. But the problem is the awareness of which day it is. And I wasn't aware until I had this watch, until I had to stop moving that my movement really plummeted. Another time I found it really useful.

Dr Orlena (04:23.373)
when we had to move into a very small house for a year whilst we had works done on our house. And this house was absolutely tiny. And I realized that the moment I walked into that house, basically my movement level stopped because there was nowhere to go. Unless I went outside, I couldn't really move. I could go up the stairs and down the stairs. And that was pretty much it. Whereas now we have a more spacious house and I can move around that. And so even just on my day-to-day basis, if I, for example,

want to go to the bathroom, I will go to the bathroom the furthest away to get in a few more steps or walk up and down the stairs to do the laundry and that kind of thing. Just doing those small things adds up through your day. So the bottom line is this, if you are measuring something, you're taking, you're being aware of it and you're making sure that it's in a range which is helpful for you. So that leads me on to, my goodness.

Why an Apple watch and why not a Garmin watch? Why not one of the other watches? So just a little recap of the types of watches you can get. You can get something like a Fitbit, which the basic Fitbit is not very much money. It's somewhere between 30 and 50, pick your currency, dollars, pounds, euros. And it does the basic things like counting your steps. And I suspect it, I've never had a Fitbit, so, but I suspect it does more things like they will measure different activities.

and you can say, okay, I've done this. The Garmin watch is one of the gold standards. So Garmin really do a lot of GPS. They do a lot of things for sailing boats and stuff like that. So GPS is really one of the things that they're very good at. And so a lot of sports people really like Garmin watches. They do the swim two watch, but they do other more expensive watches too.

Now, I really liked having my Garmin watch when I had it, particularly for the swimming. It would track my swimming and I really enjoyed that. just liked knowing that I had done 2.4 kilometers or three kilometers, or if I'd done a bit more, I'd done five kilometers was really the maximum that I would do in the summer going from one beach to another. And that was really fun. The problem with the Garmin watch was that it measured steps. That particular one measured steps. I don't know about the others, what, others, but this one measured steps.

Dr Orlena (06:41.273)
So I would go on a cycle ride, I'd cycle to the beach, I would swim, and then I'd cycle back and my watch would say, hey, you know what, you haven't done very many steps today, have you? And I'd be like, I think I've done enough exercise. Now at the same time, my husband had an Apple watch and it measures exercise in a different way. And I'll explain that in a minute, but in my mind, it is much more comprehensive and it includes everything that you're doing, which is really what we want. We don't want to just be counting steps.

We want to be counting all kinds of movement. Now, going on from my story, I bought my Garmin watch, I enjoyed it, and then sadly, the strap broke. And the problem with the strap breaking was the watch no longer worked. Like the strap is integral to the watch. You can't just replace the strap. So basically they said to me, well, you will have to either buy a new one or if you pay 100 euros, we will give you a reconditioned one. And I was a bit like,

what I have to pay now, 100 euros for a secondhand watch and I'd had it, I don't know, perhaps three years. I was a bit like, hmm, that's not great. However, fast forward a few months, I decided that I was fed up of not having any watch whatsoever. And so I bought another Garmin Swim 2 on Amazon day or whatever it was. I got a bit of a discount and I bought it.

And then I went swimming with it and I swim basically every single day in the summer, the same route over and over again. And I know how far that route is. My basic swim is 2.4 kilometres. And the Garmin that I had was saying, no, no, you haven't done that much. In fact, it was being really like one day it would say you've done 1.6 and the next day it would say you've done 2.6. There was a really big difference between what it was telling me and what my friends were saying and what distances I knew. Essentially it was under measuring the whole time. And I thought,

What's the point of having this watch that I have bought to measure my swims if it's not measuring it accurately? Now I know there's always a little bit of error, but this was beyond a little bit of error. This was like, no, this is too much. And I spoke to customer services in the States and in Spain, and they basically did nothing. And I had to send it back and they repaired it. And then they sent it back to me saying, we've done nothing to it. And it was, still had the same problem. So eventually I just said, I'm returning this. I don't want this.

Dr Orlena (09:00.173)
And at that stage, I decided, this is it, I am gonna buy myself an Apple Watch. This is what I really want. And I want to get an Apple Watch with all the amazing features that it has. So a little bit of story about buying the Apple Watch. It was very exciting to buy the Apple Watch. I have a very old Apple phone. You do obviously need an Apple phone if you're going to pair the two of them up. And that's how you're gonna get the maximum benefit of really being able to track all the things. Because obviously the...

watch is quite small, you need to pair it with the phone to be able to look at everything. So when I first bought it, I followed the instructions and it said pair with this phone. Essentially I couldn't pair it with that phone because my phone was too old. So I paired it with my husband's phone, which was not a great idea. And essentially, long story short, but it basically robbed my phone number. And it took me ages to sort it out.

And essentially I had to buy a new phone. Now luckily for me, Movistar, who is the main carrier here in Spain, they had an offer on at the time and I was able to buy a new phone month by month. So it didn't cost me loads of money all upfront. Otherwise I would have been looking at, my goodness, so much expense all at once. The watch, I bought an Apple X watch and it was 600 euros. So you need to have...

It has its own phone in it. It has the same phone number, but you do need to have what is called a multi-SIM card. And that does mean you do have to pay, or at least here in Spain, you have to pay for two phone lines, essentially. So you pay extra for the multi-SIM. So all of this had to be sorted out and somehow, I don't know, it just didn't connect properly. That took a long time. Eventually I did sort it out, but I had to go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Now that wasn't necessarily Apple's fault.

but I did just follow what they said and it didn't quite work properly. So be aware, you need to have a phone that is compatible and you do need to get a multi-SIM, which I think you normally can do if you just follow the instructions and then you upgrade your carrier. Now, the other issue I really had with this, with the watch was...

Dr Orlena (11:10.841)
There's different kinds of straps that you can have. And I chose the one which was called Solo Loop, which was really advertised as the sports one considering I'm gonna be swimming with it quite a lot. Now it is just a loop. It doesn't have a clasp. So obviously it needs to be the right size. Otherwise it's not gonna fit. So I followed the instructions and I measured my watch and it said, you need a size six. So I got a size six and it was really, really loose. So I phoned up and they said, that's fine. We'll send you another one, a size five. Okay.

I got the size five and I started swimming and looking at my swimming and realizing that actually it was not picking up my heart rate enough. It was only really picking up my heart rate half of the time. And that's not what I want. I've just paid 600 euros. I want a tool that is really gonna work for me. So I phoned them up and they basically said, no, no, you can only change it once. And I'm like, wait a minute. I have just paid 600 euros for this. I want a strap that works.

Now they did say, well, we could cancel it, you could send it all back and we could do all of this. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not good for me. That's not good for you. I just want a strap that is going to function. Now, long story short, I had spent a long time on the phone, but the services in Ireland, I spoke to an Irish lady, she was very helpful. She made sure that it was the strap and that there wasn't some other technical issue.

And essentially she refunded me a chunk of money so that I could buy myself a new strap. she didn't, I think it was 50 euros or something like that. She refunded me something like a hundred. So I did walk away feeling, my goodness, it was a bit of a butt ache, but I love Apple because they do sort things out as opposed to Garmin who I sent it away and got it back and sent it away. And like just, they didn't sort it out. Whereas Apple did resolve it. And I have to confess, I do like companies where they,

do actually resolve the issue because that's what we pay for. So I know Apple can be more expensive, but they offer good customer services. Okay, let me tell you about all the amazing features. So essentially that's it. The setting it up is really, really easy. You just get your watch, make sure you've got the right phone and it does this magic thing and it connects it for you. So what are the amazing features that I think? Why do I prefer the Apple way of

Dr Orlena (13:29.366)
measuring things than just measuring steps. So what the Apple Watch has is three movement rings, which are different colored. Now, the first one is your movement during the day. And this is measured in kilo calories. And you set your goals for this. So you can say, I want to do 400 calories a day or 200 calories a day. And obviously it needs to know your weight and your heart rate and things like that. And it will calculate how many calories you are moving depending on

what you're doing. And the next one is called your exercise ring and that is done in terms of minutes. So for example, 60 minutes, I do my swim, that's 60 minutes. And again, you set your levels for this. So you could set 30 minutes, 45, 60, if you wanna do more, you can set more like that. And the last one is standing. How many hours in the day do you stand? So if you have been sitting still for the last hour at

10 to the hour, it basically pokes you a little bit and goes, come on, you've got to go and move. Now, in fairness, other watches do this and the Garmin would do this as well. It would like poke me and say, you need to stand up. You've been sitting still for an hour. So go and stand up and do a little bit of movement and clear that thing. And I did used to do that when I had a functioning Garmin. So.

The difference between the Apple and the Garmin is that the Apple is much more visual. You've got these three rings and you close the rings and it sends you a little message saying, you've closed this ring, you've closed this ring. And like all watches, they all have different ways of gamifying this and saying, well, you've done 200 % of what you said you were gonna do or 400%, you've had a really good day or you've got a streak where you've done seven days in a row or 14 days in a row. Now, another good feature of the...

rings is that you can pause them. So say for example, you're having, you're unwell or you're having a rest day. And I think it is important to sometimes have rest days or do lighter exercise. If you've decided, you know, actually I'm having a lighter day, I want to pause my ring because it's not like I'm failing to meet my goals. I've just changed my goals for that day. Or, you know, you might be on a long haul flight or a long journey where you can't move. So you can pause them for a day or two days or whatever you want to do.

Dr Orlena (15:44.141)
So those are the movement rings. Now, essentially, within the Apple Watch, there are two apps that you need. Well, you need your watch app, which is where you connect everything. So you've got your watch app where you will make sure that you have set it all up. So for example, you can have it on your left wrist and your right wrist, and yes, it does make a difference. So.

I was tracking my swims and looking at my swims and the first time I looked at my swim I was like, wow, this is amazing. It really knows what stroke I'm doing. And it will tell you, you've done.

200 meters of kickboard or you've done breaststroke or you've done freestyle. Now, a few weeks later after I'd recalibrated it all, I looked at it I was like, my goodness, it's entirely wrong. And actually what had happened is it had gone back to settings and it was on my left wrist, whereas it wasn't on my left, it was configured to be on my left wrist. Actually it was on my right wrist. So you need the app to set up those bits and pieces.

And then you've got your fitness app. You have your fitness app on your watch. So for example, you say, I'm going for a bike ride or I'm doing some yoga or I'm doing some weights or whatever it is that you're doing. And then you can see that on your fitness app on your phone and it connects to the two and it says, this is how much you've done today. You're doing super well. And it will look at trends as well. And you can set it up to ask you, you know, was that...

hard, medium or easy. And you have got your health app as well. And your health app, if you wear your watch at nighttime, it will track your sleep. Another thing that I find really useful to be able to track your sleep, if you're measuring your sleep, if you're thinking, I don't have as much.

Dr Orlena (17:26.023)
sleep, I don't feel great when I wake up, being able to measure your sleep is really useful. Now, I don't, there are other things that you can use. So for example, you can use an aura ring or even my Garmin would measure my sleep. None of them are a hundred percent accurate. One thing I find both with the Apple and the Garmin is they totally underestimate how much time I stay awake. So if I wake up at night and they say, you are awake for a minute, and quite often I think I've been awake five or six times over the night and they're like, only one.

And so it's not 100 % perfect, but I don't think any of them 100 % perfect. But what I do think is useful if you're tracking your sleep is to understand what impacts your sleep.

So a lot of my clients say, and my goodness, drinking Coca-Cola affects my sleep or drinking alcohol. One thing I personally have really cut down on in the years is alcohol because I know that it affects my sleep. Now what people see when they drink alcohol is something called their heart rate variability. So normally your heart rate is within a range. So mine would be 45 to 60. Yours might be a little bit higher depending on how fit you are. And...

If you drink alcohol, it's gonna shoot up and come down and shoot up and come down. And that is the alcohol affecting your heart.

So it's something interesting to know and I know that I've had clients who have started measuring their sleep and really looking at this and gone, my goodness, now that I can see it so clearly, it makes it much easier for me to say, I don't wanna drink alcohol or so much alcohol or I can choose to drink it earlier in the day because I know it impacts my sleep. Now side note, for those of you who say, I sleep fine when I've drunk alcohol. Yep, you may feel like that, but it's still affecting your sleep. It's still affecting the

Dr Orlena (19:12.801)
quality of your sleep. And one of the reasons we feel so awful the next day after having drunk so much is because we have not had decent sleep. So a lot of it is tiredness. So that's part of the health app. The other things that you can do with the health app are amazing. So you can do your saturation levels. So that is looking at how saturated your blood is. And I remember when I used to work in...

A &E and kids A &E, this is obviously years and years ago, but I remember there being one saturation monitor in the entire A &E department and us having to share it and saying, can we have the saturation monitor next? Now we all have them on our wrists. Now, obviously they're probably not the same quality. I didn't know the other one didn't seem to work particularly well anyhow. So it's kind of amazing that we have these things. And I think we have to remember these aren't medical tools. They haven't put them here for us to diagnose things, but really just to be aware.

of things. So the other thing you can do is an ECG, which is absolutely amazing. I've done one. Now, if you don't know what an ECG is, it's that electrical thing that looks at your heart. And when you go into a hospital, they're gonna stick sticky things all over you and they do what's called a 12 lead ECG. So you're not getting as an accurate one as you would if you were in hospital. But one thing it can do is pick up something called atrial fibrillation, which is where your atrium is going and not really functioning as well.

warning that Apple does say is like, you know, can't use this Apple watch to diagnose heart disease. You can't use it to say if you've got a heart attack. So what they're basically saying is it is a useful tool, but please make sure you go to the doctor as appropriate if you've got any problems. And obviously that's very sensible advice.

So ECG, saturation levels, sleep. The other things that it has as well is mindful minutes as well. So it has a breathing app. You can just set a minute and go, do you know what? I'm just gonna focus on my breathing. What an amazing tool is that? One of the pieces of work that I really help people do when they're decreasing their stress levels is become more aware and just really building some breaks into your day of I'm gonna give myself a brain break.

Dr Orlena (21:29.051)
and just calm down and come back to centre. And we live in such a busy life that we don't do this. And now we've got a tool to make it so easy for us. So, mindfulness. The other thing is that it comes with...

In the fitness app, there is something called Fitness Plus. Now I think you do have to pay a subscription for this. I know that my husband basically pays for everything Apple, so we have everything iCloud with Apple and it comes as part of his storage, his subscription. But if you don't pay for that, I think you can pay for it extra. But the Fitness Plus is an add-on and it really has loads of workouts. So different types of workouts. It has dance, has yoga, it has Pilates. I did a static bike one the other day. It was a day that

that I couldn't go swimming. And normally if you go cycling, unless you're going uphill, you're not really doing heaps and heaps of exercise. This static one, I did a 20 minute one. my goodness, I was dripping afterwards going, that was an amazing workout. That was hard, that was not easy. Now obviously you don't need to have, you don't have to choose the hard ones if you don't want to, you can choose the easier ones. But you've got those tools there. So in summary, if you can,

get an Apple Watch. An Apple Watch is a really amazing tool to help you really focus on your health, your energy levels.

how you look after yourself, whether you are actually prioritizing yourself or whether you have got distracted and forgotten to do your movement or your meditation or your this or your that. It's really a tool to measure how you are looking after yourself. And I really love my Apple Watch. And side note, my new strap should be, I finally ordered it, my new strap should be arriving today. So fingers crossed it fits. If not, I'll send it back and get another one. So if you have any questions,

Dr Orlena (23:26.857)
please let me know and remember to come to the Eat Better Feel Amazing workshop which is happening next Wednesday. Have a lovely day. Bye bye.