
Show HN: Simple tool to make a habit of exercising - ptm
https://workoutbff.com/
======
andrewstuart
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.

~~~
beardedProgmr
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...

~~~
redis_mlc
> 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.

------
iandanforth
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/17598950/The-demotivation-
of-a-STREAK)

[https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3705144/Streak-Breaker-
Wh...](https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3705144/Streak-Breaker-Why-Streaks-
aren-t-so-important-after-all)

[https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/7927344/Lost-streak-
and-m...](https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/7927344/Lost-streak-and-
motivation)

~~~
cconcepts
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.

~~~
r00fus
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.

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

------
krilly
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](https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits)

~~~
tarosnow
Is there an equivalent of this on iOS?

~~~
luigi23
Working on something similar for iOS and watchOS for some time, planning to
ship it this year.

------
progman32
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.

~~~
Timpy
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".

------
majewsky
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.

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

~~~
organsnyder
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.

------
smitty1e
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.

~~~
dominotw
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.

~~~
ptm
> 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.

~~~
appleiigs
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.

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

------
saimiam
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.

~~~
cgriswald
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.

------
TeMPOraL
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.

------
peterwwillis
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.

~~~
appleiigs
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.

------
MperorM
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.

~~~
oht
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.

------
97-109-107
I have had some success with
[https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits](https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits)

------
user_rob
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.

------
thekyle
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?

~~~
WA
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.

~~~
IanCal
> 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.

~~~
WA
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.

------
nickparker
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.

~~~
ptm
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.

------
hrdwdmrbl
(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!

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ListeningPie
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.

------
throes_death
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.

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robotresearcher
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.

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nevster
I'm a fan of [http://dontbreakthechain.com](http://dontbreakthechain.com)

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

~~~
ptm
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.

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

~~~
ptm
Glad you find it useful

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magwa101
Another thing to get in the way of working out.

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skanga
Can you add "laps" to the target counter?

~~~
ptm
I have added laps now.

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loblollyboy
Why cant you just go excercise?

~~~
Ensorceled
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.

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beardedProgmr
No app. Apps are all now.

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anewguy9000
internal service error :(

~~~
ptm
Sorry for the bug.

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

~~~
deepprocess
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.

