Staying Healthy with Activity Streaks

What’s your most valuable asset? Your first thought might have been “my car” or “my house”, but the truth is that it’s your health.

Whether you want to lose weight and look great or get stronger by gaining muscle, maintaining good physical and mental well-being should always be a priority — and the best way to do this is to be as active as you can, as often as possible. That’s why Zing Coach added Activity Streaks to help you stay consistently active.

But what makes Zing Coach’s Activity Streaks different from Streaks you might find in other apps? Read on to discover what makes Zing Coach’s Activity Streaks so effective!

What is Zing Coach’s Activity Streak?

Your Activity Streak is a way to track your physical activity over time. Usually, this kind of Streak mechanic motivates you to reach longer streaks to improve your results. However, in the case of Zing Coach’s Activity Streak, it’s actually a way to help you maintain a healthy level of activity — while celebrating the great work you’ve already done.

Every feature that Zing Coach introduces comes after a long, thorough research and testing process. The design of the Activity Streak was based on activity data from the activity patterns of more than 20,000 individuals with diverse fitness levels and goals, as well as research into the Metabolic Equivalent of Task (or MET), the energy you use during physical activity compared to rest).

How Does the Activity Streak Work?

The Activity Streak was designed to accurately represent your activity levels while being flexible enough to adapt to any lifestyle. Zing Coach calculates Activity Points according to a scientifically weighted average of all your activity data over the previous 7 days. Each day's activity contributes Activity Points to your Streak, but recent days are given more significance to ensure your latest efforts are most impactful.

Your current Activity Points score is then compared to a ‘healthy activity’ baseline  — a medically sound physical activity guideline set out by the World Health Organization to help people look after their health. If your score exceeds the baseline, then your Activity Streak will increase. If your score is below the baseline, your Streak is broken.

Your Streak is visualized in a simple Activity Meter and a more complex Activity Curve that make it easy for you to see how active you’ve been and whether you’re in danger of losing your streak.

Streaking Ahead: Why Grow Your Streak

Most people will agree with this truth about fitness: Working out is a balance between challenging yourself to improve and celebrating your achievements. It’s a healthy cycle, where the excitement that comes with reaching a milestone drives you to set more difficult (and more rewarding) goals.

Celebrating even small achievements is a great way to motivate yourself — that’s why growing your Streak feels so good! Zing Coach’s Activity Streak will send you badges to commemorate the milestones along your fitness journey — from 1 day to 1,000 — to celebrate each day that you prioritized your long-term well-being by being active.

It’s Not Just About the Number

The flip side of growing a long streak is that breaking a long-running streak can be very demotivating. While it’s important to remember that your Activity Streak aims to build healthy activity habits, there’s nothing wrong about being passionate about holding onto the Streak you’ve worked hard to grow.

One of the great things about the ‘7-day average’ approach is that missing a day doesn’t necessarily break your streak. As long as your 7-day average stays in the Healthy range, your streak is maintained, allowing for more or less active days, including much-needed rest days. Plus, you'll get a notification warning you if you're close to losing your Activity Streak, that you can tap to get a workout designed to save it.

It can be demotivating to lose a streak, but remember that it happens to everyone at one time or another. It's not about chasing perfection — it’s about embracing consistency.

Activity Streak Milestones

Introducing new Activity Streak Milestones: achievements based on the length of your Streak. You can unlock Streak Milestones ranging from 1 day up to 1000 days. No matter your fitness level, these Milestones will add an extra layer of motivation to your workouts and recognize you for your hard work.

To view all the Streak Milestones you’ve achieved, go to the Achievements section of your Analytics tab. From here, you can also track your progress towards upcoming Milestones. Get a head-start on unlocking your first Activity Streak Milestones by connecting your Apple Heath to Zing Coach and adding your activity for the last 30 days to your Streak.

These Milestones are about celebrating your commitment to a healthier lifestyle to make your fitness journey with Zing Coach even more rewarding.

Get Active, Get Healthy

Being consistently active has many benefits, from feeling happier, thinking faster, reducing the risk of disease and much more. Of course, you should ensure that you look after your body and mind in other ways too — by getting enough rest, eating well, and drinking enough water, for example — but building and maintaining habits that promote physical activity should come first, no matter your fitness goal.

Zing Coach’s Activity Streak is an invaluable tool to help you achieve consistency in your fitness routine, designed to encourage and maintain long-term healthy activity habits.

Activity Doesn’t Just Mean Working Out

While sometimes it’s hard to stick to a specific workout plan, there are many ways to be active that don’t involve lifting weights or running on a treadmill — and your Activity Streak can track them all.

Gardening, walking, and playing with your children all count towards your activity for the day and are good for your body. That’s why smartwatches and apps like Apple Health and Google Fit are so useful — they track all the physical activity you do in a day and give you a more accurate picture of your activity levels.

If you’ve connected your Zing Coach app with health tracking like Apple Health or smart devices like an Apple Watch, your Activity Streak will include any physical activity you do during the day, including not just your Zing Coach workouts but sports, steps and more.

Wrapping Up

• Zing Coach's Activity Streak is a finely-tuned feature designed to motivate and celebrate your journey toward improved physical and mental well-being.
• It's a tool that's as flexible as it is encouraging, designed to fit any lifestyle and support any fitness goal.
• Tracking your physical activities with a scientifically backed method encourages you to maintain a healthy activity level.
• Every bit of movement counts towards your Streak, making wellness an accessible goal for all.
• The balanced approach to fitness allows for rest days and the promotion of long-term, consistent activity habits.
• Remember, it's not about the length of the streak or achieving perfection but about embracing consistency in your activity levels.
• Since its launch, the Activity Streak feature has already received a number of updates, and we’ll continue to improve it based on your feedback and our research.

Every day you choose to move is a day you choose your health and happiness. No matter your fitness level or lifestyle, trying to maintain a healthy Activity Streak is a great way to improve your well-being and build sustainable activity habits for the rest of your life.