How to Reset the Apple Watch “Activity” Calorie Goal?

Glad you are enjoying your Apple Watch (not “iWatch”. Ya gotta stop calling it that! 🙂 ) It does have a lot of really nice ideas, things that the team at Apple clearly learned from the many fitness bands and notification watches and devices that appeared on the market prior to their entry. And that’s just smart business, actually, and the same thing the company did with the launch of its iPod if you remember.

I too have found that the default goal that the Apple Watch sets for you isn’t quite what I want either, particularly since in active mode it differentiates between resting and active calories so I find that according to my watch, I burn less calories than I think I’m doing  at the gym. So I have found that I can have an active day and a good 30-45min workout and still find myself shy of the calorie goal at the end of the day. That’s just annoying.

To change it, however, you need to know which app to utilize and you need to know that it’s one of those with a “force press” feature. Let me show you what I mean…

To start, here’s today’s activity view on the Apple Watch:

I’m doing pretty darn well, but let’s look just a bit more closely by swiping to the left.

Look really closely at the bottom and you’ll see we’re on screen one of four.

Here’s what I mean. An active day and still, not quite the goal that the Watch has decided I should be hitting. That’s just annoying.

To fix it, swipe upwards to make the detailed information screen below this one visible:

Now force-press the screen (in other words, push hard and hold your finger on the screen in that position until the screen changes) and you’ll reveal the secret settings option:

Ahhhh, that’s it!

Tap on the button in the middle and you’ll see the current setting:

A few taps of the “-” button for me to drop it to 800, a goal that seems more in line with my typical active day, and it’ll look like this:

Easy enough once you know where the button is hidden.

Tap on “Update” and you’re done, ready for another day of adventure and activity with your new Apple Watch Sport Edition, or whatever version you have.