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Apple Health App and My Quantified Self
Health App Discovery and Questions
A few days ago, I looked at my phone and noticed a chart showing what looked like pedometer data. And this is when I discovered that Apple’s Health App has been tracking my number of steps since I got my iPhone 6+ in October 2014. Today, I decided to look into that data. I wanted to see:
- How many miles I walk on an average day
- How my walking mileage changed from month-to-month
- If there were any patterns in how far I walked on certain days of the week
What Happens to Foot Travel in a Bigger City (Even in Winter)
Also I just moved from Mountain View, CA to NYC at the beginning of February (well, January 30 to be specific), and I was interested to see
- How the walking distance I covered changed since I moved.
Answers – My Health App Steps/Miles Data
The data from the Health App can’t be exported from the app itself, so I downloaded QS Access, which allowed me to create a table of my steps and miles walked, each day from 10/2/15 (when I got my phone) to 5/28/15 (today). I downloaded the data into Excel and quickly created some charts to get some answers to my questions.
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How many miles I walk on an average day (10/2/14-5/28/15)
** 3.67 miles -
How my walking mileage changed from month-to-month
** The average miles I walked per month ranged from 2.56 miles in November 2014, to 4.97 miles in April.
** The number of miles I walked increased by 22% from October 2014 (3.81 mi) to the end of May 2015 (4.63 mi…and counting).
** The largest percentage increase from month-to-month is 23%, from January to February (the month I moved to NYC). -
If there were any patterns in how far I walked on certain days of the week.
** One pattern only really stands out: overall, in Mountain View, and in NYC, I consistently walked less on Wednesdays. Overall, it was the least, at 3.25 miles; and in Mountain View and NYC, it was the second-least: 2.63 mi and 3.88 mi, respectively. -
How the walking distance I covered changed since I moved.
** The good thing is, I have four months of data from Mountain View and four months of data in NYC.
** I walked 2.97 miles on average in Mountain View (October to January), and 4.39 miles on average in NYC (February to May). That’s a 48% increase. And that’s in the freezing temperatures in February and March while I was in NYC. (But that’s with less running in the morning).
** I walk the most on Sundays and Mondays in Mountain View, and Fridays and Saturdays in NYC. The difference between the two highest days in Mountain View versus the two highest days in NYC is a 52% increase in miles in NYC.
** I walk a lot more in NYC. (Where do I go? Everywhere around Midtown with my son)
Not suprisingly – or maybe yes, suprisingly, since we moved in the middle of the freezing NYC winter, from the blissful, sunny CA weather – the number of miles I’ve walked increased since my move to the big city. I run, and in Mountain View, there was a great trail behind my apartment (Stevens Creek Trail), where I ran about 5-6 miles most mornings. The weather was freezing in NYC when we moved in February, but I still went on the treadmill at least three to four times per week in the first couple of months, which is a great way to develop a deep, profound dread of the treadmill; but I started running outside in April, and in May, my running has decreased, probably because I am walking a little more, and probably because I want to make sure that the increased pastries I’m consuming in this food-filled, food-centric city, really get a chance to hang around. Interestingly, I’ve been walking more this month, even though I spent a week in San Diego, where I played tennis and walked less. The warmer, hotter weather really makes me want to walk all over this city. I will start working in a few days (working with other data!), so my steps will inevitably decrease.
The charts!
