Help please with apple watch activity app

[Littlemiss74]

Hi I’ve recently got an apple watch and am trying to work out how to use all the functions.
I’m keen to get back into exercise and have signed up to do charity walk.
I can’t get my head around the activity rings in the app in particular the red ‘move’ one. Am I meant to set it to the number of calories I want to burn each day or the total number of calories I aim to eat each day?

Also the green ‘exercise’ ring. How does it measure exercise done? I’ve done a 45 minute walk but it’s saying I’ve only done 15 minutes.

I’ve tried googling for help but I still don’t really get it! Any help or tips to get the best out of it would be much appreciated. I had a fitbit before and this is quite different.

Set it to calories you want to burn. See how many you do in a normal day then set it higher to challenge yourself.

The exercise ring doesn’t register a casual walk, it needs something a bit more vigorous that raises your heart rate. It is better at registering exercise if you start a workout - so when you go out for a walk start an ‘outdoor walk’ and it will also give you useful stats about your walk.

Mine will only record walking as exercise if I walk fast enough to raise my HR fast enough to actually be active exercise.
When I go for a walk I go into the exercise use bit and record my walk. Even if it doesn't record everything as exercise it records distance, active calories etc.

Calories set to what you want. It records how many you burn each day so if you find most days you are doing 800 but some you are under that and want to push yourself for 800 a day set it as this.

Ha ha almost identical replies at same time 🤣🤣🤣

Uncanny

The green exercise ring will count exercise as something that raises your heart rate. So if you did a 45 min walk it would measure the time your heart rate was raised so when you felt a bit breathless. This is what I've found with mine. The red ring is your move goal so I think you set how many calories you would like to burn and if you achieve that it will close. ( I think anyway ) have a google and look for the answers on Apple support they seem to be more helpful.

The green exercise ring only counts moderate exercise or above so a brisk walk at minimum. Pick up the pace! 😆 More seriously, this ring is to encourage you to meet the NHS goal of 30 min moderate exercise 5 days a week.

The red move ring will count any movement you do as calories burned so your 45 min walk will be accounted for in there. So don’t give up. I walk my dog for an hour and a half a day but it rarely adds much to my exercise ring, I do get plenty of move ring calories though.

Thanks everyone for explaining, I understand now and have set my goals up. @thecapitalsunited I also walk my dog a couple of times a day & it doesn’t seem to register it on exercise but I would still consider this exercise as better than not moving isn’t it. At least it counts the steps which is useful as I need to do at least 10,000 a day to meet my charity walking target.

@Littlemiss74 I did see it explained as the red ring being about exercise in general and the green ring being about the quality of that exercise. So both things are measured. That made me happier about the dog walks not being counted in the green ring if they still show up on the red ring.

@thecapitalsunited ah yes that makes total sense thank you