DISCLAIMER: Before you read this article, know that I am NOT a fitness trainer nor am I a doctor. I am a journalist on a weight loss journey with an affinity for technology. I should also stress that I am an active user of an Apple Watch to help me track my health and fitness. My goal is to educate on a feature, not to discourage anyone from using an Apple Watch or avoid bettering their health and fitness.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF) — Ever since the debut of the Apple Watch, it has become a perfect companion to anyone who carries an iPhone for need-to-know info at a glance without pulling out your phone. It has also become an important tool in tracking your health.

Apple Watch prides itself in the health department, with features such as a built-in fitness tracker, heart rate monitor, and it can even help you with deep breathing exercises. If you’re in a medical emergency or are injured, the Apple Watch can even get you in touch with help.

But one of the more frustrating features can be Apple Watch’s Activity app, which tracks your set move, exercise, and stand goals in red, green, and blue rings. While it can be useful in tracking your steps, making sure you get up and move around a little each hour, and for tracking how many calories you burned when you worked out last, it can also be a bit of a nag to meet your goals.

Let’s say you set your move goal to 500 calories, your exercise goal to 35 minutes, and your stand goal to 12 hours. You’re having a slow day and you’ve only averaged 200 of your 500 calories, you didn’t exercise much today, and you’re about halfway to your stand goal. The Activity app’s “Daily Coaching” feature has a way of politely letting you know that you’re not doing a good job.

Now, there’s no disputing that the coaching can be a good thing to get you more active in moving around especially when you lack the motivation and willpower to be active. Unfortunately, it could also cause you to stress out in meeting your goals, push yourself too hard physically to fill your rings, or make you feel inadequate and lousy for not meeting your set goals each day.

For those who work out religiously or have made working out a habit, the coaching feature and filling out your rings shouldn’t be a problem. But if you’re just starting to get active and get in shape, the coaching feature could push you off track by how pushy it can be.

I should preface that it’s not rude about it, it just wants you to succeed in meeting your goals and filling your rings. If you get to the end of the day and you’ve not made it anywhere close, it pops up and lets you know that “you still have time” to meet your goals. If you make it through the day and don’t meet your goal, expect a kind message the next day reminding you that you didn’t meet your goals yesterday.

It also can take into account what you’ve done in the previous days and push you into trying to push yourself a little harder. This is where it can get tricky for those who are just starting out, as the Activity app CAN push you to go too hard and therefore fall off your fitness goal.

If you’ve been working out awhile or if you’re a beginner, it is imperative and necessary to take rest days to let your body and muscles recover. Whether you set aside one day, two days, or only work out select days of the week, it’s important to get some downtime in between workouts.

So what if you decide to skip a workout or take a day to rest? The coaching feature in the Activity app doesn’t have a pause button. If you’re not moving, it knows and it’s definitely going to remind you about it throughout the day.

So how do you stop the incessant nagging that you’re not being active enough? Well, it’s fairly easy.

Should you not want to use your Apple Watch at all for fitness tracking (which isn’t recommended because it CAN be a helpful tool in bettering your health), there is a way to turn it off completely.

Since there’s no easy way as of right now to just pause and pick back up on the coaching feature the next day, you’ll need to remember to go back into the Watch settings and turn it back on should you want to get that push from your watch during your workout days.

Also, a piece of advice: If you’re a beginner to losing weight, and just starting out working out, you need to make sure you set your goals low and realistic to start to prevent burnout, which you can do inside the Activity app on your watch. Don’t exceed your goals or push yourself harder than what you can do right now.

The old saying “slow and steady wins the race” definitely applies here. Don’t let technology push you into doing more than what your body will let you do.