Exercise SMS Reminders

You can use this Python script to send exercise reminders and motivation every day. The script uses the Twilio API to send scheduled SMS reminders and motivational quotes. The script can also be used to send links to predefined YouTube searches to help with finding an exercise video for certain activities.

Example SMS Message

Here is your exercise plan for the day to keep you motivated!!

Today is Tuesday, 06-30-2020. You will be doing the following activity: HITT

You have trained 4 days so far.

Here is a link to some YouTube videos for HIIT: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hiit+workout+15+minutes. Enjoy your workout!

Script Logic

Prerequisites

This program requires a Twilio license. You can obtain a trial version of Twilio. Note that your trial credit will be charged each time that you use the service.

Converting Days to JSON

First, create the .csv file with the date, day of the week, activity, and days trained. Then, use the .csv to JSON script to convert the file to a JSON format. The script calls the .csv file and restructures the data so that it exists as a set of date keys with the value as a dictionary of the different elements from the .csv file.

Quotes JSON

You can download a free inspirational quotes JSON file for the inspirational messages that are sent with each SMS. This information is stored in the quotes.json file.

Constructing a Message

The main.py file uses both JSON files and the Twilio API to construct the SMS message. First, you need to set your Twilio API key that you obtained when creating your account.

   account_sid = ''
   auth_token = ''
   client = Client(account_sid, auth_token)

Enter your Twilio account ID and authorization token. This creates a client for you to have access to the Twilio API.

Then, the script calls the days.json file and uses the if curday == keyval['Date']: command to pull the activity that is associated with today's date. The exerciseBlock text is then constructed.

("Hello! Here is your exercise plan for the day to keep you motivated! \nToday is " + dayWeek +", "+ curday + ". You will be doing the following activity--" + activity + ". You have trained " + daysTrained + " days so far! \n\n" )

Each of the elements in the exerciseBlock is derived from the days.json file.

The quoteBlock is then constructed. All elements are derived from the quotes.json file.

("Inspirational quote of the day\n" + quote+ " --said by " + author )

Finally, the linkBlock is constructed, which checks to see if the activity element is either barre, yoga, or HIIT. A predefined YouTube search such as "HIIT workout 15 minutes" is returned.

All elements are then combined to construct the message or body element. The client.messages.create function uses the Twilio API to send the message. Replace the + in the from element with your Twilio-assigned number. Replace the + in the to element with the recipient's number.

 message = client.messages.create(
                           from_='+',
                           body = body,
                           to ='+'
                        )

Scheduling a Job

You can schedule the job to run every day at a particular time. For example, you can set the job to send an SMS at 8:00 AM:

schedule.every().day.at("08:00").do(job)

An infinite loop is set that can always run the service with the following command:

  while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)