I'd never used a FitBit or similar fitness tracker before getting my Apple Watch, but I had been a huge Garmin GPS watch fan for running and biking in the days before my iPhone had enough battery life to last for a run with GPS enabled.
At first I thought I was mostly going to use the Apple Watch in conjunction with planned activities like running a few miles - I certainly use it for that, in conjunction with Runkeeper - but now I also use the passive activity tracking to keep track of how I'm doing throughout the day.
I won't say that it's strictly because of the watch, but I'm now about as fit as I've ever been, and I think the easy glance over to see where I'm at is really helping with that.