Health and Fitness
Health isn't a side interest — it's woven into my pilot dream, my primary product (LockIn), and my daily life as a builder.
Aviation Medical Prep
Becoming a commercial pilot requires passing a Class 1 aviation medical — one of the most rigorous medical examinations in any profession. The requirements include excellent cardiovascular health, perfect or correctable vision, good hearing, and no disqualifying conditions. This isn't something you cram for. It requires consistent health habits built over years.
My pilot roadmap has medical readiness mapped for 6-12 months before starting flight school — around age 16-17. That means the habits I build now directly affect whether I pass the medical that gates the entire dream. Health isn't optional; it's prerequisite.
The Push-Up Connection
LockIn's core mechanic — earning screen time through push-ups — started as a product feature and became a personal philosophy. The idea is simple:
- Make the cost of mindless scrolling physical
- Build fitness as a byproduct of digital discipline
- Create structural friction rather than relying on willpower
I'm not just building this for users. I use it. When my own app blocks me from Instagram and demands push-ups, that's not a bug — that's the feature working exactly as intended. The push-ups add up. The screen time goes down. The discipline compounds.
The push-up detection uses Apple's Vision framework with body pose estimation. I built anti-shake logic to prevent false positives from walking or shifting position. The technical challenge of accurately detecting real push-ups versus noise was significant — because if the detection is wrong, the entire product breaks.
Building Healthy Habits
The solo founder lifestyle has health risks that don't get talked about enough. Late-night coding sessions. Sitting for hours. Screen time that rivals the users I'm trying to help reduce theirs. Stress from deadlines, App Store rejections, and the constant pressure of building alone.
Knowing this, I try to maintain a routine:
- Physical activity — push-ups (enforced by my own app), exercise
- Sleep — imperfect, especially during launch sprints, but prioritised
- Balance between building and resting — also imperfect, but acknowledged
The honest truth: I don't always get this right. There are weeks where I code until 1am every night and the health routine takes a hit. But awareness of the problem is the first step, and LockIn — ironically — helps me stay honest about my own screen time.
LockIn Health: The Future Vision
LockIn's roadmap includes LockIn Health — collecting encrypted screen time data and making it useful:
- Anonymised insights for hospitals and researchers
- Personal health dashboards showing screen time patterns
- Correlation between physical activity (push-ups) and screen time reduction
The vision is to turn LockIn from a productivity tool into a health data platform — connecting screen time behaviour with physical health outcomes. If we can show that push-up-gated screen time actually improves health metrics, that's a powerful story for both consumers and the B2B market (schools, hospitals, corporate wellness).
See Also
- Health & Fitness -- the original article
- LockIn -- where health meets product
- Pilot Dream -- why health is non-negotiable
- Pilot Roadmap -- the medical timeline
- My Workspace -- the daily routine around building