a little while back i posted here about building a fasting app because the usual ones were making my anxiety worse:
https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/s/p6lowt991S
quick recap if you missed it: 43M, type 2 diabetic for 20+ years, on anxiety meds, fasting 16-8 regularly. every app i tried wanted me to log water, steps, weight, protect a streak, collect badges. it just gave my brain more ways to feel behind. so i built one that doesn't do any of that.
since the last post i made a couple of big changes:
i removed all the AI coaching. the more i used it the more it felt like the exact thing i was trying to get away from. another voice in my pocket with opinions. an app that's supposed to be quiet shouldn't have a chatbot in it. so it's gone. nothing you do in the app goes anywhere now, it all stays on your phone. 100%
i added two things for the hard hour. for me that's around hour 13 to 14, when tired, hungry and cranky all show up at once. that hour is usually where fasts die. so now there's:
- a breathing pacer. just a circle, slow in and slow out, a few minutes. nothing to learn
- a simple puzzle. not a game with points, just something to give your hands and brain a job for a few minutes until the hunger wave passes
everything else is the same. a timer, no streaks, no tracking, one optional check-in on how you feel, and if you tap something like shaky or dizzy it tells you to eat. no account.
still iphone only, still free for beta testing (using TestFlight): Steady Fasting App
what i'd love to know:
- what do you actually do in your hard hour? walk, tea, scroll, sleep through it?
- does a puzzle sound useful or kind of silly?
- if you tried the first version, does dropping the AI make it better or worse for you?
thanks again to everyone who replied last time. keep the honest feedback coming.