# Period 1, Day 9: Building fast, waiting slow

> Nine days into my first 14-day period: 118 commits shipped, 1.8 kg down, and bloodwork that won't move until the lab draws the vial.

No review here. That belongs after Day 14. This is just the messy middle, written while I still have no clue how the numbers will shake out.

## Where I started

On October 4th, my lab report threw up red flags everywhere. Uric acid was at 538 µmol/L, and my lipids and liver markers had all drifted deep into dangerous territory. That night, dinner looked completely different. That meal was where Period 1 actually began.

I spent the next two days test-driving the health apps on the market. By October 7th, frustrated by the friction and tracking bloat, I sat down and started writing my own.

## Day 9 in numbers

```period
Avg intake | 1,437 kcal | target 1,750
Protein | 132 g/day | target 113–145
Water | 2.6 L/day |
Weight | −1.8 kg | 82.4 → 80.6 kg
Meds taken | 72% | of planned doses
Commits | 118 | across 6 days
```

The sheet isn't clean. Fiber is trailing, sugar sneaks up too often, and taking less than three out of four planned doses is a genuine fail. That pill gap is what matters most, and no git commit is going to fix it.

## The fast part

Writing code is what I can control, so I channeled all my restlessness into it:

- **Frictionless logging:** Zero tedious typing. Snap a plate or packaging label, or hold the button and speak. Foods logged in one sitting group naturally into a single meal.
- **The full medical picture:** Blood pressure, glucose, HbA1c (parsed directly from lab slip photos), pausable prescriptions, and reminders that ring like an alarm.
- **Two-way Apple Health sync:** Scale readings, daily walks, sleep and resting heart rate pull in silently. Meals push back to Health.
- **Self-custody privacy:** Your key, your health log. No email, no password, and sync is encrypted on the iPhone before a single byte leaves it.
- **The 14-day cadence:** One rule for targets across the board, charts you can scrub day by day, and a flexible start date, mostly because my own period started two days before I wrote the first line of code.

## The slow part

None of those commits pull my next blood draw any closer.

The bathroom scale budges every morning. Blood chemistry doesn't budge on screen; it stays dead quiet until the lab technician draws the vial. Testing early is useless. It would only reflect the first few days of scrambling.

So for five more days, I grind through the quiet work: a 5 km brisk walk every single day, hit the macros, chug the water, take the pills on schedule.

I can ship a feature in an afternoon. I can't ship better bloodwork.

The full review drops after October 18th with the cold, hard lab numbers. Whatever they turn out to be.

— Anton