Sharone Poole · Product Design
CASE STUDY Nº 01 · PRODUCT DESIGN
Fitness OS
A fitness tracking system the user actually owns. Designed, built and shipped solo, and run on its designer’s own training since September.
ROLE
Product Designer and Builder
TIMELINE
6 weeks, first build to working beta
STACK
Notion · Claude · Apple Health · Google Drive · Cloudflare
STATUS
In beta with three lifters. Launches December 3, 2026
Try the live demo
FITNESS OS · BY NOW OBSERVING
Your training. Your numbers. Yours to keep.
Launches December 3, 2026
Price announced to the waitlist first.
Free for coaches, forever
Lives in your own Notion
01 · THE PROBLEM
Coaching software rents people their own training.
The big platforms charge a monthly fee and then take a cut of every payment. TrueCoach is $57.99 a month for up to 20 coaching clients, plus a flat 5% on every payment, refunds included. And the client’s history lives in the vendor’s house. TrueCoach’s own help docs say clients cannot export their workouts. Stop paying, lose it.
Under that sits the human problem, in one line: people don’t fall off because it’s hard. They fall off because they can’t see it working.
$58
a month for TrueCoach Standard, up to 20 clients, on annual billing.
0
ways for a TrueCoach client to export their own workouts. Only the coach can.
5%
flat fee on every payment a coach takes through TrueCoach, on top of the monthly plan.
TrueCoach pricing and fees from TrueCoach’s help center (Understanding processing fees) and its export policy from its help center (Client exporting workouts), checked October 2026. Prices change, so check before you decide.
02 · HOW IT WORKS
Your phone logs it. Your Notion keeps it. You own all of it.
Fitness OS is built for the phone, where you actually train. Every set you tap, every meal you log and every night of sleep flows into a database in your own Notion account. That is your history: what you lifted, what you ate, how you slept. You pay once, you keep it, and nothing resets.
Your phone
Tap a circle to log a set. One tap, mid-workout.
→
Your Notion
The database. Workouts, meals, sleep, vitals. Yours to keep, export or take anywhere.
→
Your coaches
A Claude coach that reads your data every day, and a human coach with a window seat.
03 · TWO CUSTOMERS, ONE SYSTEM
The lifter
· Pays once. Not a monthly subscription.
· Tracks every workout, meal and night of sleep in one place.
· Has a Claude coach that reads the data and talks to you, and can work with a human coach too.
· Leaves a coach any time and keeps every bit of history. No starting over from zero.
The coach
· Gets a window seat into the client’s Notion, comment only, free forever.
· Sees the whole week before the check in call, not during it.
· Pays no monthly platform fee, and passes none on to the client.
· Never holds the data. When the client leaves, the data goes with them.
04 · WHAT IT COSTS, AND WHAT YOU KEEP
Two customers. Both stop paying rent.
FOR THE COACH
Software bill per month, about 20 clients
TrueCoach Standard
$57.99 plus 5% of every payment
PT Distinction Pro
$59.90
Trainerize Pro (up to 50)
$122, before add ons
Everfit Pro
from $19, rises with add ons
Fitness OS for coaches
$0, forever
Prices from each platform’s own pricing and help pages, checked October 22, 2026. TrueCoach’s 5% is on the invoice total and applies to refunds too. Prices change, so check before you decide.
FOR THE LIFTER
Total paid after 1, 2 and 3 years
Year 1
$109.98 app stack
Fitness OS, once
Year 2
$219.96 app stack
Fitness OS, once
Year 3
$329.94 app stack
Fitness OS, once
App stack is MyFitnessPal Premium on a yearly plan ($79.99) plus Strong PRO on a yearly plan ($29.99). Year 1 the apps are cheaper. Fitness OS passes them in year two and never bills again. Coaching, at about $100 to $400 a month, is not counted in either column.
3%
of health and fitness app users are still around at day 30. About 97 of 100 are gone. Benchmarks run roughly 3 to 8% depending on the source.
70%
median share of users who had stopped using a health app within 100 days, across 18 studies and 525,824 people (Kidman et al., JMIR, 2024).
45%
of consumers say they pay too much for their subscriptions (Deloitte Digital Media Trends, 2026).
$111
a month is what the average US adult spends on subscriptions (CNET and YouGov, April 2026, 2,522 adults).
CAN THE CLIENT TAKE THEIR DATA WITH THEM?
Each platform’s own help pages say.
TrueCoach
No. “As a client, you cannot export your workouts.” Only the coach can.
Trainerize
No. Workout history, progress stats, body measurements and adherence cannot be exported.
Everfit
Partly. One workout at a time as a PDF. No bulk export of history.
PT Distinction
No documented way for a client to take their data.
Fitness OS
Yes. It all lives in your own Notion. Export any time. Nothing to lapse.
Sources: TrueCoach help center (Client exporting workouts); ABC Trainerize help center (What information can be exported); Everfit help center (Client app, print workout as a PDF); PT Distinction privacy policy. PT Distinction publishes no client export page, so that row says only what is documented.
Sources: Business of Apps 2023 and AppsFlyer data for day 30 retention; Kidman et al., JMIR, 2024 (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39693620); Deloitte Digital Media Trends 2026; CNET and YouGov survey, April 29 to May 1, 2026. These are general app numbers, not Fitness OS results.
NOWOBSERVING
FITNESS OS
Sample data · Oct 2 to Oct 20, 2026
SESSIONS
17
TRAINING TIME
18.2
hrs
DISTANCE
28.1
mi
MORNING NUMBERS
47
HRV
65
RESTING HR
180
WEIGHT LB
TOP SESSION
Sat, Oct 17 · Running · 1,190 kcal · 8.7 mi
THIS WEEK · WEEK 3 · PUSH
MON · OCT 26
Upper Strength
Bench Press
4 × 5-6
✓
✓
3
4
Barbell Row
4 × 6-8
1
2
3
4
2 OF 25 SETS DONE · TAP A CIRCLE TO LOG THE SET
Today
Nutrition
Profile
05 · THE APP TODAY
Everything a lifter needs before the first set.
The Today view: the week, the morning numbers, and proof of the last session. A text wordmark, glass stat tiles, Morning Numbers (HRV, resting heart rate, weight), Activity, the Top Session card, and the week with set circles and a SET WT chip on every lift.
06 · THE FOOD TRACKER
Point the camera at dinner. Get the count.
1
Tap the + button.
Take a photo of the plate, pick one from the phone, or open the meal plan.
2
Get the count back.
The meal comes back as an entry: calories, protein, carbs, fat, fiber, sugar and sodium. A nutrition label or barcode gives the exact numbers. A plate gives an estimate, and the app says so.
3
Fix it in one tap.
If a portion looks off, Fix This Count lets you correct the numbers. If the meal is wrong, delete it.
4
It lands in your own record.
The meal joins What You Ate, the day’s totals move, and the same entry syncs to the Nutrition Log in your own Notion.
The day is judged on two numbers, calories and protein, against the range the coach set. The other five are tracked and shown, never graded.
Honest note: the in-app Food Database is the coach’s reference list, not a live lookup yet. There is no full Settings screen yet, and nothing imports from other food apps.
NUTRITION · SAMPLE DAY
CALORIES LEFT
1,405
1,245 eaten of 2,650
COACH’S RANGE
Cutting · 2,500 to 2,800 kcal · Protein 200g or more
Protein
142g of 200g
Fiber
24g of 38g
Carbs
168g of 300g
Sugar
52g of 71g cap
Fat
48g of 70g
Sodium
1,840mg of 2,300mg cap
EXAMPLE COUNT · WHAT THE APP RETURNS
Sirloin steak, sliced, about 10 oz
640
kcal
Protein 78g
Carbs 0g
Fat 36g
Fiber 0g
Sugar 0g
Sodium 170mg
FIX THIS COUNT
LOG IT
An estimate from the photo. Any number can be fixed in one tap before it lands in your record.
SCAN A LABEL
Nutrition Facts
1 serving, 1 cup (227g)
Calories
180
Total Fat
4g
Sodium
80mg
Total Carbohydrate
9g
Dietary Fiber
0g
Total Sugars
8g
Protein
17g
Hold it steady. Tap to read.
OR SCAN THE LABEL
A plate gets an estimate. A label gets the exact numbers.
Point the camera at the nutrition facts on any package. The app reads the printed numbers, so there is nothing to guess. You check them, tap Log It, and they join your day.
READ FROM THE LABEL · EXACT
Plain Greek yogurt, 1 cup
180
kcal
Protein 17g
Carbs 9g
Fat 4g
Fiber 0g
Sugar 8g
Sodium 80mg
FIX THIS COUNT
LOG IT
Example label and numbers, drawn for this page. Labels and barcodes give exact numbers. Plate photos give estimates, and the app says which is which.
The steak is a real photo from my kitchen. The count beside it is an example of what the app returns, not a measured result. Nutrition numbers elsewhere on this page are the demo’s sample day.
07 · THE SYSTEM
Five tools, each doing the job it is best at.
CORE
Notion
The record. Every set, lift and week lives here, in the user’s own account
CORE
Claude
Setup walkthrough and coaching reads
IN
Apple Health
Workouts, sleep and steps flow in
OUT
Google Drive
The buyer package, one Start Here door
OUT
Cloudflare
Hosts the phone app
1
You train
Your watch and phone record the workout, sleep and steps. Apple Health passes them along.
2
Notion keeps it
Nine linked databases hold every workout, meal, scan and week. It is your account, not ours.
3
Your phone shows it
The app is made from your tracker each week and saved to your home screen. No app store, nothing to install.
4
Claude and your coach read it
Claude reads your week like a coach would. A human coach gets a comment only window seat.
Your data stays in your account the whole way through.
The design work was making them feel like one product, so a non-technical user never touches the wiring.
08 · DESIGN DECISIONS
Six decisions, and why.
01
The set is the unit
Workouts are too big to be the atom of progress. A set is the smallest honest unit of work, so the app logs sets: one tap on a circle, mid-set, no typing. Beside each lift, a SET WT chip sets the working weight on a wheel, because a plan without loads is a suggestion.
MONDAY · OCT 26 · TODAY
Upper Strength
Bench Press
✓
✓
3
4
Barbell Row
1
2
3
4
Incline DB Press
1
2
3
2 of 11 sets done. Tap a circle to log the set.
02
A finished day should feel finished
When every set is logged, the day closes itself and the date line reads 100% COMPLETE. The reward is built into the mechanic, not added as points or badges.
THURSDAY · OCT 29 · 100% COMPLETE
Upper Hypertrophy
Incline Barbell Press
✓
✓
✓
✓
Lat Pulldown
✓
✓
✓
Overhead Press
✓
✓
✓
Day complete. Every set logged.
03
Blank, never zero
An untouched day shows no percentage at all. Zero is a judgment; blank is neutral. Progress only appears when it has been earned. That one rule protects the user’s motivation on the worst weeks.
04
Computed, never typed
Completion percentages are calculated from logged work, never entered by hand. Self-reported numbers lie, and a coach cannot coach a lie. The app counts sets (the athlete’s view); the tracker counts lifts (the coach’s record).
THE COACH’S VIEW · THIS WEEK
94
%
31 of 33 lifts logged, worked out from the day cards.
MON
88%
TUE
100%
WED
Rest
THU
100%
FRI
86%
SAT
100%
SUN
Rest
05
Ownership is the architecture
The system lives in the user’s own Notion account. There is no vendor database to be locked out of. The coach gets a comment only window seat, free forever. They can see the work and comment on it, but the data stays with the client.
THURSDAY · OCT 22 · 100% COMPLETE
Upper Hypertrophy and Tempo Run
COACH · 7:42 PM
Full day landed. Third week in a row with the tempo run. Next week we add one set to lateral raise and hold everything else.
YOU · 8:15 PM
Felt strong. The last set of flyes was the only grind.
The coach can comment. The coach cannot edit, export or take the data.
06
Honesty is printed on the product
Every surface states what it does and what it does not do. The demo says it is a demo. The app footer states where taps are saved and where they sync. No dark patterns, no implied magic.
09 · THE DELIVERY IS DESIGNED TOO
Shipping it meant designing the handoff.
1
Start Here
The guide, the app link and a first win in your first five minutes.
2
AI and Automations
The master prompt that teaches Claude how your setup works.
3
InBody Scans
Drop your body scans here. They are filed by date.
4
Trainer Plans
Where a coach’s plan lands, ready to load.
5
Progress Photos
Dated photos, kept next to the numbers they back up.
6
End of Year
Where your Year in Review shows up each December.
Buyers receive a structured Google Drive package: one Start Here door, a master prompt that teaches Claude their setup in about 45 minutes, and folders named for the job they do. Beta testers get a frozen, version-stamped copy with all personal data scrubbed, and duplicate it into their own account. Distribution was designed, not improvised.
10 · IMPACT SO FAR
Run on its own designer since September.
YOUR YEAR IN REVIEW
Your year in training.
Every December, built from your own logged work. These are the designer’s own numbers.
19
workouts
35.2
miles run
564
minutes trained
18
training days
5
day best streak
5
workouts in the biggest week
Nothing typed in by hand. Every number comes from work you logged.
Sample window Sep 13 to Oct 6, 2026, from my own tracker, every number computed from logged work. Three lifters are testing it now. No coach has started yet, and nobody has timed the setup walkthrough, so there is no setup time on this page. Every user gets a Year in Review each December, generated from their own data. Priced once against apps and platforms that bill every month, which works because you own the data and there is no platform cost to pass on.
11 · WHAT IS NEXT
Beta feedback is driving the next iteration now. A coach’s edition, built around the completion data coaches actually read, follows in January.
THE BUILDER
I’m a dad of two who wakes up at 5 AM to train before the house is up. I built the fitness system I couldn’t find: one tap per set, nothing to rent, and a finished day that feels finished.
Sharone Poole, @nowobserving.
Launches Thursday, December 3, 2026.
A sample week anyone can tap through. It runs on your phone and reports nothing.
Try the live demo
Sharone Poole, Product Design