Name: Joshua Hee
Age: 26
Occupation: Co-founder of Bion and Content Creator
Status: Attached
Food: I’m not on anything fancy – I just try to eat like someone who lifts and wants to live long enough to enjoy the gains. On the macro side, my main non-negotiable is protein. I aim for at least 150g of protein a day, which works out to roughly 0.8 to 1g per pound of bodyweight for me at 75kg. That falls within the usual range recommended for people who lift and want to build or maintain muscle (around 1.2 to 2.0g per kg).
Carbs and fats are both still in the picture. I don’t cut fats, because healthy fats are important for hormones, brain function, cell membranes and absorbing vitamins A, D, E and K. Carbs are mainly my training fuel, especially around heavy sessions and runs.
Day to day, my meals are very Singaporean: lots of mixed rice from the food court – I’ll build a plate around protein (fish, chicken, tofu) plus a couple of veggie sides and then I rotate in meal prep from companies like Nutrify (not sponsored) when I want life to be brainless and higher-protein.
Big picture: I’m not perfect. I still enjoy my suppers and desserts. But my rule of thumb is: hit my protein, get in plants, don’t abuse my body with sugar all day, and let the fun foods live around that.
Exercise: Right now I’m on a push–pull–legs split, with a bit of hybrid flavour. A typical week looks like:
Push – chest, shoulders, triceps
Pull – back, biceps, rear delts
Legs – quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves
Then repeat that across the week with one proper rest day or light active recovery. I build most days around compound lifts – presses, rows, squats, hinges – then finish with accessories to clean up weak points.
Since training for HYROX, I’ve also added in 1 to 2 runs a week, usually around 5km. I try!
Were you active as a child?
My main sport was ultimate frisbee. I loved the idea that you could send this disc flying across the field and somehow still meet it at the other end. There were some pretty epic layouts and long-bomb catches in school – at least in my memory. I played competitively between schools in secondary school, and a fair bit in polytechnic too.
Eventually studies, projects and life started piling up, so I stopped competing. Around that time I discovered bodybuilding and resistance training, and that became my anchor. On and off, I also joined dragon boating recreationally, which was a nice combo of team sport and pure suffering for the lats and legs.
What did you get into as you got older?
As I got older, I gravitated towards training that builds muscle and protects my joints, thus mainly bodybuilding and resistance training. At first it was very honest – I just wanted to fill out T-shirts. Over time, it became more about long-term health: strength, bone density, and keeping my body useful as I age.
There’s a lot of research now showing that resistance training and muscle mass are tied to better longevity, lower risk of chronic disease, and even better insulin sensitivity. So these days I see lifting as part aesthetics, part therapy, part future insurance.
What got you into HYROX?
Honestly, I got baited by a buddy. A buddy of mine had already signed up for HYROX, his original partner tore his ACL, and he asked if I could step in. That’s how the whole thing started – not from some heroic ‘I need a new challenge’ moment, but a very simple, ‘Bro, can help or not?’
HYROX is basically 8 x 1km runs with 8 functional workout stations in between – things like sled pushes, lunges, rowing, wall balls. It’s brutal in a very humbling way, especially if you come from pure bodybuilding.
That first training block was rough, but it woke me up. I liked how it forced me to be a bit more well-rounded – not just strong in the mirror, but able to move, breathe and keep going when my legs are screaming. Now it’s something I actually enjoy weaving into my year.
What made you decide to start your own fitness app?
I took a pretty winding route here. I started in technology consulting doing project management, moved to a crypto exchange, and eventually landed in a bank doing financial advisory. On paper, it was the “right” path – decent pay, good CV, clear ladder.
But I realised pretty quickly: if money is the only reason you’re doing a job, it eventually stops being enough. I could feel myself checking out mentally.
In the beginning, my cofounder and I did a stint at a venture capital internship, where we saw the other side of the table – evaluating startups, understanding markets, and how investors think. Before that, we had already pitched a rent-to-own homeownership model to NTU’s School of Computer Science & Engineering, so building things wasn’t new to us. We always knew that at some point, we wanted to be the ones building, not just observing.
The actual spark for Bion came from our own training. Both of us were lifting consistently, but we felt like we’d plateaued. We hired a PT, and he used an app to track our progress… which was great until our PT package ended – and with it, our access to the app and all of our data disappeared.
We tried other tracking apps, but everything either: felt like updating an Excel sheet, or was locked behind a specific coach or programme. There was no app that made tracking your progress feel fun, sticky, and truly yours. That was the gap we decided to go after.
So yes, we eventually left the safety of the bank and corporate world to build Bion. We saved up, worked out a runway, and decided that if we’re going to grind, we might as well grind on something we deeply care about.
Describe the app.
Bion is basically our attempt to make fitness progression feel like a game, not admin work. The name BION is also the framework:
B – Built like a game
You’re not just ticking boxes in a logbook. You’re levelling up a character – you. Think ranks, streaks, badges and milestones that show your effort over time, not in one perfect day.
I – Intelligent progression
We use data and AI to help answer the question every gym-goer has: ‘What should I do next?’ As you log your sessions, the app learns your patterns and nudges you with small, realistic progressions – extra reps, slight weight jumps, or tweaks to your split – instead of random guesswork.
O – Observable progress
The problem with training is that results are slow and subtle. Bion surfaces your wins: strength PRs, consistency streaks, volume trends, even how your current block compares to previous ones. You don’t have to wonder if you’re improving – you can see it.
N – Never alone
You train alongside friends and the wider Bion community. You can see each other’s sessions, milestones and streaks, so it feels less like grinding alone and more like levelling up together.
The big goal is simple: Help people stay consistent long enough for the science to work. If the app makes tracking feel fun and rewarding, you’re more likely to keep going – and if you keep going, the results will come.
When you were younger, did you experience any incidents that made you feel insecure about yourself?
I’ve always had a bit of people-pleaser energy. When I was younger, my self-worth was very tied to external validation. If people didn’t approve, laugh, or praise me, I took it as ‘I’m not enough’. So I’d overextend myself to keep the peace, say yes to things I didn’t want, and put my own needs last.
I’m still unlearning that now, to be honest. These days I’m a lot more intentional about who I care about impressing. My baseline is: ‘Would my family, my partner, and my future self be proud of this?’
That shift in focus – from ‘Do they like me?’ to ‘Do I like who I’m becoming?’ – has taken a lot of the insecurity out of the picture.
Have you gone through any adversities that changed how you viewed life?
In early 2025, I was diagnosed with depression. There were a few things happening at once: changes and uncertainty at work, feeling lost about my career trajectory, a relationship that was going through a rough patch and I wasn’t close to my family at the time.
It all piled up, and it felt like someone switched my internal lights off. What helped was a mix of things: Getting honest help (talking to professionals and people I trusted, instead of trying to out-willpower it), re-organising my definition of success (away from titles and income, towards: am I present with my family? Am I building something meaningful? Am I healthy enough to enjoy it?), leaning into movement and structure (lifting, sleep, basic routines; nothing groundbreaking, just boring consistency).
You always hear successful people talk about overcoming adversity by shrinking life down to what they can control: their habits, their attitude, the people they keep close. I basically copied that playbook, just at my own small scale.
If you’re reading this and going through something similar: please don’t be afraid to reach out for help.
When did you feel the least confident about yourself?
My lowest confidence phase was a mix of two seasons: being that skinny guy who felt invisible, and the depression period where I felt like I was failing at work, relationships and life at the same time.
I coped by doing more – working more, saying yes more – but it didn’t fix the root. I just ended up burnt out and still unhappy.
What actually rebuilt my confidence was:
- Bodybuilding – not just for looks, but for the feeling of getting stronger. Seeing the weight on the bar go up is very objective proof that you’re capable of change.
2) Keeping promises to myself – if I said I’d train, I trained. If I said I’d sleep earlier, I tried. That self-trust slowly snowballed.
3) Choosing my scoreboard – instead of chasing 100 different people’s approval, I focused on a few things: family, my partner, my health, and the work I’m building with Bion.
Muscle and strength actually do more than help with first impressions – they’re linked to better health, metabolism and even lower mortality risk. But beyond the science, it’s the psychological side that changed me: knowing I can do hard things, consistently, even when I don’t feel like it.
Confidence for me now is not ‘I think I’m perfect’. It’s ‘I’ve seen myself get back up enough times to know I will again.
Did you ever struggle with your body?
I’ve always been on the skinny side. For a long time I thought, ‘I just can’t gain weight, my metabolism is too fast.’ The truth was: I wasn’t eating enough, I wasn’t tracking anything, and my training didn’t have much structure.
It only started to change when I got more educated – watching guys like Jeff Nippard, Simeon Panda, Sam Sulek and learning the basics: eat consistently above maintenance calories, keep protein high, lift with progressive overload, and give it months and years, not days and weeks.
Once I treated it like a process instead of a wish, the scale finally started moving and my frame slowly filled out.
Are you satisfied with your body now?
I’m grateful for how far I’ve come, but I wouldn’t say I’m ‘done’. A hard goal I have is to hit 80kg while staying under 20% body fat. Will I be fully satisfied when I get there? Honestly, probably not – and I’ve made peace with that.
I think the danger is in obsession. If you’re never happy in your current skin, you can have your dream physique and still hate what you see. So for me, the focus is: enjoy the process, appreciate the current version of my body for what it can already do, and keep nudging towards better health and performance.
As long as I’m getting stronger, moving well, and my body lets me show up for the people I love and the work I’m building, I’m content – even while I’m chasing the next level.
