Zoe? Anyone joined? Thinking about it, but it’s expensive.

[AlviarinAesSedai]

With discussions about Ultra processed food. Anyone joined Zoe?
I listen to the podcast’s etc. Is it worth it? Or is better to just reduce junk food and eat real food?

Zoe is a good concept let down by software glitches and patchy customer service.
I followed instructions meticulously. Responder A acknowledged a "glitch' with the gut transit time flagging up as overdue after it had initially shown completed successfully, but then disappeared. Software glitches happen and she was polite and helpful. The prompt asked me to use the plus icon but this 'was not available on first day of testing' - so why show the prompt before the icon is available?
I waited as instructed for the prompt to activate the LibreLink. I followed the instructions carefully on the page I was taken too. It seems this was not the page Zoe intended and as a result the sensor results were not available to Zoe. Responder B wrote 'In relation to your sensor you have incorrectly logged in with your personal information and not the credentials provided by us'. In my brief experience Zoe software has too many glitches and customer service do not take adequately take responsibility for errors in the software but blame the user.

It depends heavily on what you want from it, and what sort of person you are I think.

It's not a magic bullet. It has software issues like pretty much any other app I've used. It's given me the key info I was missing (bad blood sugar control) on why other ways of eating always seemed so much harder for me than most people. I've had my results since September and it's def a work in progress for me to make incremental changes but so far, more energy, some weight loss and generally an improvement in low level health stuff.

It is expensive, if you're going to really miss
the money, maybe stick with the podcasts, they'll get you a good way of the way there.

You don't need Zoe if you want to reduce the % of your diet that is UPF.
There are lots of support groups that are into reducing UPF, you could join one of them for free.
The discussions & blogs I see about reducing UPF are very often irrational, illogical & ridiculous, but probably you can rise above & do it sensibly.

It could be that investment in Zoe would highly motivate you to make a consistent sustained effort, I do understand that being highly motivating for some people, and you could be one of them.

Or it may be that reducing UPF is just one benefit you hope to achieve, that Zoe is appealing to you for additional reasons, what else benefit do you think you'll get by paying for Zoe?

I’m sure I read an article saying it just tells you want type 1 diabetics have known for years.

I went through the questions and ticked the one about health but not including weight loss and the whole thing just kept telling me I could lose weight. Not going to join!

There are Facebook groups with Zoe members which you can join even if you are just interested. I found it helpful to see what people were saying about their experiences and understand more about the real experience. (Allowing for the fact that a lot of people get on quietly if things are going well for them so you probably see more people raising issues etc. than would be representative). Might be worth joining and browsing on there.

People seem to be getting revised gut scores recently which are often dramatically different due to new 'discoveries' with the science - has made me more wary of it to be honest - I think it's a work in progress - if things can change that dramatically in a short period of time. And also wonder how relevant to have a gut score is as bacteria in gut etc are constantly changing so one day it would be different from another.

There seems to be lot of weighing and recording and it is quite time consuming. It seems like a lot of people doing well with it are people with time on their hand - (retired/wealthy folk) - because of the cost to join and the time required (as well as perhaps its the stage when people are wanting to focus on what else they can do to improve health even more and they have time for it)

The fact they've teamed up with M&S to produce a yakult type drink released this year has also made me wonder about how scientific/independent they can be/remain if they are starting to produce products themselves which they will also be giving their Zoe followers a 'score' for.

Interesting idea. Seems to have helped a lot of people. But it does seem to come down to eating healthy, whole foods, plenty of nuts and seeds, protein, less sugar, little meat and including more fermented foods (kombucha/kefir etc). Would the weighing/scoring be something you have time for and would get into? I would start with cutting out junk and eating real foods as a start before committing due to the costs and the technical issues, plus it sounds like the science is evolving so not totally convinced it's quite a sound science/indvidualised as they promote yet.

I've found the Ultra-processed people book and other ultra-processed podcasts quite motivating without the need to pay the Zoe charge!