Zoe Nutrition Testing

[Wombat27A]

Not sure this is the right place for this...

Anyone else doing the Zoe Nutrition Testing?

My results were poor, so now I'm tackling my diet. I thought it was pretty good but it's clear it needs a major overhaul. So much information but finding it good.🙂

The ultra-thin DH got really bad stomach/gut pain last year. He was eating too much raw stuff, not really a health thing, more he couldn't be asked to cook his oats and I think he just overwhelmed his gut and got bunged up. Took ages to sort.

If you think that the laxative he had to resort to was a long-chain sugar, it makes sense that a higher fat/sugar diet is more slippery! Sorry, I can't think of a better word at this time of the morning.

The other thing to think about is that the results are personalised to you but based on the people they actually gave food to in controlled environments. So it might be that some stuff, whilst good on paper, won't suit you in real life.

Maybe dial back on the foods you know are making you uncomfortable now and calm everything down, then reintroduce them in more progressive quanities?

I was on a nutrition seminar thingie a few years ago with a fitness bloke and he said something similar about bread and intolerances. It's about finding your own tolerance level to things.

One of the benefits for me is an end to calorie counting as they don't take into account my biology- and I am convinced now that's right as I have religiously worked with calories for years to no avail. I also didn't go into my usual spiral post a treat meal- went out with DH this week and although I made what I thought were good choices the end result - which did include wine TBF- were lower than I hoped. But the graph for the week and averaging out gave me a boost not to compound a bit of naughtiness by even more so maybe I am cracking my all or nothing pattern of behaviour. NSV my waist is definitely more defined.

Ate some ice-cream last night at the cinema, just 1 scoop. CGM rocketed to 13.9 then an hour later crashed to 3.4. Yikes!

Doing the blood sugar challenges now, so today is a plain bagel, tomorrow is just bacon. Then Monday a lovely treat of bagel AND bacon

Just finished day 4's 2× muffins. I decided, since I found it so hard to eat them all yesterday, to add some of my black coffee to them after m/waving for 40 secs to make them really warm and soft. A revelation - it made them so much easier to eat - reminiscent of tiramisu!! If I'd known this when I had to eat 3 of the b***s I'm sure I'd have been able to stomach them all.

Can I just suggest, if anyone hasn't done it before, that they get a NHS HbA1c test so they know whether they are currently in normal blood sugar range? This test takes a long, 3 month view of glucose levels, unlike the CG Monitor. I discovered I was prediabetic 4 years ago when the A1c was included in a routine bloods and was really shocked as I was lean and fit. It kicked me off to buy a blood glucose monitor and go on a low carb diet. I'm hoping the ZOE tests will give me new insights into controlling my blood sugar since the low carb diet has not had any effect on my A1c despite starving me of all the food treats. 😥

Bacon? Bacon??

Why did I pick cheese? Ha, probably too lazy to go buy bacon. 🥓😁🧀👌

Enjoy. Have plenty of liquid with it

If you think that the laxative he had to resort to was a long-chain sugar, it makes sense that a higher fat/sugar diet is more slippery! Sorry, I can't think of a better word at this time of the morning.

No, now I’m eating more rubbish the last few days (not loads - few Burger King chips, crappy choc, egg and cress sandwich at a service station) I am much happier bowel wise 😁 usually (when I would never eat the above and mainly salads for lunch) I have to run to the loo (birth injury) and this got worse plus gas during Zoe. So actually a bit happier at the mo eating more carbs. But my actual results tell me I shouldn’t eat like that because of glucose/fat/biome. But you’re right, I’ll try more cooked veggies and less salad!

The monitor gave me a longer range measure too, I think. Forgive me being vague, my memory is shot. 🙄

I'm pretty sure you can have genetic issues with blood sugar, like you can with cholesterol. My cholesterol is over 8 & has been for 30 years, regardless of how much I fiddle with my food.

I'll have a wee Google.

One of the reasons I'm doing this is because once you exhaust all the traditional advice, then it's really tackling the margins. And they are super-fine...

No, I was agreeing with you. The sugars stimulate the gut? Or feed the microbes?

For some people a low-fibre diet is more comfortable on the gut, especially if you have bowel muscle tone laxity.

My sister has ibs & they used to say take high fibre supplements but they made it much worse.

Ahh I see. I was thinking a stimulated/fed gut would = overdrive rather than happier. But no you’re right, the calmer gut makes perfect sense actually.

Lots of messages today - nice great when I woke up 

I've got IBS and found it much better when I eat 30-35g of fibre a day but it gets worse over that. I started eating a lot more diverse plant foods last year and it's certainly helped even when my diet hasn't been plant rich. Like this week - dire. I was craving vegetables yesterday but none to be had.

Does anyone know whether you can log food in the app before you start Zoe 201? I'd like to play next week but definitely didn't want to start before my holiday - camping and MIL cooking will not be a happy combination on that front! But I want to get my head in the right place.

I like the bacon thinking @BarryKentPoet

@chutneypig I've been logging my meals from the start, before I was asked to. I also keep a paper copy of my meals/times/glucose levels for myself to spot patterns.

That's a good idea on the paper log, I did lose track although it's more visible now than it was.

@chutneypig I have been logging since the first post muffin day! Was really useful to see the retrospective scoring of my meals.

I had a yellow lunch and didn't freak out! It was funny, previously I'd have thought I was being healthy (fruit salad and a coffee) but obviously the fruit with nothing to 'clothe the carbs' triggered a glucose spike.

I need to ask chat re different brands of the same food having different scores - I am green for Bulgar wheat but there is a difference between tescos and a daylesford one which actually scores orange. Porridge oats the same.

We've gone a bit quiet so little bump.

Can I ask how people are doing with fibre? I am having upward of 7/8 portions of fruit and veg a day plus whole grain carbs and I am still nowhere close to 30g a day. 20 on a good day! More leafy greens and pulses needed?

I've just done the day 3 lunch muffins and they are so disgusting - my tongue feels sore.
How have other people got on with the customer service? I asked a question yesterday morning and still no reply (it was time sensitive about postponing the muffins)

@lugeforlife lPulses and beans give a good bump on fibre, avocados too.I've only just started tracking food again since the original two week period so haven't got a feel for how it goes in the app, just based that on past MFP experience.

@RetrainRetrain I don't remember having any issues with the lunch muffins, just that they felt easier than the breakfast ones. They did seem like an endurance event, I've not tried contacting help yet, but it sounded like others had quite variable experiences in response time.

I think they might be a bit overwhelmed.

Tim said in one of his covid videos that the nutrition testing was busier than they expected.

Definitely have a liquid, black coffee or tea with the muffins...

Yes I can see a drink other than water would help. My problem is I can't imagine tea or coffee without sugar so I skipped them for the first morning since I was pregnant - probably a sign I need to go sugar cold turkey!

I’ve been ever so quiet on here…partly on holiday but also waiting for test results. Got them back today…🫤
blood glucose control = poor
blood fat control = good
microbiome good vs bad bacteria = good
microbiome diversity = lowish

all in all I guess I’m not surprised. It’s a bit sobering though.

so I am good for cheese, avocado, nuts, plants obviously but carbs like rice, pasta and bread are to be limited.

Just 35gr of flaxseeds (which you need to eat grounded) will give 9.6 gr of fiber .
Just 100 gr of raspberries (frozen are fine) will give you 4.3 gr.
Add 20 gr of rolled oats which bring an additional 2g and you have more than 15gr of fiber in breakfast alone. Then if you are a coffee drinker, you get additional fiber from it.

Use a proper nutritional analysis website such as cronometer.com and you will soon be able to identify which foods work.

Which fruits/veg are you eating to be still so low on fiber?

Sounds very similar to mine @ladyandthechocolate. My gut feeling was that bread was off the agenda but I was still a bit disappointed to see it. I did have some oatcakes I like with peanut butter yesterday and they came up as eat regularly, so I'm searching for things like that at the moment. I've been making whole meal bread at the weekend and I'm hoping that will be similar 🤞I'm stocking up on avocados though! Did you get any favourite meals or snacks that were green?

Bread is mostly 0 for me, even when homemade but I'm doing the thing where you add lots of things to get the score up...

Or doing thin tortillas.

I've ditched rice. Added bulgar wheat.

Added nuts to my oats & seeds & fruit.

Probably still eating too much fruit to veg but small steps. 😁

@chutneypig some of my breakfasts are good- overnight oats ok even though oats are amber for me. My smoothie is good. It’s my evening meals and snacks that are less favourable. Rice is a 3 and pasta is a very low amber. Jacket potatoes are a 2! We base quite a few meals around these, quick and easy with slightly fussy DC. I need to do a bit of menu planning to work out some viable alternatives.

@MatchaTea so yesterday I had

Carrots, peppers, celery, courgette, tomatoes, nectarines, apple and raspberries.

I have a lot of avo, a lot of raspberries., my mum grows a lot of her own (fig season coming up!) so I eat fairly seasonally. I am not the biggest fan of root veg and love salad so maybe too many watery ones.

I'll pick up some flax seeds thank you.