ZOE NUTRITION NEW THREAD- anyone want to join in?

[LisaLovedUp]

I've started a new thread as my previous one was titled for techie stuff.
If anyone is fairly new to this please join in and we can share!

I am now on Day 4. All tests done and now recording my food each day. It takes me ages as my phone is slow (needs replacing) and some things I eat aren't listed (it relies a lot on packaged foods.)

eg yesterday I made a veggie curry and the only options were branded readymade ones so I just had to pick one I felt was close enough, rather than itemise every veggie in the one I made.

I noticed this as some 'negative' feedback on another platform.

Has everyone/anyone done the advanced health questionnaire? I started it but gave up. I felt it was more for their data gathering (which is fine to an extent) but also very intrusive and I didn't want to give my personal medical history when it may not be 100% safe from hackers.

I'm going to feedback on this to them.

My blood sugar readings so far are in the 4 - 5.4 range mainly although on a couple of mornings it was below 4. The highest was 7.3 after a sweet dessert ( a one-off for me - out with friends) plus ice cream.

Any tips from more experienced users welcome!

Yep that's it

So, if you don't process fats well and your blood sugar control isn't great either, your only solution really is to not eat the foods that trigger it

But there's some good news for me!

I can eat unlimited amounts of kale and spinach so it's not all bad

Don't despair - the key is getting the good gut microbes - you can achieve that with diet. Just follow the lessons, start including more pre- and pro- biotics in your diet, add at least one of your gut boosting foods into your meals every day - more if you can.

@DianeBrewster thank you. I'll do that. I think it was more seeing it in black and white that shocked me.

Wondered if I'd actually wake up this morning tbh

Symps, @BatFaceOwl . I, too,
am destined for a life of kale.

@DianeBrewster Don't despair - the key is getting the good gut microbes

Do you think that is you improve gut microbes then responses to sugar and fat will improve?

@BatFaceOwl

How was your spinach flakes with kale milk breakfast this morning?

Sorry, I'm not mickey taking. I'm just preparing myself for my own results which will come in any time now.

Could you tell your blood sugar control wasn’t good from the monitoring?

I’ve had a number of low glucose episodes over the last couple of days where the line has gone red as my score was lower than 3.8. There were several times that happened overnight last night. Wondering what that means!

Am 48 and perimenopausal so it’s probably that I guess. Everything seems to be linked to that! :-(

@pistachioicecream I had that overnight a couple of times too.

@LulooLemon fascinating isn’t it? Wonder if this is the future - permanent wearables tracking real-time health data? I could become obsessed though and that’s probably not that healthy 😂

No doubt about it for me. It is a well documented fact that type 2 diabetes can be reversed using diet, which is effectively about sugar handling. We also know that identical twins, with the same genes, can have very different gut biomes and, as a result, can have very different medical outcomes relating to health and disease. We also know that dietary inflammation is a key factor in many diseases, from both sugar and fat.

I have "bad" fat control. I also have almost TEN times the amount of one particular bad bug (clostridium lepton) than the population average. This bug is highly associated with visceral fat. I also have high levels of one other bad bug (ruthenibacterium lactatiformans) yep, another associated with high fat. Looking at the good bugs I'm missing.... it's many of the ones associated with good fat handing 🤷🏼‍♀️

The book "Fibre Fuelled" by Dr Will Bulsiewicz (he's a US Zoe advisor) is fascinating - and cites many of the studies which underpin his, and Zoe's, views.

I was really worried as I had to have a course of penicillin recently for dental issues which REALLY messed with my gut. I was bloated, gassy, constipated, put weight back on (really swiftly, no wonder they feed ABs to cattle!), thought I might have undone months of good work. I kept on with eating according to the Zoe guidelines. I would say I FELT back to normal within 3 weeks of finishing the ABs, and my weight returned to pre AB level. Now, a month later, I'm losing again. The fat around my waist is slowly going, my waist;height ratio is finally in the normal range. I was pretty surprised not by how quickly my gut microbiome was affected by the ABs, but by the speed of recovery. My diet was consistent throughout.
At some point they are going to offer a gut retest - I will bite their hand off to get that done, it should be fascinating.

In my mind, I'd like to follow whatever advice comes my way from Zoe 😇 then repeat all of their tests in a year's time.

I'm feeling twitchy about my results. I keep checking my emails to see if they are in. But when the email does come, I probably shan't want to open it. 😲🤣

Knowledge is power, @LulooLemon !

@pistachioicecream I could
tell from the graphs that my blood sugar was all over the place, so it wasn’t a surprise to have it confirmed.

Ha you're not far off with the kale for breakfast!

I've settled on ..

Full fat greek yogurt
Chopped pear
Passion fruit
Linseeds and chia seeds
Small handful of mixed nuts

Gives me a Zoe score of 89 which I think is excellent (as in, I personally don't feel that - that's what it scores )

The above is a normal breakfast for me really so that's fine

Currently on 78 for the day after lunch. Alas, I couldn't just exist on a bowl of kale so had rye bread with hummus, salad, bowl of cherries and a glass of kefir

Probably won't eat the M&S yum nut in my cupboard

Can you briefly describe that the scores are for Batface/anyone?

@LulooLemon I'll explain this badly but hopefully you'll get the gist!

So all foods have a score of between 0-100, with 100 being the very best for you across the board - so it's excellent for your blood sugar , blood fat and gut biome. And these scores will vary from person to person.

So, for me, a banana for example scores 38 and I'm advised to enjoy it 'in moderation' .. so if I logged a banana as a snack, I'd get my score of 38

However, if I also add in a handful of say, Brazil nuts, I can bring this snack score right up because, for me, Brazil nuts are a 95 scoring food and one I can 'enjoy freely'

So my snack would be over 50 I should think as I've done some 'clever' combining.

Watermelon for me scores 2. That's very bad. Cherries however are 87. Avocado for me is 95 so excellent. A lot of cheeses are surprisingly high scoring along with passion fruits, oranges, all nuts and seeds .. you get the gist (I'm vegan - ish! - so not really looked at the meat and fish scores yet

So combining is key. I can enjoy the watermelon from time to time on it's own but it would 'drag' my daily score down - and Zoe start you off with asking you to aim for a 50+ scoring few days , increasing this to 60+ etc

But I could add rocket to the watermelon (a 100 good for me) , some pine nuts (98) and suddenly, my snack is balanced and better for my individual biology

Does that make any sense at all? 😀

Beautifully explained Batface, many thanks.

The watermelon surprises me as I've always looked upon it as a healthy low calorie fruit, high in water and vitamins. But I suppose it doesn't have much fibre, does it.

Can't wait for my own results!

That's the thing though - watermelon might actually be brilliant for YOU but not Batface. For me it's 31 - I guess my blood sugar handing is better than hers. So I can easily incorporate it into a healthy meal.

The scoring really is personalised - I shared a chocolate muffin recipe on the facebook group that scores highly for me - in the 80's - and seems to score highly for many people - but one poor woman had it score in the 30's, so not a great "goto" treat for her.

The recipe was basically this without the maple syrup BTW (I used prunes instead as they score well for me) and is ridiculously filling and delicious (you can use kidney beans instead of black beans).

www.mysugarfreekitchen.com/black-bean-chocolate-cake/

Ooh, that's a yummy looking cake @DianeBrewster

Another thing I've just realised. Only a small thing but worth mentioning for when everyone has their results

So yesterday was day 1 for me on the Zoe plan and I logged 10 plants (with the aim as we know of being 30 a week, all different)

I've just made a smoothie for breakfast with spinach, berries, pear etc etc and it's only logged me as having 1 plant which I was initially surprised at

But now I realise it'll only count the new plants that you have - so I didn't have spinach yesterday so it'll count that today but I did have berries and a pear yesterday too, so they're not included

When are your results due @LulooLemon ?

@DianeBrewster that cake does indeed look delicious. But then, I've never met a cake I don't like. Oh once actually - coffee and walnut. Just no

I'm also not keen on coffee in a cake - so I left it out of this one. It's a really flexible recipe- I did it in silicone muffin moulds - easier to portion - and it's quite brownie-like. The use of beans is a total revelation! I don't have a big sweet tooth, so most cake is really too sweet for me, and this is much easier for me to get a sweetness level that feels right.

My results are due on the 14th BatFace, but people have mentioned how theirs arrived earlier than predicted, so I've been hopeful mine might too

Interesting about the plants. So an apple each day for a week only counts as one plant. 😳

I'm not keen on coffee on cakes either, but your recipe Diane said you could use vanilla instead.

Lots of snow here. ⛄️

@LulooLemon any day for you then, probably today. Mine were due on the 13th March