Anyone just started the ZOE nutrition testing?

[SomethingNastyInTheBallPool]

I’ve started today — and only managed one out of the three breakfast muffins (ate two but one came straight back up!) Anyone else fallen at the first hurdle??

@LulooLemon , same for me, waiting for poo to get results. According to the FB group there is a delay at 1 lab. I've stopped recording what I eat on the app as I can't see who will ever look at it.

@redrobin75 Sorry you don't have your results either, but I'm kind of glad I'm not the only one. 🤣

Zoe chat person replied this afternoon and said I'd have them by the end of the week.

In my mind, Friday evening is the end of a working week. Maybe they'll come over the weekend? Let me know if you get yours!

I still haven't got my results. Everything is complete apart from the stool sample, I think if they'd have lost it they would have told me that. I have a message from them last week to say my results may be a few days late due to delays at one of their partner labs. They were due on Tues 14th so I messaged yesterday to ask for an update and no reply. I'm hoping soon.

@redredrobin75 I've just had a reply from them. They've had to send my sample off for resequencing as the first time it didn't reach their standards. It's been done now so hopefully not too long to wait.

@LulooLemon @redrobin75 reason for continuing to log some meals in the app is that as soon as you get your results, scores will pop up for all your recorded meals, so you’ll have a head start knowing how some of your current regular meals score

@Playfulpups , thanks for that, I will start again tomorrow!

Results are in. My goodness, so many pages to read.

I know I've paid for it, but I feel quite overawed that such an in-depth report has been written pertaining just to me.

I’m really disappointed so far. I can’t really see any details in the graphs from the sensor. I can’t compare peaks or tell really how high they go. It feels like they have all my data and I have none of it.

Yay @LulooLemon - glad you've got your results!

@Drsazmac that's a shame you feel disappointed. I won't sign up past the 4 months I don't think as it's sort of making me eat in a way I don't want to

That probably sounds weird. But I'll explain if you have the slightest bit of interest 😀

@Drsazmac Which stage are you at in the programme? Are you still wearing the glucose monitor? If so, scan more frequently then you'll see the peaks more easily on the Libre app.

@BatFaceOwl I've now digested the info and am beginning to put their suggestions into place. I'm intrigued about your comment. Hope you're feeling ok. x

For anyone who's interested, I apparently have moderately poor fat control and borderline poor sugar control (boo) but (dances with excitement here!) EXCELLENT gut microbiome.

This translates to celery and watercress being my friends and bread/pasta/potatoes/rice/meat being my foes. Oh and spam is one of my listed gut suppressors. 🤣

I might start a new thread: Learning to live without spam.

@LulooLemon well, this may only make sense in my own mind but I'll give it a go!

So I follow the Louise Parker method as a diet. Works very well for me (err when I stick to it!) and it's - put simply - a diet that consists of whole foods, no pasta, no sugar. Lots of green yogurt, berries, veg, etc etc

Anyway I've sort of muddled it in my mind with Zoe and I've found I'm trying to eat to two plans almost

So, a go to lunch meal for me might be a fresh seeded sourdough sandwich filled with halloumi or goats cheese or plant kitchen bacon with loads of salad and a can of kombucha. That's a typical filling lunch with a good balance of fats and salad veg

When I put it into Zoe though - I'm scoring low due to the cheese and the sourdough BUT I can bring this up by adding in a handful of nuts and avocado maybe

But by doing this - my score with Zoe goes to say, 80, which is good BUT my calories significantly increase

So I think what I'm saying is I don't particularly like that to 'bring a meal up to Zoe standards' you need to add calorific stuff that you wouldn't normally

Great if you don't have a weight problem but as a tubby size 14, I definitely do need to drop a stone or two!

So part of me is now accepting that Zoe is just plain old common sense and I can now see how getting hung up on a bowl of porridge being 'bad' for you is perhaps not a good thing - although of course I understand that they're not actually saying this. It's just very easy to start taking it all very literally and before you know it, you're fretting over balsamic vinegar and thinking you just 'balance it out' with loads of rocket or something

So I've paid for the 4 months in one block and I'm really glad I did it as it's interesting and useful .. but I don't think I'd extend past the 4 months membership

Dunno if that made any sense at all?

Yes, that makes sense BatFace.

I think a lot of diet programmes probably work if they are followed. But I can see how it would be better to stick to one plan. Too many cooks spoiling the broth and all that.

I'm enjoying my Zoe insights and had poached salmon with a small baked sweet potato and tons of salad for dinner.

Interesting - I would like to hear how it’s making you eat in a different way to how you wanted.

im on day 3 so not far in yet. I just want tôlearn which whole foods are bettter for my blood sugar and give me less hungry crashes. I need to lose weight so I don’t want to start adding in millions of extra things. And I don’t want to eat meat or processed foods so it’s going to be a challenge I think.

And they have now sent me a csv file of my data which is great.

@Drsazmac have you joined Zoe as a member? That's the only way to see your personal scores etc

Yes I’ve joined as a member. I have started wearing the sensor and have done the tests. I just wanted to see the sensor data clearly.

@Drsazmac but have you had your results yet? If you're wearing your sensor then it would seem not?

That's when you actually see things properly - it's £59:99 a month or £135 for 4 months.

I'm so interested in your experience BatFace, thank you for sharing.

I would love to join Zoe, but have had to really cut expenditure this year so I just haven't been able to justify the cost at the moment. I've been listening to the podcasts and following the threads here closely though, and trying to apply the principles of blood sugar regulation to my own diet, wherever I can.

However, having been on top of my weight for a few years, and pretty confident that I've found a way of eating healthily that suits me (virtually no meat and no pasta, potatoes, rice or bread. Porridge and fruit - often blueberries - for breakfast) I've recently started to eat a lot more nuts and seeds a whole lot more peanut butter and dark chocolate than I ever have before. I've been trying to eat a savoury breakfast, which might be seeded bread and avocado/eggs, or seeded toast and peanut butter. I think I've put on about 4 or 5lb and my clothes feel tight! I'm not sure if this is because I'm applying vague principles without the personalised information that zoe would give me, or because the principles fly in the face of what I've found instinctively to suit me and keep my weight steady.

I don't know if making the investment (not easy atm) to join the programme would make everything much clearer and help me to establish a way of eating for long term health, or prove to be not worth the money for me as it's fundamentally at odds with how I want/need to eat.

@BeforetheFlood Sounds like your diet is pretty healthy at the moment. In your situation I might wait for the price of Zoe to drop as more competition becomes available!

Apparently the main benefit of the Zoe scheme is not in guiding people to consume ultra healthy food (kale) or to avoid ultra unhealthy things (party ring biscuits), but in that large section in the middle.

Individuals' personal response to carbs and fats varies enormously. Knowing where you stand on this IS useful.

Some people (me!) discover that neither carbs or fats are especially well processed. 😔🤣

It has been a revelation to know that raisins and dried cranberries are bad for my blood sugar. Likewise melon and mango. I had previously considered these to be healthy choices.

And pretty astonishing to learn that a bowl of nuts is a much better lunch option for me than a salad sandwich.

That's a very good point LulooLemon! I live in hope that the price will come down so the stakes won't seem so high.

I totally agree that the insight into your own personal response is invaluable. It's interesting that you mention raisins - they're something I'd started adding to my porridge with apple and cinnamon, thinking another plant item is good, but I might be doing myself a disservice!

It would be great to know whether the seeded bread and avocado I've been having for breakfast (on the basis that it won't cause a blood sugar spike) is really more beneficial than my previous oats, apple, skyr and blueberries, or whether it's just making me gain weight... I guess I'd need to join the programme and get more information to work with.

@BeforetheFlood , you can buy a blood sugar monitor from a chemist of Amazon and measure your blood sugar. You sound very well informed, I'm not sure what you would gain for the cost of Zoe. I'm also surprised at the knowledge base of the users, I do worry that the database of users isn't really reflective of the population as a whole.

@BeforetheFlood I have definitely found that its easy to get hung up on various aspects of it! Sometimes I just want a can of Diet Coke or a banana or mango .. I was incorporating the above into my usual plan and it was working well. Now I'm having to think about having a handful of nuts to offset the mango, for example, and I don't actually want to do that

I also quite often enjoy the kallo balsamic rice cakes with cottage cheese for lunch - well, that's a disaster score wise for me! Same with light cream cheese on sourdough

So I'm on the fence tbh. It's very useful and interesting but I can see how people will get hung up on it

Yeah, I definitely have the capacity to be a bit obsessive about these things BatFace. That's partly why I like a 'plan' - I love food and cooking, there's not much I don't enjoy so I find it helpful and interesting to choose foods that have health benefits as well as just being nice. Plus, I'm old enough now (mid 50s) to be more aware of the downsides of eating delicious high-fat, high carb foods (immediate bloating and stomach pain, uncomfortable weight gain in the longer term) so it mostly makes it fairly easy to make 'healthier' choices.

What intrigued me about zoe was the discovery that things I thought were the healthy options, like porridge and blueberries for breakfast might actually be contributing to the kind of long term issues I'm trying to avoid. But I think the kind of bartering and offsetting that you've also described isn't doing me any favours, either physically or mentally!

Sorry for the thread hijack (especially as I'm not on the zoe programme!) and thank you for your replies and insight. Will definitely look into blood sugar monitors on Amazon, redrobin, thank you!