Experiences with Zoe

[MrsLeBon2]

I’m thinking about signing up to the Zoe app. I’m a ‘normal’ weight though at the top end but with a lot of bloating/flab and I’d like to find out more about how I react to food to I can try and minimize the menopause weight gain. It’s pretty pricy but wondering if it’s worth it?

I agree notadryeye. The advice is clear and out there - you really don’t gain anything of significant value by paying for it.

The customer service is terrible, the food logging way behind MFP and the recipes aren’t great, I find them repetitive and not searchable. Unless you are new to health and fitness, save your money. Plus the blood sugar and ‘low gi’ stuff was has been around years.

I am using it and so far really worth it! I have lost weight but my main concern is to not become diabetic like my father. I am eating more then before, feeling more energetic and I now finally understand how my body is reacting to different foods✔️I have recommended it to all my family as getting healthier is the most important priority right now.
It’s expensive?yes but totally worth it to get a personalised and professional experience!
If you want to try it here is 10% off link https://joinzoe.mention-me.com/m/ol/vm3rk-a7956d5f46

Hi, I've got a referral code for 10% off Zoe if anyone wants it. I think it can only be used three times x

I'm in my second month and I'm finding it helpful. A lot of the information has been around for ages but some of it is only starting to stick now I'm doing Zoe and I've made a few minor changes to my diet that have helped. I am eating less bread which gave me sugar spikes and combining fats and carbs differently. Zoe is expensive and there might be other options available but it has given me the push I wanted to improve my diet, and I've lost weight even though that wasn't one of my aims.

Test day for me today. Cookies weren't great I agree. Interested to see the results.

I'm about to start it and so looking forward to it! Really hope it works for me.

Here's my 10% off code if anyone is looking to join:

Hate Zoe. Joined in Sept last year. Thought it was a waste of money with piss poor customer service. Decided to cancel the membership in October. Email to confirm that the membership was cancelled and access to the app stopped- however the bastards still kept on taking monthly payments months later - emails and app messages not dealt with and no refunds either.

I have just had to raise a dispute with my Bank to resolve and stop the bastards from taking the money each month which is trickier as the payments are not a DD which can be cancelled but are classed as subscriptions which is a complete ballache to resolve.

Emperor’s new clothes - advice is easily available and not very tailored to the individual.

I’m feeling really disillusioned with all this healthy lifestyle advice now. Gut health, how you eat book, etc … I already ate fairly healthy food (from scratch cooking, varied diet, no ready meals) and all this effort made bugger all difference for me. Still overweight and willpower is key, not what I eat.

Unless you eat a lot of UPF I don’t think these specific diets will make much discernible difference. Perhaps if you’re an athlete tweaking your diet for marginal gains it is worth doing… but normal people don’t need to worry- it just makes you obsessive. If you want to be healthy, eat moderate amounts of fresh food, try to minimise UPFs and move more!

I used to be obsessed with the Rangan Chatterjee podcast but I’m becoming so disillusioned with all this “latest research “ advice from so called experts … only this morning did I see a report debunking the myth that blue light is harmful to us and that those expensive filter glasses (which lifestyle experts promote) are useless.

I think the intentions start out well (especially Zoe, as I really do believe in his passion) but the evidence just isn’t there that it will make a difference at a big enough scale to justify. Can they really admit if it only makes a marginal difference when there are investors to satisfy? What about the harm which continual monitoring and control causes (disordered eating)?

Hello, I used a 10% promo code from this forum and returning the favour- here is my link for 10%. I am starting in March
https://joinzoe.mention-me.com/m/ol/gd7mx-8a554a8b67

I actually quite like Tim Spector and his heart does seem to be in the right place but you can't sell a solution to something unless you create a problem which I do believe he's done knowingly or unknowingly.

I also used a code from here and would like to pay it forward, so if anyone needs one: https://joinzoe.mention-me.com/m/ol/gy9gw-b41b1bb6ad

It’s like anything - if it motivates you and you stick with it then it’s probably worth while!
I know people who swear by WW or Slimming world and others shingles it off and say Just do it yourself.
If it was that easy though…

I've done Zoe and my scores have all come back terrible. I'm not particularly surprised as my husband does all our cooking/food ordering/kitchen clean up (I do literally everything else) and it's been a constant nag-battle to gently remind him to include more veg. It had improved to a point where I thought it was borderline ok but it actually isn't.

The main problem I have with Zoe is that neither of us have time to home cook breakfasts and lunches, and with no car and living in a village, food comes from the supermarket delivery once a week. A lot of the food recommendations are VERY expensive (avocados, almonds), which we can afford but hmm. Husband doesn't like doing ready-meals (nor me really) but hates planning and is more a 'what shall I make tonight' cook, which doesn't fit Zoe really when there's so much more cooking needed. The recommended recipes are complex, and ask for ingredients e.g., a couple of tablespoons of things that are quite exotic and don't keep well. There are more sensible things too, and you can filter by 30mins prep, but it's not very helpful and I found it pretty discouraging - if you're an upper-middle-class person living in a town or city and have plenty of free time, fine. But even though we're more than comfortably off we don't fit that model and it doesn't feel like it's for us.

I've used Zoe for 4 months and did like it but find it too expensive to carry on.. I just copied all the foods that in theory are good for me so I can follow the advice. I do a ketogenic diet so I do cook everything from scratch, for me it's normal and not a big effort, but I'm curious if other people get similar recommendations to me.. for example some of my top foods are avocado, broccoli, all sorts of nuts, salmon, beans and cheese. My "bad" foods are lamb, pork and anything processed or sugary (which I don't eat anyway, I don't eat any sugar or carbs).

Although logging foods was hard work i think it's encouraging to see you are doing it "right" and it did help me. I wish I could continue..

I strongly suspect processed foods and sugar and red meet show up as bad for everyone.

And fruit veg nuts are good for everyone...

It didn't help me much, or only a bit. As I suspected the test scored were really bad for both sugar and fat but great for the gut, because I'm vegetarian. That was kind of interesting but the scoring programme was really annoying and clunky, and the customer service was both slow and to be honest crap. Like if you had a question they were just really keen to go on about how great the Zoe method is but it didn't help with the actual question. What I could eat was no good with a family to plan for either unless you are super super organised.

Honestly the scores for some foods made me feel like a freak which is not helpful as I already feel a bit like a freak, being fat and you had to predict what a meal score would do for a day score as it would suddenly drop down if too much fat over the day (but there's no way to predict without planning every meal in advance).

I think it must be great if you're a meat eater who eats loads of UPF and will seem like a miracle, but I never have eaten that crap really so it was just depressing tbh, and I hate anything that won't admit any flaws whatsoever, it just adds to the feeling of Emperor's New Clothes.

I don't follow its advice 100%, I do eat red meat and I think it's really good for us, don't really think that score is correct, but then I wasn't sure if it was just for me because of the tests or it's generic for everyone. For me the sugar test was pointless... I haven't eaten sugar in 5 years so the cookies spiked my levels and made it look terrible, when in fact it's the opposite. My fat test was very good (my diet is 85% fat). The app was happy with this as long as it was "good" fat.

I used a discount code from this forum so I am returning the favour:
https://joinzoe.mention-me.com/m/ol/vm3rk-a7956d5f46

Test day for me. Interesting to read everyone's experiences, good, bad and indifferent.

I've signed up for a year with the goal of changing my eating habits over time and maintaining them as my new normal. I want to lose weight and improve my gut health as I have a slow gut transit time and have suffered for years with chronic constipation. I know what I need to do but find it hard to stay on track consistently.

I think it's great if you can do it for a year, best of luck!

I'm 3 weeks in and really enjoying it. I lost 1.5 stone last year by cutting out UPF and lowering carbs, but had got off track a bit.

I love all the logging, stats etc and the challenge of trying to keep my score in the dark green each day.

I think the fact that I'm paying for it makes me feel I should make the most of it!

I also find the breakdown of how much UPF I've eaten over a week really interesting - and surprising.

DH and I both did it, we've found it useful but I won't be renewing after the initial period, he's also started logging with nutracheck and finds that more useful now as it's integrated with fitness trackers and is a lot less expensive. He buys CGMs which he uses from time to time as well (his DM was T2 diabetic and he's probably prediabetic , he's intent on losing weight and improving that)

We've changed our eating a bit - lots more beans and pulses - and more consciously eating a bigger variety of plants. I'm finding it quite easy to get excellent for all metrics on the weekly summary, and am very gradually losing my bit of excess weight without feeling hungry which is what I'm aiming for - sustainable eating long term not a 'diet'.

It’s really changing my habits and making me think about what I am eating, why and I live the meal suggestions and goal
setting. I can see myself doing it for about 6 months then hopefully moving off and using free apps to track and be motivated.
But so far? Love it. And the monitoring caught my pre-diabetes.

Does anyone know if you buy a glucose monitor independently can you link it up to your Zoe account?
I did the initial testing at the end of August and would like to see how things have changed on that front.

It’s good to see a run of positive posts about Zoe. I have been doing it since early September and have lost over 2 stone in weight without too much difficulty.
I don’t think it’s perfect by any means but the Zoe system has helped me a lot

That's a really positive outcome, well done. I'm on an unofficial Zoe facebook group and no one has mentioned linking a sugar monitor to their account. Doesn't mean it can't be done though - you could ask the coaches.