An Honest Review of ZOE
The ZOE nutrition app promises to “improve your health with at-home tests, personalized food scores, and expert nutrition advice. Thrive with ZOE's science-backed program.” But does it actually work? I’ve been asked for my take on ZOE, by clients and friends (some who have done it themselves). In the spirit of scientific research, I signed up for it myself. Here’s what happened:
Usually the ZOE bundle is £299 but I managed to get it on special in July at £149 (as ZOE were about to launch a new product). Yes, I did pay for it, so am writing this from a very honest and unbiased viewpoint. They made it easy to order from their website, of course they did! Due to the special offer, I waited around a fortnight for the arrival. In the meantime, I did as instructed and installed the ZOE app.
The Big Arrival
Sent by DPD courier, an impressive yellow box arrives at my door. I open it to find four smaller yellow boxes within and an instruction to scan the barcode with my Zoe app. Suddenly the app came to life and asked me when my next free day was. I always take Fridays to do admin and catch up on the week, so I set August 1st as my start date… I then had to fill in my profile, that took about 15 minutes, and wait until the big day.
The morning before my Zoe day, I was granted access to the Zoe community on the app, where everyone seemed to be discussing the blue biscuits. “Interesting” I thought, “it sounds a bit like Alice in Wonderland.” My phone was pinging with Community forum notifications all day. I started to ignore them, maybe the forum (that I don’t remember signing up for) will be useful on Day 1.
The Night Before
The Zoe app instructed me to apply the continual blood glucose sensor and test it. The first of the yellow boxes was opened to reveal a kit. The Zoe app guided me through, the only confusing bit was setting up the profile with Libre, the blood sugar monitoring system. I was dreading the application of the sensor, imagining it to have a sharp needle. I did feel something as I put it on to the back of my arm, and added the protective Zoe-branded dressing on. I’m now a walking advert for Zoe.
The positive is that I enjoyed seeing what my blood glucose levels did as I ate my chippy supper (a Thursday treat). Not much actually. I’ve wanted to try a ‘continuous blood glucose monitor’ (CGM) since I saw one on a Type 1 diabetic client. Fascinating stuff to see how the body responds to certain foods.
In the past I’ve experimented with finger prick testing, which was good 15 years ago. CGM really is a useful technological innovation, and one of the big reasons I wanted to try Zoe. So I’m happy and I haven’t even eaten the mythical blue cookies. That’s for tomorrow.
Testing Day
I wake excited for test day. What will I discover about myself today? Breakfast is two big white chocolate cookies, a bit like the ones from M & S. I am always hungry in the morning, and the app tells me I have 20 minutes to eat them. Easy. Well, kind of, they’re very fatty (40g of fat), sweet and carby (650 calories and 70 grams carbohydrate), so even though it only takes 8 minutes I feel queasy afterwards. It’s a good thing it’s followed with a 4 hour fast.
I use the time to check in with the community forum where some poor soul had managed to get the blood sugar monitor needle stuck in her arm. My CGM was working fine and showed a sugar peak at 8.4, then a drop back down. After writing loads of this blog, then losing it and having to retype I decide to splash out on a black coffee (water, black tea and coffee is allowed). It’s 2 hours until the next cookies and the CGM is showing 4.3 and ‘going low’. What will a black coffee do? Let’s find out..
30 minutes later
My first revelation is that a plain black coffee doesn’t immediately tank blood sugar levels. I’m steady at 4.3. It does make me feel hungry though, just in time to eat the fabled BLUE COOKIES! I’m imagining Cookie Monster getting excited about cookies, to motivate me to eat the biscuits…
Blue Biscuit time!
The idea of the bloo is to see how long it takes to get to the loo - you log when you do a bloo poo to check your transit time. ‘Transit time’ sounds like a public transport concept, but it’s actually how long it take you to digest and eliminate food.
The blue cookie’s main ingredient is a flour blend, whereas the main ingredient in brekkie biscuits was white chocolate. So it appears lunch is more carb, whereas breakfast was fat.
Here goes for my weirdest lunch ever…
“Best not to think about it” I thought, as I distracted myself with Bluesky and ate blue food. Washed down with three cups of Pure Leith mint tea - after 20 minutes all that’s left are blue crumbs. Blood sugar going up higher than the morning, we’re up to 9.4 and rising…
A Testing Afternoon
After lunch, stool and blood tests were done. Stool test to check gut microbiome, and blood test to monitor response to cookies. The in-app videos were helpful and both tests easily completed. I thought I’d be squeamish about blood test (pictured) but it was actually OK and hardly any blood required. A lot easier than donating blood where they take a pint..
Posted off from the Post Office with DPD, I’m looking forward to the results. I wonder how long they will take?
