PART 2: ZOE Review (And Why I Quit)

[Music] welcome back to health hackers this is part two of my review of zoe it's been about four and a half months since i released the first video and it's time to update you on my experience and explain why i quit the plan if you're wondering what zoe is because you haven't seen part one i can catch you up with a quick montage but you'll understand it better if you watch part one in full i'll put a link in the video summary basically zoe is a nutrition program involving home test kits an app and some scientific muffins [Music] i have to eat zoe muffins for breakfast and for lunch [Music] the whole point is the more citizens contribute their data their own unique reactions to food better the databases we can build and more precisely we can give people predictions about their foods three weeks after mailing back the final part of my home testing kit i got an email containing an 89-page personal insights report a 43-page gut health report and instructions to download another zoe app and start a four-week action plan so now i'm going to hand you over to me back in march of this year 2021 just a few days after i got that email [Music] after reading my results and the information that comes with them here are my standout points first up my blood sugar control came out as poor which would mean i'm prone to large blood sugar spikes and potential dips zoe says both of which can lead to dietary inflammation when eating certain carb rich foods that's disappointing but i'm not really too surprised you'll remember in part one i told you why i hadn't eaten a muffin since probably the 90s for my blood fat control which indicates how well my body clears fats from my blood in the hours after i've eaten those fats my result ranked as excellent there's also a graph in the report showing how i compared to other people over six hours after eating the breakfast muffins and two hours after the lunch muffins now my microbiome health score came out as high that's based on the ratio of good bacteria to bad bacteria found in my poop sample compared to more than 2 000 other people zoe says 30 key bacteria could play a role in how we biologically respond to food half of them are considered good bacteria because they've been associated with certain positive health markers while the other half are considered bad because they've been associated with less favorable metabolism higher blood pressure and poorer glycemic responses you might remember in my part one video zoe's scientific co-founder professor tim spector told us this those microbes were associated with being overweight or having diabetes or heart disease or having blood blood tests that were bad and that's been done before but what hasn't been done before was that we used to link that to specific foods they were eating so we've linked the foods the microbes and the health outcomes together and we identified 15 good bugs and 15 bad bugs that nearly everybody has in multiple populations around the world that we can look use as a sort of barometer of what's going on and we've started to get able to give people advice about how to build up the good guys and squash the bad guys that is really the most exciting bit of evidence we've had for ages to say that manipulating our microbes through our diet is something that's doable so according to my results i have a very high abundance of two of those bad bugs one named colton also known as clostridium sp.cag colon 58 which is associated with higher levels of visceral fat and lower polyunsaturated fat levels and then there's cassie also known as clostridium bolte she is said to be associated with higher levels of visceral fat and lower good cholesterol levels part of the goal now is to do what tim said try and build up more of the good guys and suppress colton cassie and any other baddies through my diet paying particular attention to those gut boosters he mentioned and based on my result zoe says foods that may help boost the number of good bacteria in my gut include apples lentils avocados and my gut suppressors foods that will apparently likely increase the numbers of bad bacteria include sausages beef pork and by the way in the report i can also see what's described as the full list of bacteria species in my gut and their relative abundance the other part of the goal going forward now is to stabilize blood sugar and fat levels to try and avoid dietary inflammation it starts with a four week action plan to help you master the zoe method and get your biology on your side and the zoe insights app will be my guide the first thing i've noticed about the app is that it has lists and lists of different foods and meals that have a color and a score next to them those scores are meant to be personalized according to zoe they've been generated using my test results compared with thousands of other people using artificial intelligence to be able to try to predict how i'll respond to those foods the higher the score and the more green the color the better it's predicted to be for my metabolism you can also scan barcodes on products and see your body's predicted responses after eating that food i am going to stock up on my high scoring foods do some more reading get my head around this a bit more and then i'll begin my four-week action plan before i check back in with you again i am now into my second week of the four week plan the goals achieved in week one included only eating foods that scored over 50. i've eaten more lentils and tempeh in the last seven days than i think i have in the last seven years eating at least three new plants to encourage gut microbiome diversity hello watermelon radish crook neck squash and tomatillo and listening to my body trying to really pay attention to fullness and hunger there are no strict rules around portion sizes but the app has been telling me when i've eaten too much fat even if it's a good fat and that then lowers my score for the day because according to zoe too much fat can cause dietary inflammation i've also been an avid user of the customer service chat function in the app this past week for example i've had help with ideas for swapping out nuts in some of the recipes because i'm allergic to nuts although actually so far i've just been making up my own meals without following recipes and then i was confused about oats for example they're ranked as a higher scoring green food for me but my blood sugar response is predicted to be poor after eating oats so how can they be good for me turns out oats score is green because any blood sugar spike is thought to be outweighed by the predicted benefit of the blood fat response and good gut health impact so i'm learning as i go the webchat team have been really helpful and encouraging and despite having to weigh and measure my food all over again i do find it quite exciting to see how high i can get my meal scores and day scores based on the food choices i make by the way remember i told you my gut health insights report showed i had very high levels of bad bacteria colton and cassie i found out there was a minor error my corrected gut health report shows i still have very high levels of colton but my level of cassie is just high not very high and i also have high levels of a bad bug named chloe aka clostridium leptum so all the more reason to keep eating the right foods that might help squash these baddies in my gut microbiome the four week action plan is over i have used the app every day to school my meals and have managed to hit day scores of 75 or above for the entire month some of the things i've noticed during my four-week plan include my bowel movements are certainly more predictable and regular than they were before i started eating the zoe way my energy may be better i say that because i've been doing peloton rides before breakfast some days but i could also have just got fitter last week my dermatologist complimented my skin could my complexion have benefited from all those gut health boosting foods i've been eating i feel like i've had less of a heavy kind of discomfort i used to get in my stomach sometimes and i wonder if that's to do with eating far less meat on my zoe plan talking of meat i was craving red meat at the end of week to see i had made the mistake of thinking that because meat doesn't score highly for me that i shouldn't eat it at all but actually when i combine meats with higher scoring foods it brings the overall score back up a bit there are a couple of things i don't like about zoe and a couple of things i just don't understand i have asked for help with those but rather than complain to you about those issues now i'm going to give it five months which means the next time you see me in this video i would have been eating the zoe way for a total of six months then i'll give you a rundown of my likes my dislikes and i'll be able to tell you whether i think the zoe experience is worth it over a longer period of time so see you in september [Music] hi it's not september it's july and unfortunately i had to quit zoe after only a couple of months i'm pregnant that's the good news the bad news was that i was hit hard by pregnancy nausea and vomiting which hugely impacted what i was able to eat i also had a brief stay in hospital with a separate medical issue that took weeks to recover from basically continuing the program felt unsustainable under the circumstances and in an email from the zoe team i was told it's best to follow your doctor's advice or a nutritionist registered dietitian specializing in pregnancy if you are working with one on what your nutritional needs are due to hormonal changes that happen during pregnancy and their impact on metabolism your personalized scores are likely to not be as accurate so that was the end of that but during my zoe experience i kept notes and i'm able to round up my likes and dislikes for you before i tell you those here's what i asked professor tim spector about the nutrition plan's potential effects in my last video how should i be feeling in six months time how will i know if it's worked for me well everyone's going different because they'll start from a different base right so in a way the the worse your diet is beforehand the more you'll notice it but that's generally true of all these uh these lifestyle changes but what we're hoping people will notice first of all is a change in your your transit time of your bowel you should be going you should if you are constipated you'll be going to the toilet more regularly you should have less bloating feelings and uh gut health generally should improve if you're someone who's suffering from these sugar peaks you should find your energy levels better and you don't get hungry at you know 11 30 in the morning wanting an early lunch so you should start to notice that the food is is more tapered to your own particular circadian rhythm and uh metabolism so by in a way evening out some of these peaks helping your microbes you should generally have more energy and if you are overweight lose weight and if you're not uh then you should you know perhaps just feel your metabolism or an even keel that bit about bowel transit time i did notice i was going more regularly in a good way and that is one of my likes about the zoe program overall i felt good on it i had less stomach discomfort after meals and maybe it did boost my energy levels also i wasn't trying to lose weight but according to my notes my jeans felt looser next zoe opened me up to foods i rarely used to eat with surprising outcomes i had no idea lentils could tide me over for hours or that i would enjoy eating a variety of legumes i've got to give a shout out to the chat service on the app super responsive and always happy to help my final like is that the zoe program really does try to educate you about gut health blood sugar and blood fat responses to food and why they matter it's brimming with articles science-backed information and guidance so long as you've got time to read it all which brings me on to my list of dislikes firstly time and dedication to get my daily scores i had to log all the ingredients and amounts of those ingredients for every meal i ate these things take time as did reading the 89 personal insights report and 43-page gut health report but the logging also felt quite satisfying and the reports and other information can be really interesting about the food lists don't get me wrong the food directory on the app is comprehensive and impressive you can scan a lot of branded goods too but it was a little frustrating that some things i ate regularly didn't have a score like protein powders things like seasonings or garlic didn't have a score either i also questioned a couple of food scores in the directory that just didn't seem right to me turned out one of them was wrong and the zoe team corrected it and during my zoe experience the gut health impact predictions for most of the foods in the directory were not personalized but the zoe team has suggested that is changing as part of an update rollout they've also announced even more personalized gut boosters and looking at the app today some of the foods originally recommended for me as my gut boosters have now disappeared from the list there are new ones there too there are changes to my gut suppressors list also but if that update equals better accuracy and outcomes great next of my top 10 recommended snack foods on the app eight of them were nuts i'm allergic to nuts i know i've mentioned this before but zoe doesn't factor allergies which naturally makes this personalized nutrition program feel not as personalized red meat considerations most red meats do not score highly on my app so i had to be mindful of how much i ate in one sitting and combine the meat with higher scoring foods to try and push the overall meal score back up but as we suggest this is all about making meals work for your body avoiding dietary inflammation and improving gut health my final dislike is or was sweet confusion i just couldn't get my head around why some foods in the app score highly for me yet my predicted blood sugar responses to those foods ranked as bad like apples or kiwi fruit if one of the goals of the zoe plan is to stabilize blood sugar and avoid peaks and troughs then those bad response foods are going to contradict that surely so i went back to zoe for more clarification they sent me an answer by email key points included we do believe blood sugar is very important to your health but it is important to note that it's only one of the factors that contribute to your scores and overall health and that some foods might trigger a blood sugar response in the short term hence the bad blood sugar subscore but in the long term they are also nourishing the good bugs in the gut and supporting a healthier more diverse gut microbiome over the longer term is likely to have a positive impact on blood sugar control so we are done with my likes and dislikes i have one additional point to add though at the time of recording there's no follow-up poop test that comes with the program to check on your gut health progress i asked zoe if there were any plans to introduce one at some point and i was told it will be coming soon if i hadn't have become pregnant would i have continued with the zoe program yes i believe i would i had recommended it to my husband he did his home testing he got his results but he hasn't yet used the app to calculate any daily scores like i said time and dedication that's it in the name of transparency i want you to know that i got to experience the zoe program for free so that i could review it if you see a discount code in the summary that goes with this video please also know that i receive an amount at no extra cost to you when you use that code but as always my reviews represent good faith and honest opinion if you liked watching this video i would love it if you hit the like button or even subscribe thank you for watching bye [Music] you

Channel: healthHackers

Views: 119,247

Keywords: gemma evans, gemma evans health hackers, gut health test, gut test, health hackers, health hackers zoe review, healthhackers, healthhackers zoe, healthy gut, lose weight, microbiome diet, personalized nutrition, plant based diet, poop test, prebiotics, probiotics, reviews of zoe, reviews of zoe plan, tim spector, tim spector zoe, zoe eating, zoe foods, zoe gut health, zoe gut health reviews, zoe health, zoe on healthhackers, zoe program, zoe review, zoe reviews, zoe test

Id: OnW2POUMitI

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021