Caveat: I invested £500 in Zoe back when they were raising capital. There are no perks or freebies.
Midlife + Childfree = Disposable Income
Being a child-free woman in her mid-forties with a disposable income, I am often searching for a solution to a problem that I do not have.
I could’ve bought another Olivia Von Halle cami set, but instead I opted to spend money on blood and stool samples. Because: science.
The purchase of the Zoe Test Kit & 4-Month Membership was a classic impulse buy. This is very unlike me however I was lured by the flash sale and the price reduction of £100.
My natural tendency is to over-research everything to the nth degree. It’s less than a week in, and I’m already feeling this is a one silk cami set down the drain.
That’ll learn me.
What even is Zoe?
Zoe is a personalised nutrition program that claims to build life-changing habits step by step based on how your body responds to food.
They do this by sending you a box of at-home tests and kits such as a blood glucose monitor, a blood test and a stool sample. They will analyse your data and samples and tell you how healthy your gut microbiome is as well as how well your body responds to fat and sugar.
The Zoe team are all about big science claiming to run “the world’s largest in-depth nutrition study”. None of this does any harm in the marketing department and they are legit professors at Kings College University.
Anyway you can go and read more about it yourself.
The box sat on my dining table for about a week, staring at me like a pissed-off boyfriend.
“When are you going to pay attention to me?”
Finally, I popped open the yellow box of delights and read through the testing process.
Apply the glucose monitor
Fast overnight for 8+ hours
Collect your stool sample (any time)
Eat and log the breakfast cookies
Fast + avoid exercise for 4 hours
Eat and log the lunch cookies
Fast + avoid exercise for 2 hours
Collect blood sample
Resume normal eating, drinking, and movement
Send off samples
Spend 3 days logging your food
Optional: run food pairing/timing experiments while you have your glucose monitor
It feels like a chore before I’ve even started.
Testing Day
Once you set your start date, you complete a health assessment in the app. If you have blood results from previous tests then its worth having them handy.
Applying the blood sugar sensor was straight forward enough. The video tutorials are clear and easy to follow. They repeat the claim: “It does not hurt.”
It does hurt.
Briefly, but yes there’s a needle in your arm. PMT didn’t help.
Sensor’s in. Calibrating.
Day 2 – Cookie Day
No issues with the blood sensor. It has a remained in place.
At 7AM I eat the breakfast cookies. The videos gaslight you into thinking they are delicious. Lies. These are only delicious if you don’t enjoy real food and enjoy overly sweet cat litter.
Almost an hour later, my glucose range goes from about 5 to 8.3 mmol/L.
Still within range. Meh!
Day 5 – Pizza and Forums
Once you complete your blood and stool samples, you spend 3 days eating normally and tracking your food.
Rules are made to be broken so I go for a pizza. Hey, its the weekend.
This was the most fun that I had with my glucose monitor. My blood sugar went stratospheric before crashing down to Earth like a meteor.
We shared the doughnut FYI.
I crawled into bed at 9:30PM exhausted.
When you join the program you are put into a cohort group in the forum. The people seem nice. There’s vexation in the group:
Zoe used to offer 1:1 nutrition coaching which is now removed.
Engagement drops after the assessments and early learning modules.
Food logging quickly becomes a chore once you’ve identified triggers.
Exercise isn’t accounted for.
Some complain about demoralising fat warnings and scores.
The app informs me that they have not yet received my samples so my scoring feature not yet been enabled.
In the meantime, there are lessons you can follow on blood fat control, gut microbiome. None of this is worth the £25ish pounds a month that I pay. This information is freely available on the Internet.
However, I’m already fit and not trying to reverse a diagnosis. If I were, this might hit differently.
Many in the forum have signed up for a year and already regret it.
Don’t do that.
I signed up for 4 months.
Recommendation on if you should at all incoming in a few weeks.
What’s Working Well
Clear instructions for blood and stool tests
The blood test tool is far better than a finger prick
Taking photos of your food works decently (it even clocked nutritional yeast on my pasta but missed a courgette + mushroom curry at lunch.)
What’s Annoying
The cookies. Stop gaslighting us - they’re not delicious
Palm oil? Really? Naughty.
Forum UX is not great e.g. when I go to add a quantity of something, the keyboard on my phone pops up over the input box. Srsly?
Experiments feel underwhelming especially if you’re already clued into food e.g. meal timing and food sequencing
Food Logging Features
The Good
Extensive food database (even niche organic items)
Barcode scanner works pretty well
Can track by weight, volume, or servings
The Bad
No integration with exercise wearables
UX isn’t intuitive - tracking can feel fiddly
Early Thoughts
It's early days, and I’m still waiting on my official results. I got zero interest in doing the experiments as they run counter to my own intuitive eating habits. The sensor will not last the 2 weeks. It feels like I’m just leeching data from my arm and paying handsomely for the privilege.
But so far? It’s a pricey experiment with underwhelming snacks.
