Doing a ZOE

 This much-anticipated parcel arrived this morning…

The ZOE program is a research body that became well-known during Covid: they re-purposed their nutrition research program to gather, analyse and publish data on Covid infections, symptoms & impacts through the ZOE Covid App.  Millions of us downloaded and reported to it daily, including me, and much of the reported data & policy was based on their findings. 

Now that the main body of the pandemic has passed in the UK, they have returned to their main purpose: nutrition research.  Their work has been based around the human microbiome, gut microbes, and the individual responses of our bodies to what we put in our mouths. They are both a research body and a commercial enterprise, headed by Professor Tim Spector, author of several books on the subject. 

Nutrition research and up-to-date thinking has moved on massively in the small number of years since the human microbiome was discovered & mapped, and its impact begun to be understood. From ‘calories in, calories out’ and ‘low fat’ in the 70’s & 80’s (now both categorically proven to be wrong) to now knowing that we are all different, and respond to different foods in different ways.  

Of course, some of us have always known that our bodies respond differently to how we’re told they should, but until now, no-one believed us. ‘Just eat less calories’; ‘go to weight watchers’; ‘try xxx diet’; ‘do more exercise’… And yet nothing works; therein lies a route to disordered eating, poor body image, low self esteem, exercise obsession, decreased immune system, depression and a whole load of other physical & mental health issues. And yes, I and a lot of other people have experienced all of those and more, just because society says we should eat less and look thinner. The diet industry is built on this stuff: a multi-billion-dollar industry that depends on us all wanting to lose weight, and actually guarantees through yo-yo dieting that people will GAIN weight, not lose it. That’s right: the whole industry is based on a lie. 

So, as you can probably tell, this is important to me. I’ve spent my whole adult life thinking about it, and a significant portion of my childhood being taunted and bullied because of it. But what do I actually want from the ZOE program?

Well, to answer that question I think it’s important to understand what it involves, and what it does, and does not do. 

Firstly, it is NOT magic. It will not make me lose weight without any effort.  We live in a world where we want instant, effort-free, silver-bullet style answers: this is not one. I will have to work at this- but anyone who knows me knows that that’s ok. I like a challenge. 

The kit contains a set of nutrition-testing muffins, a blood-sugar testing kit (part of an academic study), a blood-fat testing kit, and a gut biome test (poop test) kit. All of these are done over a two-week period, with the most intensive section on day 1. There is then the option to sign up for 1, 4 or 12 months to use the information you have learned: I have signed up for 12 months. All of this is governed by an app, with daily lessons to help you keep learning, and coaching from ZOE staff.

So, my goals:

• Remove the guesswork around food. I want to know what happens when I eat fruit, veg, cake, coffee… or any of the combinations of food I normally eat. And what happens when I eat before or after a workout, during a night shift, before an early start. I want to be able to make good, informed decisions based on actual understanding, not on some generalised assumptions that someone has written down based on outdated, ill-informed research. 

That’s it. I have only one actual goal.  I do have one thing that I would really, really like: to lose some weight.  This may well happen as a result of better understanding, but I have to go into this knowing that that may not happen. And that’s ok- having the understanding of what’s going on inside will at least help me to avoid blaming myself for being inadequate compared to other people. For that to work though, I have to put the effort in and use what I learn. I can’t use it as an excuse. 

This is going to be a lot of work. But it will also be a voyage of discovery, and that’s what I’m excited about: finally getting some answers and sticking two fingers up to the society that has told me I should be the same as everyone else. 

The word ‘Zoe’ means Life. It’s my name, and the study name.  Understanding gives life, in so many more ways than one.