Featured image credit: RC DeWinter “Sunlight on Dining Table” https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunlight-on-dining-table-rc-dewinter.html

So the PREDICT 2 follow up with the Zoe app is now done. The first four weeks, which was their official program, you can find here .

As I mentioned in that post, my plan was to continue another 4 weeks on plan, tracking weight, % body fat, calories in/out and some data on recovery and heart rate variability (HRV).

What I didn’t realize until week 7 though was that week 8 was my daughter’s birthday—so I got a little off diet (the cake was delicious). But I figured that would be a good test of what happened if you went -off- the diet, since rebound weight is a major challenge for most diets, especially since many cannot be sustained for long term. They are too restrictive, and eventually you eat off it and don’t go back.

So week 8 was off, weeks 9 and 10 back on, week 11 off (son’s birthday—his cake was also delicious), and week 12 was imperfectly on. Overall, the diet is really easy to start and stop once you get the hang of foods they believe are good for you. Keeping above a 75 score, even sneaking some “less healthy for you options” gets pretty easy with experience.

So what happened? Well, the following graphs tell the tale.

So as mentioned in the previous post, the first 4 weeks saw really incredible results. Rapid loss of body weight, nearly all of which was body fat, as the body fat weight percentage (measured by VitaGoods scale resistance) dropped and lean mass percentage increased. After week 4, while still improving, the rate of improvement began to level off. In fact, the line of best fit is a power function.

Improvement via diet alone is harder to come by, and shifting “macros” (% fat, protein and carb) did not seem to do much. Neither did a “reboot” week in week 9, after eating off diet in week 8 around my daughter’s birthday. Going only 75+ ZOE score foods and up, just like week 1 in their program, did not reignite the rate of change.

As for the other variables tracked, we have the following charts:

So about the best that can be said is that I was able to sustain activity level, despite drops in recovery and HRV that were probably driven by steadily worse life related declines in nightly hours slept and sleep quality.

That said, I subjectively feel better the closer I am to a “good” (for me) Zoe score of 90, especially when sustained. I feel I can do more and get more done. But that’s subjective. Objectively, tough to say, because the sleep factor is a major confounding variable.

So, overall… The personalized nutrition of ZOE was good for solid four week burst of weight loss that was mostly, if not entirely, body fat. Subjectively, I feel better on it. I think the diet is easy to sustain, and drop into and back out of. The app is getting better by the day in terms of the food it “knows” and can track. Importantly, there is no rebound when coming off, or not being super strictly on diet. The weight loss and body fat loss has been sustained over the 12 weeks on the diet.

BUT… ZOE alone hit the wall at about 17% body fat for me. There are clearly additional tweaks that need to be made in activity, macro composition (% protein vs. fat vs. carb) in my diet, and even just focusing on better sleep, to get through the 17% wall. But a ZOE(-ish) diet is now the baseline, since it has proven its ability to keep this point stable.

If I find something to get through the wall, I will be sure to update.

Until then, you can learn more here: https://joinzoe.com/

Please note: I don’t get paid or discounted for referrals to Zoe, and have no business relationship with them whatsoever, other than using their app.

<Paladin>