Does personalized nutrition really exist? Can you reduce the guesswork to get to a diet that is right for you? A -sustainable-, flexible diet that leaves you feeling and looking better?

Is Zoe, the app from the PREDICT 2 study (previous posts here and here), a solution?

As a participant in their clinical study, I got invited to give it a 4 week test drive and find out.

Zoe and the PREDICT 2 study team provided my personalized results from the clinical trial and their week by week plan, including suggestions on how to achieve their targets for me each week.

My personalized report shows I process glucose well, and saturated fat “meh.” My gut microbiome is good, but could get better. As I mentioned before, one of my key takeaways from the study was artificial sweeteners of any kind do bad things to my body’s ability to process glucose. The pattern was insulin resistance, and this resistance over time would (and probably did) sabotage any diet I was on.

And they were hiding in places in my diet I did not expect them.

So I kicked the artificial sweeteners over the last 8 months. I saw effects within the first 4 weeks, losing weight even though I was not on a “personalized” diet. Several people independently asked me what I was doing that was working so well–which was encouraging! However, reductions in body fat and weight plateaued to start the year. Just avoiding artificial sweeteners is not enough to get over the hurdle.

But partial success, and early, is still success. I had high hopes for this report and app to go that last 10 lbs mile.

My plan is to combine measurements with my Vitagoods scale (which can do resistance testing for % body fat and % lean mass in addition to weight) and key metrics of performance and recovery via my Whoop strap.

I would follow the study team’s 4 week trial as prescribed, and then just keep rolling with the week 4 plan another 4 weeks (at least).

What the study team asked me to do was a 4 week trial with their app. The first couple weeks, I was to eat only foods that scored 75+ on their algorithm, personalized to my results on the clinical study. These are personal “superfoods.” That got changed for everyone during my first week. The mid-stream change was to now do just one week of “superfoods” only.

I think this happened because for many, that first week is a tough week. You are not used to eating only those foods, and stacking enough of them at meals and over the day to avoid getting hungry. For me, it was a rough couple first days, but I figured out how to build personal “high score” snacks.

Turns out, summertime study time was clutch–lots of fruit is in season, and nearly all of it is a “superfood” for me.

Week 2’s goal was to get every meal scored 75+, so you could start to incorporate foods scoring between 50-75. Good, but maybe not great for you foods. Week 3 was day score of 75+, which means you could have a meal or snack on the borderline, so long as the rest of your day balanced it out. Week 4 was day score of 75+, now including some “only eat these rarely” foods (i.e. bacon, for me).

Cool story. What does the data look like?

The main findings: Striking early success!

My baseline weight was 173.8 lbs. I now weigh 165.2 lbs four weeks later. That is an 8.6 lbs loss!

More amazing, looking at just calories in/calories out, my weight loss should have been less than a lbs per week!

Even better, that loss is all body fat. I went from 19.3% body fat on the VitaGoods scale to 17.6% in the last four weeks. That is so noticeable I have already had several people comment. But my lean mass has increased from 39.3% to 40.6%, again measured on the VitaGoods.

These changes appear independent of my “macros” as well. I varied grams of carbs, fat and protein across all four weeks, and there does not appear to be any distinct difference in results based on that variation.

The diet at the end of four weeks is very sustainable. You can pick what you want to eat from foods likely to be good for you, and balance out your bad habits. The Zoe app is easy to use for this. Even better, you can whip the app out before adding another snack or item to a meal, and decide if you -really- want to do that if it will hurt your day/meal score too much. I think this diet will be easy to maintain for at least the next 4 weeks.

While I subjectively felt a little more energy and focus during this period, the will to believe is strong. Very easy to convince yourself “I feel better!” Especially when you are being told you are eating extra clean, on a special, personalized diet.

A more objective confirmation of better energy is my average Whoop strain score during these four weeks. This is an approximation of how “active” I was that week. Average strain was a -little- higher as the 4 weeks went on, even though calories expended stayed pretty close. I am not sure this difference is statistically significant yet.

The heart rate variability (HRV) deserves mention though. You can read more about it here. In short, your level is personal to you, but a higher level is better and correlates to better recovery and improving physical fitness. The increase in HRV over the last 4 weeks is significant versus my HRV over the last 8 months or so. Several readings were personal records. The diet is the only variable that changed.

Now, I will say that the rate of weight and body fat loss has decreased since the beginning of this trial. Most of the gainz (yes, with a “z”) came early. They have been harder since. I will update four weeks from now to see if they have continued to improve, or at least maintained. Since there is not much weight that can come off my frame, the body fat % is the main focus of the next 4 weeks. Any continued reduction is success; a drop to ~15% body fat is amazing success–no matter what the scale says in terms of lbs!

So personalized nutrition with the Zoe app?

So far. So good. Stay tuned.

<Paladin>