How it's going

I don't intend to post here all that often but here's an update with some (I hope) interesting snippets.

Doing Zoe has been fun so far and it is changing our eating habits without banning anything we like. 

I log the meals we eat and each week I get a summary of how I did on :

Limiting ultra processed foods - I scored excellent last week

Plant diversity - score excellent, I ate 36 different plants

Fibre - I need to improve this from 20g a day to 30g 

Protein (important for over 70yr olds), good but I need to up it

Lower quality fats - good but I need to limit further.

Here's a part of it

For each of the above there are hints and tips on how to improve.  Here's a sample screen shot

There's a lot more when I scroll down.

I do try to heed the advice and it is motivating me towards improvement.  For instance we intend to eat more of various types of beans and legumes which are good for both fibre and protein. e.g. butter beans in a stew or a curry, or a mixed bean salad with a main meal.  Apparently even good old tinned baked beans are good as long as you use the low salt & sugar variety.

Going food shopping is fun because I can use the app to scan food bar codes and it will give me my personal score for that item.  Some are quite surprising.

Using the app I can put in some of my own favourite recipes and see how they score.  I'm pleased to say that my signature dish of Madhur Jaffrey's Chicken in a fried onion sauce with Gujerati cabbage & carrots and brown rice scores a good 77 points.  Eat freely it says.  I will.

The short daily lessons continue and gradually build up quite a knowledge of nutrition facts and strategies. I enjoy reading them each day and they only take ten minutes.  Although Kath is not on the Zoe programme, we are finding it helpful in guiding us how best to manage her diabetes.

Of course the big question is "Do I feel any better?"  It might be placebo effect, but yes, I seem to have more energy and get less hungry.  I don't think I've lost any weight yet.

I'm also using youtube to look at nutrition advice from other sources. Not faddy people, but proper qualified medics and nutritionists, and their advice seems to correlate well with that which Zoe provides, so that's reassuring.  Also Zoe has published the results of a randomized clinical trial (being peer reviewed) comparing 50 people who are on Zoe programme and 50 following normal government health advice, and the results (both medically measured and anecdotal) show that Zoe gives genuine improvements over traditional general advice.

In short, I'm enjoying it, discovering new meals, learning a lot and feeling better.  Still a long way to go.