Zoe diary day 2 -logging food and some pictures.

 First a couple of pictures.

The Zoe kit comes in a big box containing four smaller boxes, each containing a different test and each having an instruction leaflet. Just for the record here are two of the boxes and a leaflet. Sadly I cant show you the kit because the samples have now been sent off to the lab.

The leaflets are double sided so you can only see one of the sides here.  The instructions are very clear and are duplicated on the Zoe app.  Providing you are careful, there's little chance of doing anything wrong.

Here is one of the test cookie packets

These cookies have exact measures of fats and sugars in them so that my blood sugar response and blood fat sample can be calibrated accurately.  The lunch cookies were blue because you have to log when you first notice that your poo is blue so that they can gauge how long it takes to get through your gut.  Mine was blue next morning and the one after. (Too much information? Sorry)

You might want to see the blood sugar sensor.  Here it is stuck to my arm where it will stay for fourteen days after which it will be defunct.

You can take a blood sugar reading as often as you like. It only takes a second to hold your smart phone over the sensor on your arm.  Then you see something like this

A short while later it shows you your profile over a 24 hr period

The small gap in the line is because the sensor should be downloaded at least every eight hours, and I left longer then that overnight. The green band shows what is regarded as a normal blood sugar range, so at least I'm within that. You can see how the level rises and falls after meals and this is reflected in hunger and energy levels.   If your insulin is working well and you eat the right foods at the right time you are supposed to be able to smooth out the peaks and troughs better.  When I get my test results I can start to understand what works for me.

Logging your meals is important.  I've found their database of meals and ingredients to be amazingly comprehensive, so it's quite easy to enter the info. Put in a few letters e.g. straw, and up pops a list of all sorts of things strawberry.  Choose the one you want and add the quantity.  For measures, each time you can choose grams or teaspoons or tablespoons etc or number of e.g. strawberries or whatever, so whatever suits you or the ingredient best.  Behind the database Zoe knows the fat and sugar and fibre content of each, so that's used to inform the results you get. You save each meal as you go, so if you save the same thing regularly you don't have to enter all the detail again, you just call up the one you previously documented.

There is a good on line support network staffed by nutrition science professionals.  Today I asked how I should log my cups of tea because as our friends know, Kath and I have our tea with ridiculously small amounts of milk. - barely a teaspoon.  So I enquired whether I should log that as black tea or tea with milk.  Only a few minutes later I got a reply.  Better to log it as tea with milk apparently.

There was a bit of homework to do,  reading through short lessons on blood sugar responses and dispelling some popular food myths.  Plus choosing which experiment to do next week.  I'm choosing a breakfast experiment which will work over 5 days involving a plain bagel and some cheddar cheese.  Each day I do it a different way. One day just a bagel, then next day just the cheese, then both, then exercising after one or the other etc. Each time I will be able to see how my blood sugar levels react. to different levels of carbs and fats and exercise.

This morning (day three) I had lessons on blood fats.  More of that next time.

I hope, dear reader ( all 22 of you so far) this isn't too boring.  Please comment on whether this is too much info or if you have questions.