About Zone Scores
Overview:
This article provides an overview of the Levels Zone Score system. Learn more about Zone & Meal Scores on the Levels Blog.
In this Article:
- What is a Zone Score?
- Interpreting your Zone Scores
- How Zone Scores Calculated
- Best Practices for Improving your Zone Scores
What is a Zone Score?
A Zone Score is an analysis of all logged food, activities, and notes that take place within proximity of each other, and it provides a score (between 0-10) for the combined effect of these decisions.
Lifestyle decisions don’t happen in a vacuum: a snack, a nap, and a workout each have a metabolic effect on their own, but when these decisions happen close together, their effects combine in ways dependent on one another.
Zone Scores are Levels way of capturing and informing you of these multi-factor effects that impact your response to a meal. By analyzing all logged activities that take place within proximity of one another, Zone Scores essentially provide a grade for the combined effect of your decisions.
Interpreting your Zone Scores
Scores range from 1-10, with 10 being optimal (minimal glucose response) and 1 being poor (high glucose response). In general, we want to aim for minimal, controlled glucose responses.
- 10 – Outstanding; Almost no glucose response increase.
- 8 – Good; Minimal personal glucose response.
- 6 – Moderate; Pay attention. Testing alternate configurations may work.
- 5 – Poor; High glucose response. Eliminate, minimize, or test alternate configurations.
How Zone Scores are Calculated
The Zone Score is a composite of glucose rise from baseline, height of the glucose peak, and recovery time back to baseline, all of which are associated with metabolic health.
- Glucose peak: the highest number your glucose levels reached within this zone.
- Glucose rise from baseline: calculated based on the average of the 30 minutes before your log entry (the baseline) to the peak glucose within the two hours following the log entry.
If an exercise, meal, or note log is added within two hours of the previous log, the Zone Score will extend for another two hours after the most recently added log. If you'd like to isolate a particular meal or ingredient to understand its specific metabolic impact, we recommend isolating that log with more than a two-hour window on each side (e.g. two hours and fifteen minutes on each side).
Why didn’t I get a Zone Score?
This is typically related to:
- The log is an exercise or a note only, without a meal.
- The zone contains a strenuous exercise log. If an exercise is marked as strenuous, the entire zone score wont be calculated .
- You're experiencing connection issues resulting in gaps in data. If you notice gaps in your data during this time, check out our troubleshooting articles here.
Why did the same meal score differently?
There are several reasons this can happen:
- There could be a small difference in the Zone Score algorithm; we round up or down to the nearest whole number.
- Additional factors, such as quality of sleep, previous activity, hormones, etc could contribute to your glucose stability with a particular meal.
Best Practices for Improving your Zone Scores
With Zone Scores, you can experiment with adding or removing different variables to see how it affects your overall metabolic response and Zone Score. For instance, eating pizza and then taking a nap will likely produce a different Zone Score than eating pizza and then taking a walk. By experimenting with Zone Scores, you might discover which variables are helping, or hurting, your goal of maintaining a steady glucose.
If you have questions about Zone Scoring, please email the Levels Support team at support@levelshealth.com.