21: Is Vivoo Worth It?

In this episode I'm sharing my personal experience and thoughts from trying out the wellness product Vivoo. It's an at home urine test claiming to give you real-time, science-backed, personalized nutrition recommendations! 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. Today is going to be a short and sweet episode. It's going to be a product review on something that I was so excited about when I heard about it, learned about it but have honestly been a bit disappointed in its functionality, and that is the Vivu urine tests that are you can do them at home. I'm going to read I have the app pulled up on my phone, which is how you use this. It's really cool. Like the concept behind it is really cool. I just haven't found it to be as useful as I was hoping for. So they mail you this supply and you get to pick your like, like I think I got a six month supply of these strips and they're pretty large and you urinate on them and you have to wait 90 seconds. You take a picture of the test with your phone and inside their app it does a like I was gonna say analyzation. That is not a word. It analyzes the stick, like the test result, and then it gives you a report and the things that they are reporting on I was so excited about because I was like, yes, this is vitamin and mineral driven.

Speaker 1: 1:32

This is right up my alley. This is going to be such a useful tool for myself and for me to teach my clients how to use, and I really thought that it would help us to tweak like their supplement recommendations. Um, because sometimes that can be a bit of a struggle. However, like I said, just has not been as useful as I would have hoped. But I want to read to you first the list of things that it is checking for you. So we have vitamin C, which I was super pumped about because vitamin C is huge for adrenal health and adrenal fatigue and burnout, and that is like one of the biggest things that my clients struggle with. So I was like that would be excellent if we could get a measure you know, to know when we're getting enough vitamin C. Um, then next up, magnesium. Same thing Magnesium is used up so much when we are under stress. Everyone is under a lot of stress, so knowing how much magnesium we need to supplement with to meet our needs would be super valuable. Calcium, protein, ketones, water knowing that you are well hydrated is super important. Sodium, also key mineral thought that would be super important. Oxidative stress Oxidative stress is what happens like you get high levels of oxidative stress when your body is like really trying to have to detox and process a lot of things and it's kind of like you're excreting a lot of like bad and then you're in pH. So that's what one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, at least nine data points that you are getting from this one test. I thought that's excellent.

Speaker 1: 3:20

You can do it at home, it doesn't take very long and, again, it's key things that we like supplement with and a lot of my clients, because it affects a lot of my clients. However, um, the way you're supposed to do this is you would ideally test, like once a week, and the recommendation that they give is that you do it on your second urination of the day, which was my number one, like not my number one, but like my first kind of hesitancy with it, because that's not very practical for everyone. Like, yes, I can do that because I work from home and so obviously, when I go to urinate I'm at home, but most people, lots of people, are not. They're going to be at work for that second urination of the day. And this is not really something like you don't have to have any other equipment, like you don't need a cup to pee in and then dip it like you pee directly on the strip. So I mean, technically, yeah, you could do it at work, but then you're going to have to like hang out in the bathroom for the 90 seconds that you have to wait before you can take the picture of the test, and I don't know.

Speaker 1: 4:29

I just don't think that's very practical and I've even found that, even though I do work at home, it's still a struggle for me to remember to do it. It would be so much easier if you could do it on your first urine, because then you know you're always at home when you get out of bed and you go pee for that first time, and I think it would be easier to remember that way. However, that is like the reason they don't have you do that is because your urine is so much more concentrated in the morning and therefore the things you've excreted in your urine are going to be more concentrated. And they just, I don't know, I guess their research showed that wouldn't be as accurate. So that was my first hiccup with it.

Speaker 1: 5:06

The second thing, again, like I said you, their recommendation is that you test once a week and ideally you would do it kind of like on the same day of the week for consistency, and I get that. But you, you know our our lives vary quite a bit from day to day. So it almost felt to me like you needed to test every day for at least a while anyway, and that wasn't affordable because you know you would go through your tests so much faster if you were doing it every day, through your test, so much faster if you were doing it every day. And what I've found with my results is that and I don't know, I mean, maybe you take this as it's a good thing, but maybe not. I don't know. I have mixed feelings on it, obviously, but my results have largely been about the same every single time that I've tested.

Speaker 1: 6:01

And I've had these strips for about well over six months now and I have not been consistent doing them every single week since I've had them. Like for sure, I have a stockpile of them in my bathroom currently because I forgot to cancel my subscription. So I got a second six month supply in the mail not that long ago and then for a while, a couple weeks ago, I did, I tried testing every day just to see, if I like, gained any additional insight or learn something different, because I felt like I had like all these extra tests and I was like, well, I don't want them to go to waste, like I don't want them to expire, I'm going to use them. And so I experimented with that and, honestly, still didn't find that the information changed very much and didn't find that it was like teaching me something that I didn't already know, and so therefore I didn't feel like the test was really necessary or helpful.

Speaker 1: 7:00

The app does give you like advice to go along with your results, but that too was kind of a red flag for me because, like one of them, they've partnered with a company called Vitamin Lab. So their number one recommendation is always to get these personalized supplements through this Vitamin Lab company, and I just don't, I just I don't think that would be very good, like what I've learned through HTMA testing and my HTMA courses, and I just don't believe in that. So that is also like obviously there's an affiliation there. Obviously, vivu is probably getting a kickback anytime someone you know clicks through and purchases supplements. So that felt kind of icky to me. And then some of the other advice I do feel like is good advice Like they are telling you like, like, if your magnesium is low, they're telling you how to get more magnesium. If your calcium is low, then they're telling you how to get more calcium, things like that. Um and same thing for, like they've got some food prep tips in here, um, how to know that you're like staying hydrated, how much water you need in a day. They give some recipes. So I mean there is good content here.

Speaker 1: 8:14

I'm not saying that it's all bad, by any means it's not but again it just didn't feel as useful to me as I had hoped for and I feel like there should be a bigger variety in my test results, if it's really that accurate, because the things that we go through on a day to day basis is very different. How our body responds to things are very different, our stressors are different day to day Even. Like there are some days that you guys know I've shared this before Like I get kind of lazy, I get burnout on taking pills and I just don't take my supplements one day. Well, what I noticed, especially that week where I was like testing nearly every day even, and I kind of intentionally did it that week, I tested for a while like taking my supplements, as I was supposed to every day, and then I didn't take my supplements for a couple of days and my results were practically the same, and so that right there told me that I don't know. I just questioned like the validity of it, because things like my magnesium that I know that I have to like supplement with, there should have been a bigger difference than just like a half a point or a point difference. So, all in all, it's not a product that I feel like I would recommend at this time, which is unfortunate because, like I said, I was super excited about it, but I just don't think that it's worth the expense for what you're gaining from it. I would much rather see you invest that money in an HTMA test and get a three month plan and follow that, because I think that you would, number one, get so much more information. I think that it would be more accurate and, um, in the long run, would be much more beneficial and cost-wisewise. These Vivo strips are not cheap, so you could definitely put that money towards like an HTMA package or even like if you had to pay for like blood work out of pocket or something. You could put it towards that as opposed to buying the strips and not really gaining the knowledge that you were hoping to. So that's all I have for you today.

Speaker 1: 10:30

It's kind of a slow week around here. It's Easter was yesterday, and then my kids are on spring break this week. We're taking a trip at the end of the week, so I've got a lot going on getting ready for that. We're really excited about it, and so I think I'm just going to leave you with that. I hope that these, like product reviews, are helpful. I always promise to give my honest feedback on products and supplements and programs and things that I try, because sometimes that's the fun. Part of the fun in this job is like getting to try out things for you guys, and I love it when I find something that I think is just like stellar and awesome and I can't wait to share it with you. But I think it's valuable to also share the things that I try that I'm kind of like eh, that was kind of crappy or not that great. Don't waste your money on it. So I hope you guys have a great week and I will talk to you next week.