Ins and Outs of Noom Diet

If you are a mere mortal without Hollywood style income, losing weight is hard AF. Counting calories, jogging, lifting weights, fasting, experimenting with diets – who wants to do that? This is where Noom comes in.

So what is Noom?

It’s an app that combines fitness and weight loss into one manageable program that is based on human psychology. The program is pretty comprehensive and offers virtual live trainer, dietician, and health coach advice. All of that is on your phone daily and hourly. The entire program is 16 weeks, during which it wants to teach you to understand food better and choose wisely.

Noom won’t make you count calories and won’t forbid any one food group. Instead, it will mark foods as green, yellow, and red. Red doesn’t mean bad, it just informs you that this group is higher in calories and should be consumed sparingly. This will encourage you to change your behavior long term and live healthier lifestyle. You don’t have to fear food, but you can make more educated and healthier decisions. The program will also send you articles about how to prevent or manage diabetes and high blood pressure.

The app also has reading materials and quizzes, which might sound a bit boring and time consuming, but they work and help get motivated. You can read about calorie reducing and carbs, how to become more active, and how to connect with likeminded people on the app. There are about 45 million current users and you can definitely find somebody to draw inspiration from, and in real time! You can also interact with wellness and health coaches and receive awards for changing your behavior. Messages every day might get annoying, but that’s part of the program.

When you first download the app and sign up for an account, you will have to answer a few standard questions: weight, age, height, health, activity levels, and your goal weight loss. It will also access your phone’s Health app for activity levels and will ask you to log what you eat. You will be able to see your daily calorie progress. Your weight has to be logged weekly to graph your progress.

The basic app is free for the first two weeks, but if you want to continue, you will pay $59 per month. Paid version offers articles with greater educational materials instead of just marking foods green, yellow, or red. If you sign up for 3 months, you’ll pay $199. If you refer a friend, he or she will get 20% off and you will get a $20 Amazon gift card.

The beauty of Noom is that you live your life on your own terms and the program just helps you make better lifestyle decisions instead of locking you in some sort of unrealistic meal program. By showing colors of foods, Noom informs you what foods are good for you and which ones are less so. There is nothing off limit, which gives you flexibility and control of your diet.

So Noom is not your answer to everything, but it can definitely help you lose weight if you commit to it. That’s also true about so many other apps and programs. You have to use the app and record everything you eat to really see if it works for you. Around 80% of users claim that they lost weight while on Noom because they were held accountable and used all the support available.

Noom will inform you about what’s good to eat, but the decision to eat that rests with you. The app might not work that great for people who have preexisting conditions, which can prevent weight loss, for example hormone imbalance, and the app won’t know that. You should talk to your doctor before joining this or any other weight loss program.

Paid version is quite pricey, but the app is just that – an app. It won’t buy your groceries, won’t cook for you, and won’t go to gym with you. There is still a lot of accountability on your part. Noom is just there along the way for education, encouragement, and healthy recipe ideas. Most users like the app because it’s realistic and doesn’t set crazy goals or lock them in some frozen meal regime. The minimum amount of calories suggested by Noom is 1,200 for women and 1,400 for men, and those numbers can be easily achieved or modified if needed.

Noom is a bit similar to Weight Watchers and their food ranking system, but it focuses on education, on the why and the how. WW has bigger community than Noom, so think before joining if that aspect is important to you.

Ultimately, only time will tell if this app will work for you. We all respond to diets and lifestyle changes differently. But one thing is clear – the free version is definitely not going to hurt you, so go ahead and give it a try!