A few months ago I was at a stage in my life where I found myself desperate. I was desperate with where I am in terms of my weight loss journey. This journey to lose weight has not been easy. It’s been long and arduous. And about two months ago I found myself in a position of saying that something needed to change. I needed to shake things up. I needed to finds something different, something new. SOMETHING. I needed to enter a new era of my weight loss journey. And I did just that. I joined Noom.
Noom
In an effort to shake things up in my weight loss efforts I joined Noom. I was totally hesitant to join this program for a few reasons. First and foremost, I am cheap and Noom costs money. Secondly, the program is cloaked in secrecy. All I could find was that it was calorie based in its approach. I was good with that, but wanted to find more. I couldn’t find more, not until I signed up. In fairness, they do give a 10 day free trial…..or rather a 10 day ‘give a donation if you can since it costs such and such amount of money to give you this free trial.’ Every time I had looked at the program that turned me off! But this time I was open to it. I was actually open to paying also. I guess you could say I was desperate for a change to get my life (my weight loss and fitness life at least) back on track. I joined. So as a brief rundown. It is calorie based and if you drill into your calories, it ranks all your calories into three different colors. Orange, yellow and green. As you can expect green colored foods you can eat pretty much as much as you want. Green foods are things like your vegetables and fruits. The yellow foods are foods that are still pretty healthy. This includes options like eggs and chicken breasts. You can have yellow foods but you just want to pay a little more attention to them. And then you have the orange foods. Orange foods are foods that you can still have, but in moderation and with care. Nothing is off limits with Noom, just work it into your day’s budget for calories and more specifically for calories in each food color. The program also gives you daily ‘lessons’. The early lessons teach about the program and the science behind it but those lessons segue into lessons about the psychology on how to combat some of the issues in life that cause weight loss issues. The program also works treat days into the program to make this program a sustainable option.
What I like about Noom
There are some aspects of Noom that I really like.
1. I really like the concept of the colors within your calorie count. I like that they break down your projected calories so you know how many of each color you SHOULD be eating and how many you did eat. It is a great way to quickly identify if you are eating the right kind of calories. Because lets face it, I could eat my daily calories in cake and then eat nothing else. I would still be within my calories…but would it be a healthy day? So the colors really show where your weak points are. (I’m looking at your butter and jelly on my toast…….). I know that with myfitnesspal you can use the macros for this aspect of tracking. But there are so many different macros to watch that it can get overwhelming. Weight watchers also tries to steer you toward the healthier foods with their number system and their ‘free foods’. But seriously, a color system is SOO much easier!
2. I really like how they work the treat day. Randomly (I know, there is a system to when I earn them…and they may have explained it, but I don’t want to know, I like the surprise aspect), you will get a message that says you earned a treat day. You can use it immediately, or you can bank it and save it for a later day. I have discovered a few neat things about the treat day. The first thing was that the day that I used a treat day, when I went back the next day the app greeted me with a “did you have a fantastic treat day?” It took all negativity out of a treat day, which I have talked about numerous times when I say I don’t like the word cheat day! (which so many people use). In this way, Noom is encouraging people to live their lives and celebrate life without guilt and without shame. Furthermore, that day when I came back after a treat day, it stopped and had me reaffirm my commitment to my journey! The second thing I discovered that I liked was that one day I didn’t go onto the app because I was busy and life just got in the way. When I went back the app prompted me with ‘do you want to use a treat day”. They recognized that days when you aren’t on the app, may likely be the days that you slip. So yeah, I really like how they manage the treat days. It is a refreshing way to handle a treat day. From ‘earning’ the treat day to the celebratory attitude to the recommitment when it is done, it is all refreshing.
3. I debated about where to place the psychological aspect of Noom was it a like or a dislike? It honestly falls into both. The psychological aspect of Noom is conveyed to the user through daily lessons. These lessons take about 5-10 minutes to complete. You do not have the option to do more Noom as the program limits how many lessons you can do it a day. The lessons rare full of information and knowledge about weight loss, techniques for losing weight and yes the psychology behind it all. The information is solid, and that is why I am placing it on the what I like side of things. However, after so many years of being on a weight loss journey the information is more a review and a reminder. (How can it almost be 19 years since I started this blog/website?). But a reminder isn’t a bad thing! On that note though, how I wished I would have had Noom and all the information when I was first starting to lose weight!
What I Dislike about Noom
Of course with the above things that I like about Noom, there are things that I dislike!
1. I do not like the tracking app. This is probably my largest dislike! In fairness, it is functional and does a great job of keeping track of my caloric intake. However, it is a rather cumbersome application. I have tried to give it the benefit of the doubt and say, “well I used myfitnesspal for so many years that I am just set in my ways”. But not. Even after months of using Noom, I am still finding the tracking aspect to be awkward. My biggest issue. You have to click into tracking….then click into the meal you want to add. Standard up to this point. From here is where it gets unwieldy. You can enter your food. They give you four standard options for portion size. To change the portion size, you have to click her and click there and whatnot, it’s not just clicks on the same screen. It is click here and it takes you to another page…and then click there to go somewhere else. So when you finally get the food and the portion you can start entering your next item. And you start the process again. When you are done entering, you are actually not done. You have to click “Done” at the top of the page….which to me means it’s done and you have entered it into your tracker. But NO….then you have to click the tab at the bottom that says log ‘breakfast’ (or lunch, dinner or snack). Done yet? Nope, there is now an intermediary page that pops up and you have to the chose close which takes you back to the main page. Ohhh, not the main page of the tracking….the main page TOTAL. So if you are entering your days foods all at once (either at the start of the day as pre tracking or at the end after you’ve already eating, you now need to start right back at the beginning and CHOOSE tracking….then CHOOOSE the meal…..and then start again with the multiple clicks. It just seems over the top annoying! Ohhh and if you try to bypass one, it will delete all your hard work and take you back to the beginning. Believe me, I have done it so many times by accident because crazily enough, I think that when I click ‘done’ it really means done. Or that when I click ‘log meal’ that it means I’m logging the meal. So frustrating!
2. The psychological mumbo jumbo lessons! Yes, I am putting the daily lessons on the dislike page also. I really should have made an ‘ambivalent’ section, but since I didn’t I am putting this one on both the like and dislike! These lessons. They are not a work at your own pace in the regard that you only have the option for 3 or 4 a day. Now if you don’t read through them, they just transfer to the next day. So you definitely have the option to do them slow! But you do not have the option to do them faster. That is annoying and I can clearly see that as a ploy to keep people coming to their site…and paying.
3. And with that dislike, I will talk about the cost. I dislike the cost of this program and how they operate. You can purchase one month at a time, which would be the standard way things operate. I will preface the next few sentences by saying that I can’t remember the actual prices for each payment plan, so I may be off in the prices a bit. But, if you pay month to month you will be paying somewhere near $70 for that month. (yes, you read that right…and yes, this one is one of the prices that I know I’m pretty close to what it cost it’s the following numbers that I can’t remember.) If you opt in for two months, you will get a deal and pay less, $60 a month. Three month plan? You pay even less at $55…..and downward to the longest plan, which was 10 or 11 months….at $200 dollars. The longest plan is actually doable at $20 a month…but I had to commit to the long term. Which is what I did. I made a commitment to try it for long term.
So, here I am in a long term commitment with Noom. Some of
the things I like are important and are helping to ‘reset me’. The color system for my calories is really
neat because it is helping remind me that all calories are not created equal. So I am ok with my commitment. But the tracking is so annoying that I can
honestly say that unless something changes drastically In the next 6-8 months that
my time with Noom will end when my current commitment runs out.
