Thoughts on Noom

Why did I try Noom?

I need to lose weight, I know this, my doctor knows this and quite frankly I am tired of being tired and not feeling good.  They (Noom) are a sponsor of a podcast and so I figured I would give it a try.  My doctor had really strongly suggested I count calories which I have been so against for a long time and in fact it took me about 2.5 weeks before I could bring myself to do it.

Noom and my doctor gave me the same calorie intake amount to shoot for so I was pretty happy with that, and it seemed fairly easy to use.

What I liked or mostly liked

The psych tips, and information about motivations and triggers and how to help counteract them.  Overall they did remind us that we will fall off the wagon and that is ok, just get back on, we are human.  That is very reassuring and something that I know in my head but it is so hard to embrace, I need to see that often.

The daily weigh-in, this is a good and bad thing, it certainly helps keep me honest and after a while, it isn't scary anymore (which is a point they make and part of why they do the daily weigh-in to make it not scary and not a blocker.)

I also liked the information they had about a serving size and had a love/hate relationship with the green-yellow-red diet breakdown chart.  I understand it but it was very intimating as I was in the trial and really demoralized me a bit and I had to work hard to overcome this.

I read a review from Abby Langer who is a Registered Dietitian, and she had this to say about the food categories.

Noom categorizes foods into Green, Yellow, and Red categories, based on their caloric density. This is somewhat of a good approach, but it means that some nourishing foods such as nuts and nut butters land in the Red group beside cake because they’re higher in calories for their serving sizes. That being said, Noom is about balance, so it recommends a 30-45-25 split between Green, Yellow, and Red foods. They also make it clear that ‘Green’ doesn’t mean ‘good’ and Red doesn’t mean ‘bad’.  ... Still, I’m on the fence about the categorization of foods because people will invariably link ‘Red’ foods to ‘Danger’ or ‘Bad’.  -  Abby Langer

Yes I do associate 'red' to 'bad' so it made it hard for me to feel like I was making progress with lifestyle changes that I know I need to make.

What I would change

I did like the psych tips they were very helpful but there were times that I had to will myself to ignore the millennial style speak and interesting grammar choices.  I am hardly one to go after friends with a red pen and honestly my grammar is not that strong, but I expect more from a professional piece of work.  This review by Leah Ingram says it so well.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the Noom app is the grammar. I’m one of those people who yells at the TV or ads on the radio or billboards that use “less” when they should use “fewer.” Noom is guilty of this.

The Noom app also uses “us” when it should use “we.” For example, you see the sentence “Us Noom Nerds” a lot. This makes me crazy. Whenever I see it, I shout out, “It’s we.” It should be “We Noom Nerds.” Because if you took away the “Noom Nerds” part of the sentence, you wouldn’t say “Us like to do…” You would say “We like to do…”

I would also ease people into the whole green-yellow-red thing, sure some people are all in but a lot of us need to not necessarily baby step it but walk not jump into the lifestyle changes.  That is me, I need to track and get a real idea of what a portion size is and as I mentioned I understand the stoplight analysis it would have been more effective if they kept the coding but didn't tell me that I am X calories over my red budget.  I don't need that pressure as I am trying to make changes to fit within a calorie budget it is too much and I had to pep talk myself to ignore it.

Additionally, I would love a web interface, I am not excited that I had to cancel via message within the app. I set it up via my web browser I should be able to cancel the same way.

The recipes looked interesting but I never tried them, what I really wanted was the ability to say here is my recipe (and provide a URL or something) break it down for me calorie-wise.  And this is where the web interface would come in handy, especially to adjust recipes or more clearly define an ingredient.  For example, if the recipe calls for ground beef you could specify if it was 85% lean, 93% lean or other.

What is next?

I have seen progress on the scale during my 14-day free trial and I have canceled my subscription.  I do see the benefits of food journalling/calorie counting and sticking to your calorie budget.  I do know that I need this, and I do need to actually weight everything out which is annoying but it has been helping me really be able to visualise what is normal and healthy size rather than what I want to eat.

I am going to try myfitnesspal next, and I think I can still use the Noom app for counting calories etc I just won't get the other stuff, but who knows I will find out tomorrow! :)  If my experiment fails I am sure that Noom would love for me to come back and I know that is always an option for me.