Noom Review

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I used Noom to help me lose weight. I have a history of an eating disorder, so what struck me about Noom was how they focused on the psychological part of weight loss. It has always been the hardest part for me, and if I was going to lose weight without relapsing, I needed a program that focused on the mental part. Noom was perfect.

I want to be completely honest with you: I didn’t complete this program. I will explain more in the review, but I didn’t do all the exercises, and I haven’t read all the articles. I completed the first sixteen weeks pretty faithfully, but after that, it was hit or miss.

What is it?

There are three significant parts of Noom: the daily trackers, the support, and the articles. The program requires you to count your calories and weigh yourself daily. Noom provides a coach if you have any questions or concerns. They also put participants into groups so you can talk to each other about your journey. Lastly, there are daily articles to read and questions to answers regarding your weight loss journey.

My Experience:

Calorie Counter:

Logging daily calories are nothing new to me, so it wasn’t much of an adjustment to get into the habit. It was an adjustment to find the right foods. In comparison to MyFitnessPal, the Noom calorie app was harder to use. I couldn’t find some of the foods I usually ate, and when I did, I had to adjust the calories.

I almost quit Noom before I began, because it set my calories to 1,300 a day. Long story short, other diets haven’t worked for me because they don’t calculate my calories correctly. I always end up not eating enough food, so I feel starved, so I quit. My BMR is 1,650, so I need at least that much. I talked to the coach, and she helped me adjust the calories, but I wasn’t able to set it to what I needed. The highest I could fix it was 1,780, while I needed to set it to at least 2,000.

Daily Weight

Part of the program was weighing yourself daily. It was easy to record. I don’t mind seeing my weight every day, I think it has been part of my success. It’s a daily check-in on how I was doing.

Coach

I received a coach when I signed up for the program. I can’t remember what she did for me. I had to go back to the app to re-read what we discussed. She checked in on me every week and made sure I didn’t have any questions. We discussed my goals and how to achieve them.

I have no doubt she is good at her job, but I didn’t need a coach at this time in my journey. I have tried to do it for so long that I know what to do; it’s about finding the right motivation.

Group

I was put into a group when I signed up for the program; we all had the same coach. Other “noomers” published their workouts or how they were feeling. There were a few exercises in the curriculum that encouraged you to share your goals, doubts, or fears with the group.

My problem with this is I can’t connect with people online. I have to see people face to face to relate to them. I liked how we had a space to share our thoughts and celebrate our milestones with people who understand. But I never kept up with the people in my group, and I didn’t try to contribute to the conversation.

Articles

Every day there was a series of articles to read. Going through the materials could take anywhere from ten minutes to thirty minutes, depending on how many questions the articles contained. The materials were very relatable - Noom wrote the articles in second person, so I felt like a friend was sitting next to me, telling me all this technical information in a fun way.

I’ve heard some of the lessons, but I appreciated all the information was put into one place and structured in an easily consumable way. They even highlighted important points; those points stuck with me and helped me change my mindset.

Questions

The questions were probably the most frustrating part of the program. Some of the articles contained questions you had to answer before you could move on with the material. I like the idea of writing down goals and thoughts, but most of the time, I didn’t need to, or I didn’t understand what I was supposed to write down. Some of the questions were confusing and seemed only to fit the example.

I think this part was what made me stop short with the program. I would be going through the articles for the day, get to the questions, and if I didn’t understand what to write down, I just quit for the day. Sometimes I wrote down the bare minimum that made some sense to check that article off the list, which wasn’t good either!

Overall:

For me, the program was hard to keep up with because sometimes I didn’t have thirty minutes a day to go through the articles and record my calories. I should have made time, I will admit, but thumbing through Instagram is way easier!

Another problem I had was I needed to pause the program for personal reasons. I determined I didn’t want to lose all the weight at once. I wanted to pause for a month or however long I needed to make sure I was still in a healthy mindset, but I couldn’t do that. I lost a bunch of content because one) it was too much information at once, two) I couldn’t pause the program, and three) the schedule wasn’t flexible enough.

I thought it was a sixteen-week program, but there are still articles for me to read almost six months later. I paid for six months, so I guess I get to read articles and answer questions for that amount of time too. I don’t know if I will still have access to the app if my six months runs out.

With all that said, I would still recommend the program, especially for those with a history of an eating disorder. But I would recommend the articles, not necessarily everything else. Calorie counting isn’t for everyone. Coaches and groups all have their place. Writing down your goals is something everyone should do. But the articles about the psychology of eating and losing weight were so helpful I wanted to re-read them and memorize them.

Further Reading:

• Noom Reviews + How it Works (Does It?) I Joined! • 2020 by Pretty Sweet

• Noom Review: Does it Work for Weight Loss by High Ya

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