Anyone used NOOM

tatilove1988

Hello, I need to lose 20-25 lbs and I’ve been thinking about joining noom. I'm not entirely sure how it works. Has anyone used it? What does it do? Does it help you find motivation to workout, or help you eat healthier? I’d be very interested in hearing how it works.

Thank you,
Tati

MOM2268

I didn't find it helpful for me at all. to be honest the little "lessons/activities" they have you do daily are like mini therapy sessions & perhaps do help some but they really jut triggered a lot of negative history for me. Also their food & exercise log options are not even close in the number of options as they are here. They daily "lessons/activities" are written in a way that I found hard to do because I don't work and they don't seem to have anything with those as the option. I found them to lean towards a condescending tone (while not how I think they were meaning them to come across). The nutrition info was nothing new, just the same as everything else I have ever tried. If you really must spend money on a program them spend it on Weight Watchers. They are moving towards psychology of Weightloss more now which I think will make them a bigger competition for Noom than ever. I have done both & if I could afford it I'd go back to Weight Watchers before I'd ever recommend Noom to anyone that wants a really good program minus all the condescending gimmicky crap. Of course this is just my personal experience & perhaps others have not had the same one as I have. Good luck!

legblonde355

I use Noom it’s helpful to help with your mindset if you struggle with that but I prefer mfp for logging.

mom2kateRH

I just cancelled my noom after the free trial. Really didn't work for me and here's my issues with it:
1. No way to put in a recipe and have it calculate calories, fat, protein etc. Their solution to this was I just add the ingredients to a meal and save that meal. But, for instance,the lentil kale soup I make serves 10. No way to log 1/10 of 2 tbs olive oil. So, if you cook a lot from scratch, definitely not a good program

2. It's supposed to be highly personalized and based on psychology, but the initial survey was superficial at best, and I found the program to be very generic. Platejoy (which is a meal planning program) asked FAR more detailed questions and really generated menus very specific to me

3. Pretty sure the "coaches" are bots

4. Way too few calories. I was given a base of 1210, at 5'8" and active

5. I'm afraid people would end up eating too little fat on this and end up hungry. Nuts and olive oil are viewed the same as butter. For me, as someone who eats mostly vegetarian, I would often exceed my "red" foods significantly before getting to dinner or snack, because I eat a lot of nuts. I get the need for caution with nuts--they are high calorie. But I can't live on grapes alone

6. They want you to weigh yourself daily, which for some people (myself included) is NOT healthy psychologically. Again, part of their selling point is that this program is supposed to be individualized and based in psychology. It's not

I realize it has worked for a lot of people, but for what they charge, I expect more. But not being able to create my own recipes in their app was a deal breaker for me My husband and I cook a lot, so that just won't work for me

mom2kateRH

Also, daily weigh ins area deal breaker for me, too.

lucrean03

I also canceled after the free trial. I found the lack of information bothersome. Like they were holding out on me until I paid. I found little motivation.

tatilove1988

Thank you all your comments. I have signed up for the 14 days free trial. I will see how I like it during those two weeks and make my decision based on that.

makattack220

I have been on Noom for 2 months and paid for the 6 month subscription up front. I don't think I would have stuck with it if I did the free trial BUT I have reaped some benefits from the program, although it did take time (i.e., I wouldn't have seen them if I did just the trial). I'd echo a lot of what @mom2kateRH has said; very well put.

The food logging on Noom is just no where close to MFP. You can't pre-plan/log for future days and the way the logging works its even hard to go back and forth if you're pre-planning how much to have of something. The recipe maker is terrible. The portions are odd and the mechanism to increase quantity (in grams, for example) is clunky. I was flagging inaccurate calorie information daily. Just two weeks ago I stopped logging in Noom and switched back to MFP. I really appreciate all the little things on MFP now!

I too was budgeted way too few of calories (500-700 less than any other reputable calorie calculator would suggest). It was also a moving target as there was no option to not have your exercise calories added back in your budget. This just didn't work for me. Also, for someone who relies on healthy "red" (calorie dense) foods like nuts to get in all my calories for the day, the color system just didn't work for me.

But, my biggest disappointment with Noom is the 1:1 coaching. The main reason I wanted to try Noom was because of the personal coaching and accountability - or so I was led to believe by the marketing. I thought the coaches might be bots too but after changing coaches, I think they are real people... I think. Either way, they only check in weekly with generic questions about goals you set for yourself. It's more like therapy (talking in circles with lots of questions so you find answers for yourself) than the fitness/health coaching I thought I was getting. Maybe this type of interaction works for some, but not me.

Now, to be fair, here are some of the good things about Noom (in my experience). I have enjoyed the articles and think they're well organized into daily bite-size lessons. The information is nothing new but it is all in one course so its convenient. I plan to keep going until I "graduate" the program; there are no refunds so I might as well get as much out of it as I can. An added bonus is that I started taking notes on all the lessons after finding out you lose access to all your information and lessons after your subscriptions expires. Taking notes has led to more engagement with the information and I think it has certainly helped with the mindset work that, for me, is critical in making sustainable habit changes.

Also, I've really enjoyed the group coach and group member interactions (this happens after week 3, I believe). I have gotten way more from my group and group coach than the 1:1 coaches. I've made a couple connections there and one my friends even reloaded MFP so we can connect here now beyond Noom.

Overall, I don't think you need Noom to get the same kind of benefits for free using other platforms. I'd highly recommend food logging here on MFP vs any other platform and I think you can learn a lot from other coaches. I like Physiqonomics (nutrition and fitness straight talk, like THIS) and Pahla B (great workouts on YouTube and her Fitness Matters podcast is fantastic for mindset work, like THIS). You can also take advantage of this community on MFP for accountability, too. (BTW, if anyone wants to connect, send me a message or friend request with a bit about you!)

Hope that helps!

pnrbor

I tried it for a couple of weeks. Decided it wasn't for me. Food hard to find. Couldn't use kj instead of calories. Long story short I started using MyFitnessPal and saw a dietitian which gave me some good pointers.

mom2kateRH

@makattack220 glad to hear there are some positives to the program. I think it may work for some, especially the group sessions. But as someone who is *trying* (not necessarily succeeding, but trying) to be more aware of the environmental impacts of my food decisions, noom definitely didn't work for me. It really does not make logging food made from scratch easy at all.

makattack220

mom2kateRH wrote: »

@makattack220 glad to hear there are some positives to the program. I think it may work for some, especially the group sessions. But as someone who is *trying* (not necessarily succeeding, but trying) to be more aware of the environmental impacts of my food decisions, noom definitely didn't work for me. It really does not make logging food made from scratch easy at all.

@mom2kateRH Agree 100% about the recipe maker; the food logging in Noom is just super clunky in general. There are some benefits but for the money, I think they have a lot of work to do in order to give clients better return on investment.

Sara3veg

I canceled after the free trial. It wasn't bad, I just didn't see the value of it, for the cost. I went into it knowing that I had a lot of food issues, after dieting and maintaining for quite a few years, and wanted something to address the mental aspects of weight management. Noom had some nice tips, but I found intuitive eating a much better method for me, for 'resetting' my mindset and getting myself back on track with a more healthy attitude towards food, (eta: I did not follow IE as a weight loss method, in fact I gained a few pounds throughout the process, but it was a really big help for my mental health-outlook as it pertains to food and weight management).

I had no issues canceling after the free trial so I'd recommend trying it and seeing if it's a good fit for you op

seadragon1978

It was quite an interesting app but it recommended way too few calories and too many carbs for me, so gave up on it.

jellybeanmusic

Having had success in the past by logging on MFP, I personally found Noom not as useful. It was rubbish as a logging tool, so I was using it in conjunction with MFP.

I found the daily quizzes and education fun at first, but they quickly became annoying and the tone of voice was quite patronizing. The "coach" seemed like a good idea, but I'm pretty sure they're bots, I didn't get the answers I was looking for when I asked for support.

Some people might get on well with it, so like anything it's worth a shot to make your own mind up. It just wasn't for me.

Xellercin

You would be better off utilizing a combo of mindfulness CBT and MyFitnessPal. Noom is trying to blend psychological tools with diet tools and not doing so in a particularly effective way. Meanwhile, you could build your own toolbox with better, proven psychological tools with much less expensive app resources like Headspace, Moodkit. The book Atomic Habits is also great for understanding why you might have certain eating patterns and how to change them.

It's not a one stop shop, but neither is your brain.

makattack220

Just in case anyone still has questions or wants to discuss Noom, here's another thread (more recent posts) you might want to check out:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10853747/noom-vs-mfp-any-other-noomers-on-here-with-experience#latest

kbru19

I have not used Noom as a person trying to lose weight, but I did apply to be a coach and was not impressed with it. So yes, I do think the coaches are actual people.

Quick background: I have a masters in Marriage and Family Therapy and an associate license through my state so I have plenty of experience doing *actual* clinical work helping people identify behaviors in their life that are not serving them or their goals. (If I may toot my own horn for a second, I was pretty good at it too.) My impression of Noom was that this is exactly what they are trying to do for clients. Based on my experience applying, I don't think that's true anymore.

The part of the interview process that I bombed was a mock coaching session. I believe where I went wrong was asking questions that were too open-ended to let the "client" identify where their concerns are. Apparently I was supposed to tell them what to work on rather than working with them. Not for me. But the comments about the coaches possibly being bots make sense to me because it is soo not personalized.

I'd say if you're looking for psychological help with weight loss, see an actual therapist. They better help you identify YOUR barriers and YOUR strengths/successes. If you can't or won't go to a therapist, look up CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) or DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy - this is for practicing emotion regulation) exercises online.