June 2019 - Issue # 067 - What is the Noom Diet and Can it Help You Lose Weight?

Happy Summertime Everyone and Welcome Back

So what’s new this summer when it comes to weight loss?

Well the Noom diet is one of the latest diet trends to reach huge popularity and the Noom app that comes with it is being tried by thousands.

What is the Noom Diet?

The Noom Diet is gaining popularity because it comes with an app to help you with your dieting challenges.

Apps have become a new way of life and can make our lives a whole lot easier. This application helps us gear towards a healthier lifestyle focusing on eating healthy and adding exercise into your routine.

Here is a list of benefits that the Noom diet includes:

Meal journal/log

Exercise plans

Setting goals

Search for healthy recipes

Eating plans created by dietitians

Receive help from a personal health coach

Track your progress

Connect with others that have similar goals

Rate your motivation level

Addresses social eating, eating out, party events, holidays, vacations and so on

Also addresses emotional eating and stress eating

Does not eliminate any types of food, but rather tries to limit the “not so healthy” or high calorie foods

The way this diet works has great similarities to the Weight Watchers program, that is now called WW. We will go into the similarities a little farther below.

The Basis of the Noom Program is:

The main goal of the Noom Diet is to encourage healthy eating, basically eat less unhealthy foods and eat much more fresh fruits and vegetables with healthy proteins and starches.

The program also helps keep you motivated by the above listed support systems and benefits it offers.

Sounds good right? Now How Much Does it Cost?

You can download the app for free and they even give you a short trial period to test it out.

The trial period offered is 14 days and as long as you cancel during those 14 days you won’t be charged for anything.

After that membership costs can start around $35 (approximately) and the average length of membership lasts about 4 months, but there are many members that stay on much longer than that, even years, to get continual support.

There are also other additional services you can purchase at an extra cost to customize meal plans or workouts especially designed for you and your lifestyle.

The most popular added cost is having a personal Noom Coach that works with you.

The Noom diet was created in 2008 and studies have found that many of Noom's members have lost weight and maintained their weight loss.

The Cons:

The biggest negative is if you don’t like to spend more time on your phone than this can be annoying. It takes time to input all your daily meal and activity information into the program. Tracking and other services and information are also done through the app

Not registered dietitians but rather called health coaches

Of course as with any program there are lovers and haters of the program offering a range of mixed reviews

Just like any other diet you have to stick with it to make it work. That will never change. It seems to be well suited for many, but is it well suited for you?

Noom is Very Similar to the Weight Watchers Program (now called WW).

I mention this because for those folks familiar with WW it gives you a better idea of the Noom diet.

The Weight Watchers program includes regular meetings, learning sessions, group support, and uses its famous “point system” to help keep track of foods consumed daily.

In all honesty, the point system is just a clever disguise for counting calories. You see foods and meals are all assigned a number of points which actually reflect the amount of calories.

Everyone in the program has their own limit of how many points they are allowed to consume daily.

Its core philosophy is to help members lose weight by staying within their caloric intake, learning healthier meal choices and providing group support.

Just like the Noom diet, Weight Watchers has proven very effective for many individuals through the years, and it too has a membership fee.

Instead of the point system like WW uses, the Noom program divides food into one of three color coded categories of red, green or yellow.

No foods are off limits (just like WW) but you should limit the number of red foods just as you should limit your points in the WW program.

The Noom breaks down the color groups as such:

Green foods are for the GO to healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains. The program focuses on your diet consisting of at least 30% of these types of foods.

Yellow foods should make up about 45% of your daily intake. Yellow foods include such as dairy, meat and healthy starch foods.

Red foods have the highest calories and shouldn't take up more than 25% of your daily intake. Even some healthy foods can be high in calories such as peanut butter.

So whatever is high in calories should be avoided most of the time.

So the Noom uses a color coding for calories in food whereas the WW uses a point system for calories and both of these programs come with an app.

Conclusion:

Just like any other weight loss program you have to want to do it.

But if you particularly like app-based programs and don’t mind tracking your meals and exercise, this just might be the right fit for you.

If you have an opinion or would like to share a story with us we would love to hear from you.

Use our Contact Us page - or our Weight Loss News page (Your Story Counts).