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To Noom or Not to Noom

I’m pretty sure that I mentioned in a post a while back that I was trying Noom, so see if it’s psychological approach would help me to lose the weight and get healthier. I paid for 9 months and started faithfully following their program for a bit, but found that I really wasn’t seeing a benefit from the program. But just because I decided it wasn’t right for me, doesn’t mean that it won’t be right for someone else, so if you are considering it, please make your own decisions (they do have a free trial option if you don’t want to pay right away).

So why didn’t it work for me? A few reasons. First, Noom encourages you to weigh every day and cites psychological reasons why this is a good thing. But it’s not always a good thing because weight fluctuates daily, and if you are a person who is very invested in results, you may beat yourself up, or give up, watching the scale go up and down day after day. Personally, I prefer to use the scale rarely, once a month at the most, and use other means for judging my progress.

The other aspect that didn’t work for me was their psychology lessons meant to help you overcome temptations, remain motivated, and understand your food choices. I have always been interested in learning, and health, weight-loss and psychology have always been topics that interest me, so there really wasn’t any new information presented in the lessons for me. This is something that could be very beneficial for someone who hasn’t studied a lot in this area though.

I did really enjoy their color-coded food system, which is based on caloric density. I did feel like some healthier foods got a bad rap though because they were listed as “red” foods. The do a good job talking about how “red” foods aren’t necessarily “bad,” but people are already conditioned to see “good” and “bad” in the color system. Maybe a completely different color schema would remove the stigma, ie: eat more purple foods, moderate orange foods, and less blue foods. I don’t know.

Their trackers are also good- you can track your food, water, exercise, steps (and link up your fitness device), but there are other options for tracking these items as well (for instance, I can track through my Fitbit).

So Noom is not the right option for me, but it might work for you.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post, I have not received any compensation and paid in full for my Noom membership. All thoughts and opinions are my own.