Tell me about Noom

[Crunchymum]

Is it worth it? Does it help of you are an emotional eater?

What about alcohol? I'm in a bit of an emotional crisis so the wine consumption has gone up (not great as I'm fat already and have zero willpower with food when I drink)

What about exercise? I have arthritis so quite restrictive physical abilities to burn calories.

Does it do all the hard work for me

I'd love to know as well op as noom feels like my last hope. I've put on over a stone from my previous heaviest during lockdown and think I've become a compulsive eater . I tell myself each night, no snacks tomorrow then hit the biscuits again the next day.

Overpriced and not that great. It told me to eat 1200 calories a day which is below my BMR and a really bad idea in the long run. Basically for calorie counting you can just use MFP which is free. For the psychological support it’s not that great either, very generic and not at all individualised. I’d spend the money on something that will actually help your journey like a Fitbit or smart watch instead.

It's way overpriced and I found it annoying tbh. Please don't bother with it.

A friend of mine (medical, very rational and knowledgeable) lost more than 30kg using Noom. She found it incredibly useful for her emotional eating; it helped her change habits patterns. She looks absolutely fantastic still, a year later.

I’ve just signed up for the 2 week trial today. I need a kick start to get back into healthy eating habits. If I manage to eat healthily for the next two weeks I’ll sign up for 4 months. It is expensive but looking at what I currently spend on over eating I should hopefully be no worse off and a bit lighter!

Is there not a cookbook so you'd not have an on going fee?

I found it a complete waste of money. It’s easy enough to use but my fitness pal is just as good. The ‘psychology’ side of it was just a rehash of stuff I already knew and it is very American in tone. To be fair I didn’t engage with the chat groups at all but you can get the same kind of group support through mumsnet if that’s what you’re looking for.

What I found most annoying was that the calorie deficit was set far too high for me and if you have a smart watch it automatically adds any calories you burn through exercise to your allowance, which makes the calorie tracker useless if you don’t want to ‘eat’ your exercise calories.

So in summary - it didn’t work for me. I did lose 2 stone through the Fast 800 plan however.

It's not bad.

It gives you psychological tips and things to think about and relate to your own eating habits each day.

However, you have to work at it. It's no good reading it and thinking "that's interesting" and then forgetting it. You actually have to sit down with pen and paper and relate it to your own patterns to make it work.

It gives very little dietary advice, although there are recipes. It's not at all prescriptive. It basically relies on you having already done a million diets in the past, so already knowing about which foods to eat etc, but just failing because you never really stick to them, if you see what I mean?

Op I thought about noom too but cos it held back on lots of detail I decided it was about money making not weight loss.
I started Intermittent fasting instead and have been steadily loosing weight.
Any loss takes will power. But one day at a time...
Good luck

I've been using Noom for 2 months and have lost just over 8kg. This has been slightly slowing in the past couple of weeks (as expected with any change in diet as it becomes the norm).

I really like it, it is expensive but I am an emotional eater and have quite bad habits so find the psychological side really useful and some of the tips stick in my head during the day when I'm about to make a bad decision. I engage with the groups a little too which I enjoy, we're all doing the same exercises and on the same part of the programme which is useful.

Like anything, you have to put the effort in, but for 10-20 minutes a day of using the app it is quite good. I agree with the previous posters in terms of the calorie allowances - I don't stick to what they suggest. It suggests that I eat 1400 calories a day which is way too low for me. I'm breastfeeding so need more calories, but also don't tend to end up sticking to diets unless I'm having at least 1600/1700, so have been allowing myself 2000-2200 and the weight is coming off. I still log everything so that I can keep track of what I'm eating to make sure I'm sticking to it.

I agree with @justchecking1 in that it assumes you understand food/nutrition and have done lots of other diets and just not stuck to them - very true in my case!