Has anyone tried Noom?

[CoopersHawke]

I keep seeing their adverts for "changing your relationship with food". Surely this is the key for anyone who is overweight?

If you have used Noom did it work for you? Can you sum up what it's about?

I had exactly the same question!

It's a healthy eating app. I lost 10kg over a few months (although once I stopped tracking what I ate, I put 5kg on again). It's most useful for people who overeat for psychological reasons. I don't, but the tips on portion size and what/how to eat were good.

It's very American and hipster-ish and I'd guess, run by 20 somethings. But the advice did seem to be evidence based.

It's pricey though and the free food logging system on MyFitnessPal is just as good for that aspect.

It's most useful for people who overeat for psychological reasons
Well, that would be me! But I already know very well what good portion sizes are and what foods I should be eating… I just don't do it.
I'm addicted to sugar and keep having cake binges whenever I feel happy/sad/bored/excited/any old excuse.

I saw that it is pricey so don't want to join up if it likely won't help me.

I am halfway through my Noom course.

It is expensive. Tbh I have found that helps me - if I'm putting my money down, then I'm going to give it a proper shot. I decided I needed to lose my lockdown weight. I joined in June. I had over 15 kgs (33lbs) to lose.

It's calorie counting basically. You get out what you put in.

Downsides for me:
Twee language, #hashtags #everywhere, occasional glib advice to "just snack on a cucumber!", nutritional advice which seems a bit like Weightwatchers in 1995, a rather sexist default setting of starting every single woman at 1200 calories regardless of height or activity level (the algorithm does do some tweaking for men based on these factors), the calorie counter in MFP is miles better (more foods in database, more portion size options).

Upsides:
There are tasks to complete every day and that keeps you thinking about it and helps you stay on track. (I wake before everyone else in my house so I do the Noom articles and quizzes then. That sets me up for the day.) The groups are quite good. Lots of shared articles; sometimes people contribute a bit of chat and often they don't. But that again draws you back to thinking about it. It helps to post your worries and someone will cheer you on or offer words of support.

In two months I have lost 8kg (17lbs), eating about 1600-1800 calories a day. I am combining that with exercise. Obviously I expect that speed to slow a bit as it gets closer to my goal, but I'm v fat so it goes quicker at the beginning. And I've signed up for four months so I can do it over a long enough time period that I can recover from a few hiccups/social events while still on the program. Like, last week I was totally fed up with life in general and I ordered Chinese food and a few beers. (Obviously I don't do this all the time but I was comfortable enough to know that by now I could pick myself up again the next day and it would be easy to recover momentum. I did and it was.)

I've even started to believe I'll make my goal weight, which I don't think I expected when I started. (You try not to be "negative", but it's just so hard to see it, isn't it?)

I found it useful - you need to engage with it, spend ten mins a day reading that day's material.

It is very American and I didn't quite engage with all of the writing your gratitude down bits.

There is a lot of interesting science explained, with links to the academic studies. It explains various types of diets like keto, intermittent fasting etc from a scientific perspective and encourages you to find your way yourself. Some interesting reading on behaviour psychology which helped. Understanding common barriers to change for.example and identifying your thought processes

I lost two stone on it and have one to go which I am doing using my fitness Pal.

My fitness Pal is better in terms of functionality for calorie.counting but I did find Noom useful to get me going and committed

I found the red orange green food types really put me off. I have some t a long time trying to stop demonizing food and it just felt like that would creep in again with the traffic light colours

If sugar is your downfall I’d suggest low carb.it’s my downfall too and ive no cravings at all on low carb.

IME its much like other low calorie diets. It’s no good if your problem is disordered/binge eating.

The food categories and info are basically low calorie and ‘whole foods’, minimising processes food, sugar and white carbs.

Content was dull science and a bit of psychology.

The groups and coaching were useless.

Its a really expensive american orientated version of my fitness pal.
Its a calorie and excercise tracker that mostly has american foods and measurements in its database and very few british, and sends you american style motivational quotes.
Its very overpriced for what you get imo, and i stopped after the trial period and reinstalled MFP which at least has a free version and also a more swishy ad free paid version which is still much cheaper than noom and has everything except the motivational quotes and more british amd european based

I'm doing it now. I lost 12 pounds but ive put three back on. I won't be renewing but I do find some of the articles interesting and the psychology has helped me to curb the amounts I eat. Unfortunately I'm in holiday mode at the moment so I don't give a crap about what I eat 🙈

I've done it and was really unimpressed, found more use from paying for premium version of MyFitnessPal

I did the free trial, but had to stop because the food recording made me obssessive about calorie counting, and it couldn't accommodate my food sensitivities at all - to the extent that they refunded what I paid for the meal planning add on. It's very American and works on American times, so any support comes in at odd times of day in the UK.

I didn’t think much of it. The advertising and the questionnaires and exercises you do to set it up with your tailored framework or whatever they call it was all “not a diet, a new way to eat” and “not calorie counting” and “reset your relationship with food” and “developed by psychologists” and “coaching”, then after about a million screens it pops you out the end with a 1200 daily calorie limit and cheery reminders to drink more water. There is a coach and support group but I didn’t especially want to start a 1200 diet so I didn’t engage. Not sure if the coach is a real person, a chatbot, or a real person somewhere behind a lot of automated chat reminders (suspect the latter).

If I’d been expecting a bog standard calorie diet I might have engaged properly but I was expecting maybe a programme of slowly introducing longer term changes and exercises to reset my mindset, and what I got was basically what I’d have got from the first page of MFP plus some Google reminders. Felt very much missold for what it is.

That said, means there is still a gap in the market for an app that actually is a programme of slowly introducing longer term changes and exercises to reset my mindset with coaching support, if anyone fancies being a healthtec startup :)

I hoped it would be a longer term mindset thing. But it was just a low calorie diet (I usually use 1,900 to 3,000 calories a day) so something that's starting at 1,200 calories just leaves me feeling horrendous. It also really likes low fat foods which I'm really not convinced of as a method of not being hungry later, and personally I can't consume large quantities of vegetables without it setting off my IBS so the constant feeling that the app was tutting at me for eating too many "red" foods was extremely frustrating.

I did the trial but felt like it was quite an unhealthy mindset of good and bad foods and just drink more water etc so I wouldn't recommend it personally.

I started it but it's basically low calorie guidelines and the psychology stuff was a bit trite. I got bored by it.
It advocates weighing yourself every day which is something I'm still not sure is a good idea.

Hmm. I'm interested in the psychology stuff but apart from that it doesn't sound like it's for me.
I already use MFP and the American motivational messages would piss me right off!

Thanks all for your input.

I was tempted by it and liked the free trial. BUT I hate, hate, hate companies with hidden pricing. It seems the price is different for everyone... and when you go to cancel, they knock even more money off.