Smartphones, along with their numerous applications, have become so important to us today that these apps practically help us navigate life. From having an app to facetime our friends to having an app to learn new recipes, there is nothing that they can’t do. One such realm where apps have stepped their foot is helping people lose their weight. 

What Is Noom?

Popularly called the ‘Noom diet’, Noom is actually an app that helps people keep up with their weight loss challenges and basically tries to encourage them to reach their end goals, faster and better. It is designed by various nutritionists, psychologists, and personal trainers, and is mainly targeted at millennials. It has helped over 1.5 million users lose weight since its inception. This app allows its users to log meals, access different and creative plans for their workout sessions, set their goals, and even receive professional help and advice from various registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs). 

Your plans and the journey to reach your goals becomes more interesting when you have other people to join you in on the same, and Noom helps you with this. You can connect with certain groups of peers who are working on the same goals, share the same plans. This helps you create an environment for yourself that keeps a check on you from time to time, and doesn’t let you digress from your goals of losing weight. 

How does the Noom Diet plan work?

The Noom diet for weight loss doesn’t ban most foods, instead, it motivates its users to eat more nutrient-dense foods, and reduces the intake of yellow-tagged (proteins, starches) and red-tagged (pizza, alcohol, etc.) foods.

The ultimate goal of the Noom diet is to maintain a healthy lifestyle that will benefit you for years to come, to adopt a ‘new normal’ which is healthy. For this, it creates for you a calorie deficit program, that aims to help lose weight. It uses an algorithm to create an estimation of the number of calories that the user needs to take every day, depending on their weight, their aim, and time frame. The minimum calories budget that the Noom diet allows is 1,200 calories for women, and 1,400 calories for men.

What are the Benefits of Noom?

Noom’s long-term health approach has a lot of benefits over quick-fix methods for weight loss. Have a look at some benefits of Noom.

• Calorie and nutrient density is the primary focus

The Noom diet program focuses on calorie density, and categorizes food items under three labels, yellow, green, and red, depending on the concentration of calories. Green foods are the ones with the highest nutrients and the lowest calorie density, whereas red ones are those with the highest concentration of calories, and the yellow colored food items fall in between. 

Diets that use low-calorie-dense foods and beverages like fruits and vegetables that contain more amounts of water and fiber, and a low percentage of fat, associated with less hunger, weight loss, and risk of chronic heart conditions, as compared to diets that use high-calorie-dense foods.

• Allows all foods to fit into your diets

Noom does not work by restricting you to take certain foods or food groups. Even a lot of high-calorie-dense foods contain important nutrients for your body, and completely banning desserts, etc. when you’re dieting is not the way the Noom diet for weight loss works. Noom does not forbid any food groups, rather encourages you to take less of them.it tries to fit all food items into your diets, keeping in mind that you remain healthy, while also not missing out on anything.

• Promotes behavioral changes among users

Apart from keeping control of what you eat, losing weight also has a lot to do with your daily lifestyle. If you do not have a good, healthy lifestyle, you are very likely to regain weight once you stop dieting. The key is to break any unhealthy behavior patterns that you might have because these are the ones that create an impediment in the road towards achieving your goals. 

In order to work on this, Noom uses a psychology-based program that encourages you to adopt habits that will support you to realize your fitness aims and goals. 

Drawbacks of Noom

1. Price

Noom and all its benefits do not come for free, you are required to pay a minimum price of $44.99 to be able to enjoy them. This factor is something that is totally subjective and depends on whether you’re willing to spend this much on a fitness app.

2. Accessibility

Noom, as already discussed, is a virtual platform only available on mobile phones. Hence, its accessibility is dependent on the availability of smartphones/tablets, access to the internet, etc.

3. Virtual interaction

Any and every communication that takes place on the app is through the messenger system on the Noom app itself. This virtual system might not be preferred by most people, since they find it better to be able to talk and consult with experts on a personal level, face-to-face. However, apart from the logistics part, we find that the Noom diet comes with a lot of benefits, in terms of working effectively on your weight loss goals and developing a healthy lifestyle that will benefit you largely over the course of years. According to Noom, users who get enrolled in their program and inculcate a healthy lifestyle can lose up to 1-2 pounds per week. 

Well, in the end, it will always lead down to knowing well you follow your program, utilize your coaches, and be consistent in your journey towards your goals. An app can help prepare an outline for you on how to go about things, but eventually, it will always be you who will have to work towards it. An app might help some people navigate their life well, while the same might not be true for others. It is essential that you try to figure out whether this is what you want, and whether this is the one thing that will be the driving force for you, that will check on you and remind you of your goals.

Also Read: Does Noom Diet Work For Weight Loss?