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Does Noom Work?

Before I felt worthy enough to write a review of the Noom program, I felt that we should go through the program ourselves first, before being able to truly give an accurate review of everything the program gives you. I mean, how can I write an accurate review unless I know whether or not Noom actually helps with weight loss?

When I refer to “we”, I am talking about my wife and myself. Callie received an email from Noom asking that we promote their program for them on her blog. Having struggled with weight my entire life, I thought that this may be a good time to take the extra motivation to finally lose the weight. I’m so glad that she said she was in it with me.

Callie and I took the full 16 week Noom program. I must say that it was a great success. She lost 10 lbs of post-baby weight that she’s been wanting to get rid of, and I lost a whopping 35lbs, taking myself from 195 down to 160. Yes, if you stick with it, Noom really does work.

If you want you can read our full journey going through the Noom Program, but I will give you the basics throughout this article.  

What is Noom?

Noom is a weight loss program that you access via an app on your phone. There is no desktop version of the program, so a smartphone is required to participate in the weight loss program. Within the Noom program you get daily articles to help you learn psychological strategies for weight loss and retrain your brain to make better food and health choices.

The program involves tracking your food by counting calories, tracking steps taken each day by using your smartphone or synced smartwatch, and using strategies from the articles you read to make the best choices in tough situations like holiday parties, social events, or when binge-watching your favorite show on Disney+. 

One thing that separates Noom from other programs is the support system that they have in place. You are given a personal health coach to help answer your questions about the Noom program, and to help you set ongoing goals to hit throughout your experience.

If that isn’t enough, on week 3 you will also be place into a support group with a group coach and a few dozen people who are at the same level of the program as you. You get to rely on each other for support and participate in group discussions. Your daily articles will also prompt you to post within your group on certain topics, so you get further reinforcement and support on the topics you are reading on any given day.

While having these coaches and groups is great, my best line of support came from my wife and her willingness to do the program with me. She didn’t need to lose any weight really, but she could see that I really wanted this, and that her going through the program would also help me with extra support.

By being on the same diet, eating the same foods, having the same motivations to walk the neighborhood and go to the park and track with our 2 kids, we were able to sync up our goals and work together. Weight loss as a couple definitely made this easier than my past attempts at weight loss by myself, but if you plan to go through Noom alone, you won’t be alone with the coaches and group provided.

Joining the Noom Program

As stated in the intro, joining Noom is becoming a pretty popular thing to do. The amount of people searching for Noom in the past year has exploded.

Why might that be?

At least from my experience, the program works.

To ease your mind on the signup process and how much it will cost you, I’ve gone through the setup process again and grabbed some information and screenshots for you.

Signing Up For Noom

Noom site, you will see a request to Start your Noom journey with a 30-Second evaluation.

I’ll tell you now, the initial few questions may take you 30 seconds, but there are more steps behind the 30-second Evaluation.

Plan for about 10 minutes and have a credit card handy for the trial (it’s pay what you want for the trial so you still have to enter payment).

Within your initial 30 second eval, you will get questions like the following:

What is your ideal weight that you want to reach?
What’s your height and weight?
What is your gender?
What is your age? (you choose this by tens: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70+)

Next you will be given a set of questions that are more customized to you based on the answers you provided in the previous step.

Just for fun I stated that I was in my 70s (I’m really 28), just to see what types of questions I would get.

I got the following: 

• Men who are 70 or older and want to reach an ideal weight between 150 lbs and 170 lbs need a slightly different strategy depending on their current lifestyle. Which best describes you?
• What is your main reason for wanting to lose weight? (Please choose what is most important)
• Which of the below best describes your current priorities?
• Do you have any significant back issues?
• Are you at risk of any of the following?
• Have you ever been diagnosed with or received treatment for diabetes?
• Did you play sports or follow any other structured activity routine growing up?
• Which best describes the area you live in?

As you can see, these questions seemed to be geared towards someone who is older rather than younger.

It is at this point that you have to enter your email to begin to customize your weight loss plan. You are not on the hook for paying anything at this point, but be aware that you will be added to their email list.

After you enter your email, you will customize your weight loss plan further by answering another set of questions. 

You can see why this is definitely NOT a 30 second process, but as stated should take no more than 10.

While Noom is calculating your answers, you will see the occasional question pop up for some last minute information gathering.

When all of this is done and Noom has a good idea of who you are and your history with trying to lose weight, you will finally be presented with the option to claim your customized weight loss plan.

To start you have to enter you payment info that will be charged for your trial and your recurring plan payments.

I lost 5lbs in my first week of doing Noom (although my results may not be typical, I don’t have any stats on that). The point is to get started on your journey and commit to your weight loss. You can’t beat free to start your commitment to a life-long change.

After you claim your trial, you can claim your plan.

You will have 15 minutes to claim your plan, or you will have to answer all of the questions over again.

You will be given the option to enter a discount code if you have one and see the waived starter fee.

How Much Does Noom Cost?

The amount that you will agree to when signing up for the trial is $99 for 2 months. This is marked down from their $150 full-price, although I don’t know when this was the full price previously.

From what I see in Noom’s support section, there ARE different plans to choose from.

• Monthly auto-recurring plan $59 USD
• 2 month auto-recurring plan $150 $99 USD
• 4 month auto-recurring plan $240 $129 USD
• 6 month auto-recurring plan $360 $149 USD
• 8 month auto-recurring plan $480 $159 USD
• Annual auto-recurring plan $750 $199 USD

Obviously you are saving more money as you increase the length of your subsciption with them. Be sure to contact Noom support during your 2 week trial and discuss payment options if you are looking to continue.

*Note: The full Noom program is considered 16 weeks, or 4 months. Content is provided beyond that, just not in as great of a capacity.

Canceling Your Noom Trial

Not liking the trial?

Cancellation is as easy as contacting your personal coach on the app and asking them to help you cancel your subscription.

Your coach will send you a link and you can cancel from there.

Probably expect some tactics to help you stay on with the program, but if you resist their offers cancellation should go over easily.

What do you get with the Noom Weight Loss Program?

All signed up and ready to roll?

GREAT!

It’s now time to take a look at what to expect from the app and your experience with Noom.

Food Logging

A major part of your weight loss journey with Noom will consist of logging your food into the app. 

Even when I skipped reading articles from time to time, I still logged 90% of my meals during my 16 week journey.

You see, Noom is all about the math.

How many calories are you taking in? 

How many calories are you burning?

Keep track and when you learn to create a deficit, you begin to see the weight come off.

Along with counting food calories, you also learn about how different foods make you more full or less full. This is determined by the Noom Food Color System.

Red Foods

According to Noom’s unique color system, red foods are the most calorie-dense foods, meaning they pack a ton of calories in small portions and don’t have a lot of nutrients to them. Think 280 calorie 2oz Snickers Bar. Compare this to 4oz of non-fat cottage cheese being 80 calories. A Snickers Bar is much more dense in calories, and therefore will make you less full because you are eating less volume.

Other red foods include:

• Oils
• Seeds
• Nuts
• Nut Butters (ever looked at the calories in peanut butter? It’s INSANE!)

Red foods aren’t necessarily bad for you, but according to Noom you should limit the amount you eat of them.

Yellow Foods

Yellow foods are still more calorie-dense than green options, but they also carry less than red and also provide some vital nutrients you need.

Think:

• Grilled Chicken
• Eggs
• Greek Yogurt
• Low-Fat Cottage Cheese
• Avacados

These foods can make up a bigger part of your diet than red foods, but you should still watch your portion size, especially when you are in the weight-loss phase of the program.

Green Foods

Green foods should make up most of your diet, and you start to find fun and different ways to use them.

I LOVED eating green foods on the Noom program because it meant that I got to eat more. I am definitely a volume eater, and since green foods are least calorie-dense, you can add a whole slew of them to your diet.

Some green foods include:

• Spinach 
• Bell Peppers
• Apples
• Bananas
• Skim Milk
• Unsweetened Almond Milk
• Whole Grain Bread
• Quinua

As you can see from this list, not all green foods are literally green like you would traditionally think of spinach, lettuce, and kale. 

There are a wide variety of green foods out there.

One thing to keep in mind are wet foods.

Sounds gross. It’s not.

One thing you learn with Noom is that water content fills you up, and foods like grapes that have a ton of water content fill you up fast with fewer calories.

Lose At Your Own Pace

I was allotted 1450 calories per day on the Noom program.

My first thought was “I am going to starve to death!”

Funny thing is, you really don’t.

With your new knowledge of red, yellow, and green foods, daily psych tricks from Noom, and guidance from your coach, you hit a stride and find creative ways to make this work.

That being said, you don’t have to say you want to lose 1.5lbs per week like I had my program set to. You can go down to half a pound per week and get more calories allotted per day.

Once you are in maintenance mode (maintaining your goal weight), it’s almost hard to eat your 2000 calories a day again because you are so used to your new and improved lifestyle.

The point of this section is that you should lose weight at your own pace based on what works for you. Progress is progress and as long as you are working everyday to make improvements in your health and in your life, you can’t go wrong.

But what if you are a foodie?

Trust me, I am too, and sometimes it’s hard to tame your inner elephant and stay the course. When you fall off your plan, there is always the next meal that you can recover at.

What’s an Elephant In Noom?

Curious about what your inner elephant is? In the Noom world your elephant is the huge, rambunctious beast inside of you that wants to eat cake, overload on cheese at the wine mixer, and sit on the couch munching down a bag of cheese doodles while binge-watching Gilmore Girls.

Sounds like a pretty bad beast to have around, right?

Well… yes and no.

While many diets will tell you to tame the elephant and lock it in a cage, we all know that elephants are big, and when they decide they want out, they will do so in a loud and spectacular fashion.

Think about eating salads for a week, and then having to go to a birthday party. 

You can bet little Jimmy won’t get a piece of his own cake because your inner elephant will be breaking free and scarfing that bad boy down while little Jimmy looks hopelessly up at you.

Caging the elephant is bad, and Noom knows this.

That is why you are supposed to let your elephant out once and awhile.

While we were on the program, my wife and I had “cheat” meals. Not even a whole cheat day usually, but just a meal. We would eat well for a few weeks, and then when date night or a party rolled around, we would use that as a good occasion to let the elephant out a bit. 

We still made sure not to go TOO overboard, but not counting calories for a night and eating until you are nicely satisfied with whatever foods you want is a nice way to feed the elephant and stay on track.

What’s the Opposite of an Elephant?

If there is a crazy beast waiting to get out and binge-eat, what controls the beast?

In the Noom world this is known as The Rider.

The Rider is your responsible mind that knows that eating half a cheesecake will make you gain 5 pounds, feel like trash, and hate yourself later.

The Rider doesn’t just control the elephant, but tries to work with the elephant in order to maintain a happy balance in your life.

Half a cheesecake? Bad.

A half a piece of cheesecake to get that rich flavor you love so much and move on to healthier options. Good.

This is Rider and Elephant working together to bring a cohesive balance to your eating life.

Tracking Your Steps With Noom

The most basic form of exercise you can get is walking.

Just get more steps into your day. It’s simple. It’s healthy. Just do it.

It’s generally recommended that you get 10,000 steps per day, but not everyone has time or stamina to just start walking 5+ miles per day.

Noom helps you work up to it.

After you record your first day of steps, if you hit your goal, Noom will automatically adjust your goal 300 steps higher the next day.

Miss your goal and you will have 300 steps less for a goal the next day.

The purpose is to slowly work your way up to 10,000 steps per day.

But what if you don’t have a way to count your steps?

Using the Noom Step Counter

Noom comes with a built-in step counter that utilizes your smartphone to help track the swaying motion that walking provides to a phone while it’s in your pocket.

It’s nice to be able to have an option that can track steps without having to purchase a smartwatch.

The problem we found with the built-in step tracker was that it didn’t seem to be super accurate, and you may not want to take your phone with you everywhere, or you simply may forget it somewhere.

The built-in tracker is a nice-to-have, but you are much better off with a dedicated fitness tracking watch.

Connecting Your Smart Watch With Noom

Noom allows you to connect a large number of health apps and devices to help you track your fitness activities.

You simply go to Setting > Apps & Devices > Connect Additional Devices.

You will then be greeted with a list of popular fitness tracker brands that you can connect including: Fitbit, Garmin, iHealth, Misfit, Withings, Omron, Polar, RunKeeper, and more.

Once your device is connected you can go to Setting > Apps & Devices > Choose Steps Data Source and set your fitness tracker to track your Noom steps.

This is such a great added feature since you won’t need data in more than once place, and you will have a more accurate count than cell phone step counting would get you.

Now that your device is connected, step away!

Logging All Other Exercises

While walking is the bread and butter of the Noom Program, they still have options to track other exercises you may be doing.

The “Do More” option at the bottom of your daily tasks is your best friend when it comes to logging these extras.

Here you will find the “Log Exercise” button that allows you to log a large list of activities including:

• Treadmill Walk
• Running
• Sand Run
• Biking
• Badminton
• Basketball
• Boxing
• Dancing
• House Cleaning
• Jumprope
• Martial Arts
• Ping Pong
• Spinning
• Yard Work
• And Many More!

Simply add the time you spent doing these things, and at what intensity, and you will get an estimated calories burned.

My main source of exercise during Noom was walking, so I didn’t really use any of these other added exercises, but it functions as a nice way to quickly and easily add additional calories back into your daily budget.

How Many Calories Can I Get Back From Exercising?

You get to add calories back in?

Isn’t that breaking the rules?

Nope!

Weight loss is largely math (mixed with a little bit of biology, luck, and patience). If you burn calories, you get to add some back in.

Note that I said “some” and not “all”.

While you can technically add back all your calories if you are using straight math, Noom compensates for overeating and extending your deficit by giving you back only half of the calories you burned to be consumed again.

This will help you lose weight faster and steer clear of overeating that often happens with feeling famished after a workout.

Getting any calories back is a win when you only have around 1450 per day.

My suggestion is to stick with their plan on only add half your burned calories back in. You will thank yourself later when you hit your weight loss goal sooner.

What is Scanxiety?

Scanxiety is when you are too anxious to get on the scale to weigh in daily. This phrase was coined by Noom, and is meant to give a name to the fear of stepping on the scale.

If you give something a name, you are less likely to fear it.

You also don’t want to be the person who has Scanxiety, so you are more likely to commit to your daily weigh in.

I know that I had a little bit of what I would call reverse-Scanxiety during my Noom Program.

Our scale was on our three-season porch to keep it out of reach of our toddlers. My father-in-law was doing some work on the porch and moved the scale out of the way to keep it safe. I couldn’t find it in the morning when I was supposed to weigh in.

I was in a bad mood from not weighing in all day, and anxious that this was the first step in falling off my weight loss path.

I have had trouble with weight pretty much my whole life, since 3rd grade, and now that I had found some success, taking any step away from what was working gave me a ton of anxiety.

My advice is to do the daily weigh in. Beat your Scanxiety, but also know that if you miss a weigh in, reverse-Scanxiety doesn’t have to derail your progress either.

Your Noom Group

If having a personal coach, or waiting a full day for an answer to your question, isn’t enough for you, on the first day of week 3 you will be given a support group and a group coach.

Your group is meant to act as your extended support system. Much like AA, having access to others who are at your same level and going through the same program as you, trying to make the same change in their life is very beneficial towards success.

You can freely chat with other members of the group within the forum, or you can privately message people through the Noom app if you find yourself in a more in-depth conversation you want to take offline.

The group coach is there to post discussion topics, add value and encouragement, and mediate all conversations happening within the group.

Your daily Noom articles will also prompt you to share something to your group related to that days health topic, which will further help prompt discussion and support.

You get notifications when people respond to you, or when the group coach posts a new topic to be discussed.

Again, I didn’t take much advantage of my group as I had my wife for support, but I could see a ton of active posting and conversations within the group. People really care and want to help you because they are going through the same trials and tribulations as it relates to weight loss.

I recommend having someone you know go through Noom with you for in-person support as well, but having a personal coach, group coach, and a support group all add up to a potent mixture to push you towards success in your weight loss goals.

Noom’s Daily Education Articles

So far you’ve heard a lot about Noom’s infamous articles, and how they are a major part of your weight loss journey. I wanted to set aside a section to cover these articles in a little more detail so you have a little bit of an idea of what to expect from the topics you will encounter while taking the program.

I don’t want to ruin everything, as the surprises in the content are some of the fun. 

All that said, here is a breakdown of the type of stuff you will be learning each week.

Week 1 – Course Intro, Establishing Belief, Overview of What You’ll Learn

Week 2 – Finding Your Motivation

Week 3 – Meeting Your Support Group, Keystone Habits

Week 4 – Identifying Your Eating Habits

Week 5 – Difficulties of Weight Loss, Plateaus

Week 6 – 4 Pillars of Health

Week 7 – Thinking Critically About Food and Health Studies

Week 8 – Recap and Motivation Revamp

Week 9 – Managing Stress and Taking Control

Week 10 – Your Hero’s Journey

Week 11 – Finding and Using Your Strength

Week 12 – Emotions and Eating

Week 13 – Learning About Hunger

Week 14 – Being In the Moment

Week 15 – Digging Into Intuition

Week 16 – Finding Joy in Movement

A lot of the articles are about motivation and mindset, because as you will find out, this is a major part in why you can’t currently lose weight.

Along with great educational content, you get a side of humor to keep reading fun and easy, and quizzes to help reinforce what you have learned.

Noom was developed by expert psychologists, so they really dig deep into topics on why you have trouble losing weight, and what tips and tricks will help you to succeed. This is the reason why Noom has such a high success rate for weight loss.

What you will also get is a swift kick in the pants. 

While you will have an amazing support team to help you on your journey, when it all boils down to it, it really all comes down to you, and Noom let’s you know this.

Despite your environment, your genes, your history, your negative-influencing family and friends, weight loss really boils down to your decisions and your efforts.

There is a lot of tough love in the Noom Program. 

Use it to help you reach your goals.

My Overall Review of the Noom Weight Loss Program

I don’t know how I could give Noom anything but a 5 star review.

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life.

I’ve tried various diets, exercise regimens, and intermittent fasting.

I’ve had small successes punctuated with large gains.

I’ve lost weight, and then let myself go.

Noom has provided me a steady foundation to build a life and health and stay that way.

My lifelong struggle with weight is now manageable, and I know I have the ability to keep the weight off.

Your weight loss experience WILL be different than mine, but I hope that you come to the same spectacular end of meeting your goal, and keeping the weight off for good.

They say if you are ready to learn, the teacher will appear.

Well folks, Noom is your teacher.

Start learning.

Sign Up For Your Noom Trial

If you are ready to learn the foundations of weight loss and the psych tricks to help you succeed, you should start with Noom’s trial.

You can pay up to $18.73 if you want to help Noom lower their cost of customer acquisition, but that is up to you.

Below if my affiliate link to Noom. If you sign up through my link, be sure to email us at callie@mommybear.org for some extra success guides we have to help you along your path. You can also download our guides here and here.

Please share your weight loss story down in the comments below as well! We are a community of support here, and would love to provide additional support to your journey.

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