An honest review after a trial with Noom

If you listen to many podcasts, have facebook, or are at all present on any social media platforms, you've probably seen or heard something about the Noom app. I for one have had Noom shoved into my ears for well over a year now, and I guess the FBI agent listening to me through my phone has heard enough of my weight complaints and orders at donut shops, because my social media ads are full of Noom. Noom claims to be an "anti-diet", driven by cognitive behavioural therapy, loved by millennials, and the last weight loss tool you will ever need. Well, as a 25 year old female who has not only long struggled with my weight and disordered eating, but who has also tried just about every fad diet and weight loss tool advertised in recent years (that I could afford....or afford to try once and then say HELL NO when I saw how much it costs), I figured it was time to finally use the last tool I'd ever need, too!

I signed up for a 14 day trial right before New Years Day just to fully immerse myself in the "resolution" culture that was buzzing around me and would die at the same time the trial ended. Noom of course starts by asking your weight, height, what you want to weigh, and immediately puts you on the fastest setting for weight loss. The default fast setting makes your daily calorie intake limit 1200 unless you adjust it yourself in the settings (which they don't tell you how to do). For any of you who haven't been sucked in to calorie counting before, 1200 is not a lot of calories unless you subsist on coffee, cigarettes, and dry celery. Noom uses a "green, yellow, red" scale for foods, claiming no food is "good or bad" just less or more calorie dense....except you shouldn't eat a lot of any food if you only want to eat 1200 calories, especially not the yellow or red ones. The whole system contradicts itself often, and I found the only helpful part of the tracking just being able to look at what I've eaten and try to make a balanced choice for the day (ex: I've had a lot of grains so far today, I should try to mix in some protein and veggies). This of course was not encouraged by Noom as how to use their tracking system, I just did my own thang.

Day 1 consists of some goal setting, generally confronting some of your issues with food or your body image, and helping you to dig to the root of why it is you are looking to lose weight or change your body/why this will make you happy. I kind of liked that instead of just saying "I need to lose weight" I was at least being challenged to think about why. If I'm happy and healthy, I probably don't need to lose weight.... right? At first, I felt like Noom had kind of a cool approach. The spunky, sarcastic tone to articles on food and eating didn't seem diet focused, rather, nutrition and happiness focused. I thought Noom was going to teach me to choose healthy, nourishing foods for my body and teach me to get out of the restrictive dieting mindset. I'm sure you can guess I wouldn't be writing this review peppered with my own spunky tone if it ended up that way.

After day 1 you have 5-6 mini modules to complete every day that teach you about the psychology of dieting.... and how to trick yourself into being on a diet. Noom basically starts off by saying the best foods to eat are ones low in calorie density (full of water) that make you full faster/trick your body. Noom then teaches users that while eating mainly "green" foods, you need to trick your mind into a dieting mindset to stop yourself from eating yellow or red foods. I didn't find many of these lessons to be very "anti-diet". In fact, I was getting annoyed FAST with how much Noom was trying to brand itself as "anti-diet" and trick it's users into thinking they are doing anything other than dieting. It's a diet. It's so bad at not being a diet. It's a diet in cast as the lead in a 4th grade production of the student written play, "Not a diet", and butchering their role on opening night.

The next 14 days featured lessons on bad eating habits, eating "triggers", types of eating, goal setting, changing your thinking about your restricted diet from "I can't eat anything fun" to "but I can eat a lot of celery". The absolute MACK DADDY of ridiculous Noom lessons came right before my trial was over....and it was called.... Taming your inner elephant. Yes, you read that right. ELEPHANT. Oh I KNOW that has to be a fat joke, and your girl was not laughing. They go on to say your inner elephant is what tells you that eating junk food or not going to the gym is okay and our inner rider is who redirects the elephant. They could have dead ass picked any other animal that people can ride: camel? horse? dolphin? certain breeds of dog? emus? But they picked ELEPHANT? I checked right out of those lessons, let me tell you. No ma'am, me and my inner Emu have better things to do than put up with this bullshit.

Finally, as a Noom member, you are told you will meet your "goal specialist". I was paired with Andrea from Michigan, who I'm pretty sure was a robot, and only checked in with me once in the two weeks I used the app. When she did check in, she asked if I've noticed anything in the past few days of logging my food that would inform a goal (something I've had to do already in the modules). Curious as to what her response would be, I stated one goal would be to know a list of "green" foods so that I knew what I was actually allowed to eat. She stated she had a list and asked if I'd like to see it. I said yes. She did not send the list. And never spoke to me again. Ever. Thanks for the support, Andrea. Makes my inner camel feel real warm and fuzzy.

So, do I think you should try Noom? Not if you're looking for anything different from any other restrictive dieting/calorie counting solution to weight loss. However, if you want to feel like you're learning psychology because you read the word psychology 5-6 times per day, get told you have an inner elephant, want to eat nothing but green grapes and lemon water, and like a humorous sneaky tone to your body shaming, I would highly suggest Noom.