The Noom diet is one of the top trending lifestyle diets.
It has become one of the most popular Googled as it were through 2018 to 2020. It’s also reckoned that there are at least 45 million users of the diet and that number is continually growing.
The Noom Coach is the offer from Noom Inc., in New York. It began life in 2008 as a creation of Saeju Jeong and Artem Petakov. They were keen to promote the psychology of dieting as well as the nutrition. As a diet, it looks to be superseding Weight Watchers which incidentally began in 1963.
What Is The Noom Diet?
Noom is a weight-loss app which has been tailored for you by providing individual feedback. The app promotes meal-planning but is also tied up with achieving long-term goals in weight loss. That’s a great idea for anyone who has tried to maintain diets for a long time but not really kept them going. Such personal coaching seems brilliant in concept but there is a cost of course in setting up an account.
The app works by users entering into the system how much they weigh along with information about their level of sleep, level of diet and exercise.
Human coaches provide advice which is offered to the individual backed up by group messages. This distinguishes the app in particular because there are no A.I.-based recommendations. That is a development beyond what other apps used to offer – they were rather sterile in that approach.
Their are online resources which also back up what is offered on what foods to eat and on how to sleep well. Fitness is also a key element.
The diet relies on a traffic light system which is a common concept used by retailers and supermarkets so it’s not unusual to the user. the colours equate to calorie content. They have over 4 million foods in the database so its very extensive and continually being updated.
‘Green’ foods are the lowest calorie. This is your vegetables like kale and spinach, oatmeal, particular grains, yogurt (low-fat of course). The ‘yellow/orange’ foods are dried and cooked beans, amaranth and quinoa, cooked beans. The ‘red’ foods are high fat types like pizza and French fries. The diet naturally suggests these red foods are eaten less.
There are natural similarities to the Weight Watchers diet. This one is well known because it relies on a points scoring system with foods ranked by points. Those points are totaled at the end of the day and ranked according to how much calorie reduction is required and what weight loss is needed.
The Benefits And Pros Of Noom
Diets often become part of nutrition research and the this smartphone app was the subject of a piece of clinical research (Chin et al., 2016). It’s fair to say there is still plenty of research needed that supports the app but none of it so far is negative.
The study just references looked at 36,000 Noom users. Now 80 per cent of them reported some weight loss and they were using this app for 267 days. That is relatively effective a result as any for a diet. What the researchers noticed was that people tracking their consumption was an effective way of controlling their food intake. They were able to also check their activity levels and their overall calorie consumption as well as weight.
Being able to monitor particular eating habits and behaviours seems to be more effective. Better results have been achieved.
A smaller study involving only 43 overweight and obese participants reinforces the results (Michaelides et al., 2016). This group saw a 5 per cent reduction in weight. That is not to be sniffed at because however small it might seem, losing weight is strongly related to major health benefits and psychological success. This group also found weight measurement coupled to how meals were monitored motivating.
The Center For Disease Control and Prevention in the USA recommended the diet back in 2017 of anyone looking to reduce their chance of developing type-2 diabetes. For any endorsement the program needed to show that at least 40 of participants would lose 5 per cent of their weight. Using Noom, 51 per cent of participants managed a 5 per cent loss at least.
It was the first time anyone had developed a smartphone app that received such an important and influential endorsement.
Costs Involved
The app works on a subscription basis with pricing varying between $20 and $60 per month depending on the length of membership. Like many good quality apps it allows you a 14 day free trial after which you can cancel.
The full plan for the price offers two 16-week programs but this appears to alter.
Success Rates For Noom
Really good actually! Whilst you can read only so much into reviews there is a lot of positive feedback out there from those trying out the app. Having a real coach and offering better education appears to beat the standard artificial-intelligence (A.I.) approach that previous apps could only provide. It also bolsters willpower by suggesting a fitness regime to complement the diet which is based on the nutrition information you provide.
The diet is also sophisticated enough to offer advice on preventing diabetes and providing support for those with this condition.
References
Chin, S., Keum, C., Woo, J. et al. (2016) Successful weight reduction and maintenance by using a smartphone application in those with overweight and obesity. Sci Rep 6, 34563 (Article)
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