Nowadays, technological advances have made us dependent on cellphones for everything, even for our health. In recent years, apps related to fitness and a healthier lifestyle haven’t stopped growing! The Noom diet is a weight loss app with more than 45 million followers. Find out all about it here.
But what makes the Noom diet so famous? Unlike other programs and apps, it doesn’t just give you a general eating plan and strict tracking of calories eaten. It includes a psychological component that helps change the way you think about and approach weight loss.
The Noom diet leads to healthy eating, increased regular exercise, stress management and better sleep hygiene. In short, lifestyle changes.
What is the Noom Diet?
The Noom Diet is a digital weight loss program. It’s a personalized nutrition app that helps to develop a healthier lifestyle. The company was founded in 2008, but launched as an app in 2016. This means you can download it on your cell phone or tablet.
Followers receive weekly challenges on nutrition, goal setting, developing healthy habits, and stress management. The entire process is conducted by a virtual team of specialists certified by the same company.
The Noom diet provides tools to track progress within the program by recording meals, exercise regimens, and changes in body weight. They also monitor blood sugar and blood pressure.
The weight loss plan is based on cognitive-behavioral therapy. However, although several specialists believe that it’s difficult to maintain this type of diet over time, others believe just the opposite.
The journal Scientific Reports published that 78% of Noom users experienced weight loss over 9 months and 23% lost more than 10% of their initial weight. Self-management behaviors were critical to success.
In terms of cost, the app subscription costs about $150 for 6 months or $25 per month. Users can invest in personalized meal plans with restrictions or fitness plans at a cost of $120 each.
How does the Noom diet work?
Users complete a survey creating their profile, which includes age, height, current weight, and target weight. They must answer a few questions about daily habits and health risks.
With this information, the app runs an algorithm that calculates the calories that a person must ingest per day and the time it’ll take them to reach their goal. For safety, the minimum daily calorie requirement is 1200 calories for women and 1400 for men.
The program also develops self-monitoring behaviors spread by some experts. This involves daily recording and weighing.
The last part of the survey is on activity, nutrition, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Users can select other areas to work on, such as sleep, stress and digestion.
Upon completing the survey, the user creates the Noom Diet account and chooses a subscription plan. The first 14 days are free and then the subscription starts for 6 months.
Noom Method Application
The Noom method classifies foods into red, green, and yellow. Reds are high in calories and should be eaten less frequently. However, the program doesn’t label foods as good or bad.
When users enter meals into the food logs the program analyzes the data and breaks down the products according to their color. The Noom diet balances the 3 types in the right amount for the user’s goals.
Implementation
During the first months, the diet contains a caloric deficit to promote weight loss. Then comes the maintenance phase. For any guidance, the user has access to certified specialists and a group chat.
What foods can a person eat on the Noom diet?
The Noom diet doesn’t exclude any food. Even those labeled in red can be eaten in moderation!
Let’s take a look at each of them:
- Green-labeled foods: includes vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, spinach, and sweet potatoes. Fruits such as oranges, apples, bananas, tomatoes, low-fat dairy products, and whole grains also fall into the group.
- Yellow label: these should be carefully consumed. It includes lean protein from chicken, turkey breast, salmon, low-fat dairy, eggs, and healthy fats such as avocado, olives, legumes, and cereals.
- Red label foods: this group isn’t completely prohibited, but the person should consume it much less frequently. It includes processed meats, peanut butter, oil, sugar, condiments, and high-fat foods (pizza and potato chips).
Pros and cons of the Noom diet
The Noom diet may not be the best diet for everyone, but it has a number of advantages that other applications or programs lack such as:
- Certified health specialists: Before entering the program, health specialists are trained for 4 weeks to manage cognitive-behavioral therapy.
- Focus on eating whole foods: With the Noom diet, the focus is on eating more foods that provide dietary fiber and a high amount of vitamins and minerals.
- Psychological aspect: Through cognitive-behavioral therapy, it helps to identify feelings about food.
- Long term: The basis of the program is the change of habits to lose weight in the long term.
On the other hand, the Noom diet has some drawbacks that users should consider:
- Cost: the value is more than many people are able to spend on a program.
- No face-to-face interaction: the chat service is the way to contact the personal health advisor.
- Problematic color approach: for some people, color labeling for food could result in habit clutter.
Not a tool for everyone
In conclusion, the best diet is one that maintains balance, harmony, variety, quantity, and quality of meals. In addition, the person should adapt their diet to their particular lifestyle.
The decision should be based on nutritional needs, budget, and goals. If you consider that the Noom diet provides these tools, then give it a go!
