My Whiny Baby Review of Noom, The First Month

Last month I started Noom and shared my honest thoughts early on. In a nutshell, it’s a diet and you will lose weight if you stick to the 1300 calories/day they suggest.

(Now, what happens when you start eventually start eating >1300 calories/day like a normal person who isn’t dieting is kinda obvious to me: you’ll gain it back!)

But, since I’ve already paid my ~$75 for the next two months on Noom, I’m going to keep going. As I write this, I’ve finished a month and here are my thoughts.

One Ringy Dingy

If you do not consider yourself a Milennial (I’m Team Gen X), then you might find Noom’s love affair with the smartphone as annoying as I do.

Everything is on the phone! You log your meals, track your steps and exercise, and report the results of your daily weigh in on your phone. Even the helpful psychology articles about triggers, reframing your thoughts, etc. are only visible on the phone.

Huh? I can’t read the articles on a computer or tablet?

I emailed Tech Support about this and the super cheerful Noom techie replied:

“We are so sorry to hear that your’e having troubling reading from your phone. Unfortunately, we do not have a desktop version of Noom. We consider anyone who is not a Millennial to be ancient and decrepit, Okay Boomer?”

WHAAAT? Okay, that last sentence was from me, but Noom pretty much implied it.

Now, my husband LOVES his phone. So for someone like him this isn’t a problem.

But I don’t love my phone and would appreciate being able to read helpful articles in my weight loss journey on a nice old-fashioned big screen.

Eat What You Want

I never logged my meals and snacks before Noom and I do find it helpful to see what I’ve eaten. But I’m not sure how helpful it will be long term?

I mean, I like salty, crunchy snacks and have eaten those since my teens. So 1 month of eating baby carrots and hummus has been okay, but I have no idea how I’m going to sustain it long-term. And Noom is always like, “There are no restricted foods! Eat what you want!” but when I do have a serving of chips I still feel bad because it’s a red food (which means limit, not abstain from completely).

Then I’ll read an article that’ll try to tell me that “No, no, no red doesn’t mean bad!”, but I’m like, “Then why did you color all foods green, yellow, red like a traffic light? You know, Go, Slow Down, and Stop For The Love of Pete or You’ll Crash?

Noom should have colored foods magenta, citron and pink, for instance.

Sum it up

Here are my super helpful takeaways after 1 month on Noom:

• I’m tracking my food and realize that I miss all the yummy food I used to eat.
• Although I also realize I probably ate too much yummy food in the first place and that’s how I ended up on Noom!
• I’m trying to follow the program and I have lost 5 pounds so far. BUT, I really feel like if I ate 1300 calories/day on my own or any program at all, that I’d have the same results.
• I’m not happy that everything is on the smartphone, although I realize others may love their smartphone and this would be a non-issue for some.
• Yes, I’ll continue to whine about Noom as long as I want. I’m paying for it, so I can whine about it, LOL!