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Noom Review – Costs, Pros & Cons, and Medications
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Overall Rating4/5
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Products & Services3.5/5
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Cost4.5/5
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Ease of Use4/5
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Customer Support & Reviews3.5/5
- Psychology-based weight loss program
- Budget-friendly
- Goal coach assigned to help achieve results
Noom is an online weight loss program that focuses on changing the way you think about eating. The subscription-based service encourages its users to make daily behavioral changes in order to live healthier lifestyles. In 2023, Noom launched Noom Med which is a medication-based approach to their weight loss program. Noom Med offers weight loss medications and GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. Noom Med is available to Noom members at an additional cost for $49/month.
Find What You Need
Services Offered by Noom
To get started with Noom, you’ll have to answer a series of questions. The whole process takes roughly 20 minutes. You’ll initially be asked some general questions about your weight loss goals, gender, age, height, and weight. After that you’ll be asked about your eating habits, where you live, if you have any chronic conditions or if you’ve been treated for diabetes or an active eating disorder.
The questions then shift to how you eat – are you an emotional eater? Do you multi-task while eating? The next phase is a behavioral profile quiz that helps Noom understand how you feel about weight loss and how to achieve it. Then you’ll be asked about your expectations of the program and how you expect losing weight to make you feel. The final set of questions is about your activity and nutrition – when you eat and what you eat. At the end, Noom will tell you how long it will take you to reach your ideal weight on the program – for me it was four months. Noom also set an expectation by telling me the average woman my age loses between one to two pounds a week.
Noom Quiz
Once you finish the quiz, you’ll make a payment, download the app to your phone and create an account. As part of the program, you’ll be asked to finish 10 small lessons over the course of several weeks in behavioral change and psychology and commit a few minutes each day to reading articles on stress relief, positive thinking and mindful eating.
After a couple of days on the program, you’ll be set up with a goal coach who will check in on your progress and send you motivational messages twice a week. After approximately a week on the program, you’ll be given a group coach and assigned to a peer group. The group coach will post weight loss tips and be the moderator for your peer group chat. All the coaches who work for Noom are required to have an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, plus 2000 hours of wellness experience.
Noom will give you a daily calorie budget for your individualized plan. What you eat is up to you. Noom doesn’t restrict foods, but it does classify them according to color and shows you where you may be lacking in nutrition for the day.
- Green Foods are fruits, vegetables and whole grains. They are low calorie but higher in water content.
- Yellow Foods are legumes, low fat dairy and lean meats. They’re recommended to be eaten in moderation because they have a higher calorie count.
- Red Foods are processed foods, full-fat cheese and red meats. They offer the least amount of healthy nutrients.
You’ll need to keep track of your meals and physical activity in the app daily. You’ll also be encouraged to record your blood pressure, blood glucose levels and how much water you’re drinking every day.
Noom does offer a year-long Diabetes Prevention Program for someone who is pre-diabetic or has diabetes. It offers mostly the same services as the regular program, but focuses more on carb impact. The program has been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an acceptable course for preventing type-2 diabetes.
Noom Results
To date, Noom claims to have helped more than 3.6 million people lose weight. And there are studies that help support their claims they are an effective weight loss program. One study showed 78 percent of Noom users lost weight, while another study showed 23 percent of Noom users lost more than 10 percent of their body weight.
Noom Customer Reviews
Noom does seem to help people change the way they eat and think about food, and therefore lose weight. You will find many reviews online from people who are happy they participated in the program and have been able to sustain their weight loss, because Noom has helped them change the way they think about and approach food.
There are negative reviews you will find with those who aren’t happy because they aren’t losing much if any weight on the program and are frustrated by the progress. Others don’t like the open-ended concept of eating. Noom doesn’t give you a daily menu – just the number of calories you should consume each day. What you eat and how much exercise you get are completely up to you.
There have been some serious problems with Noom’s billing. In 2022, the company settled a $62 million class action lawsuit that accused them of violating consumer protection laws through its auto-renewal and cancellation practices. Noom was accused of tricking customers into signing up for ‘risk-free’ trials and then forcing them into automatic renewals that were hard to cancel. The lawsuit affected anyone who bought an auto-renewing subscription through Noom’s website or mobile app between May 2016 and October 2020. Because of the lawsuit, Noom changed some of its business practices, but claimed no wrongdoing.
Noom Cost
When compared to other online weight loss programs, Noom is fairly budget-friendly. The monthly subscription can cost up to $59. You will start the program with a discounted, seven-day trial. You’ll be given four payment amounts and asked how much you’d like to pay for the first week. Noom said to reach my goal it would take four months and cost me $39 a month. You’ll find the more months you need to reach your goal, the cheaper your monthly cost will be.
Noom does offer a weight loss guarantee. If you go through the full program and don’t lose weight, then Noom will give you all your money back, no questions asked.
Noom Company Background
Artem Petakov and Saeju Jeong launched Noom in New York City in 2008. The company was born out of conversations Jeong had with his dying father – a doctor – who in his final days wondered how many more people he could have helped if he had done something for them before they got sick.
Noom became incredibly popular during 2020 as many people looked for ways to fight off weight gain during the Covid-19 pandemic. The app focuses its efforts on using psychological principles to help users make healthier choices.
The Bottom Line on Noom
If you’re looking for a way to change the way you think about and approach food, Noom is a good option since it focuses on the psychology of what we eat and why. It’s relatively budget-friendly compared to other online weight loss programs and has shown proven results since its launch.
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