I’m going to start out this Noom review by telling you two things. One: I am not an affiliate or advocate of Noom. I have no relationship with the program other than I am a real person who paid real money to join the program. Second: I am letting you know that this post is not about the ins and outs of the program. There are TONS of posts that explain how the program works. When I looked at reviews myself before I decided to join, I was looking for reviews from real people, what they thought, how they did, and why they liked or disliked the program, not how the program operated. If you want to know how it works, here is a good post from USA Today.
Prior to Starting Noom
Let me give you a little background and recent history of my own personal struggle with weight loss. Feel free to skip if you are just looking to read about my Noom Review by clicking here.
In August 2018 I began my current weight loss and health journey. You can see how I started and my progress in my earlier post My Weight Loss Journey. I lost 65 pounds by March 2019 (pictured above)! Sounds great right? I would agree, except since that time frame I have been on a roller coaster with slow climbs, and fast downward spirals gaining and losing the same weight over and over again! I would gain 20 lbs, then lose 10. Gain 30 lbs then lose 20, etc. I almost got back to my original weight loss during the pandemic. Yep, believe it or not when the world shut down it was my time to shine. More time to get up and exercise, easier eating at home, gaining 1 1/2 hours with no commuting, it was like the perfect storm for my weight loss journey. However, since then I gained back 42 pounds! (You can’t see it but I’m cringing just saying that)
Why Did I Gain the Weight Back
Since the Atkins diet came out oh so many years ago I have embraced the low-carb, moderate-fat, way of eating. It had always worked for me. The weight comes off pretty quick and I am able to stick to it “most” of the time. The problem? I am was an ALL OR NOTHING eater. I would restrict my carbs, and eat AMAZING for weeks at a time. Then I would get a craving, decide to give in (because I had been doing so good I deserved it right?), and then I would decide since I ate “off of my diet” let me eat EVERYTHING I had been craving, candy, fast-food, junk food, the kitchen counter (Ok, I didn’t eat the kitchen counter but you get my point). Then I would promise to get back on my diet the next day. Then that next day would come and since I had overloaded my body with sugary goodness it was a fight to get back on the diet wagon. One week would become two and two would stretch to four until before you know it I had been eating junk for months at a time. In addition, when I don’t eat well I don’t have the energy to exercise, and I would start missing workouts. Then I would feel bad I missed workouts and spiral into a “what is the point of exercising if I’m not eating well?” And this cycle went on and on for 2 1/2 years. Sound all too familiar?
Why I Decided to Give Noom a Try
It is kind of obvious this way of eating wasn’t working for me, not in the long run at least. I had always told myself, to use this way of eating to lose weight. Then when you lose the weight you can switch to a more sensible diet that includes rice, potatoes, fruit, etc. The problem is that NEVER happened before I lost all the weight I wanted to lose (which was 90-100 pounds) I would get right back on the junk food bandwagon and all my progress just started slipping away one piece of cheesecake at a time! Each time I would try to get back to it the window of time I would stay true to the diet shortened and I realized this just wasn’t working. So, after seeing all the Noom ads, and my own Noom Review research I decided to give Noom a try by joining with a one-week free trial.
Noom Review Week 4
I have been on Noom for 4 weeks and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to express in written words the change this program has made for me. I do believe that each of us is different and you have to find what works for YOU. For me I 100% believe that Noom was what I needed. It gave me the piece that I was missing in the many many years of previously trying to lose weight. It gave me the ability to STOP DIETING! Let me say that again, it gave me the ability to STOP DIETING! The thing is, I honestly feel like I already knew everything I needed to eat healthily and lose weight I just wasn’t living it. I was trying to lose weight and lose weight fast, with the thought that when I was done I would eat “right” or different.
Noom is supposed to tackle the psychology of what you eat, why you eat, when you eat, etc. It is supposed to help you navigate your environment both physically and emotionally. Here are the MAJOR changes I have made since joining this program:
- I no longer feel guilty about ANYTHING I eat
- I eat things occasionally that I crave and do not deprive myself
- The scale no longer affects me emotionally
- The scale no longer dictates my success
- I choose healthier options intentionally not because I have too
The BIGGEST change is that first bullet point. I can not say enough how freeing that statement is and how it has changed everything for me. I do not feel like I am dieting, I am not restricting my food, I am choosing to eat healthier, but still willing to eat things when I want without letting it ruin my progress.
Let Me Try to Explain
What I mean is explaining the change of thinking and how it is working for me. In this Noom Review, I’m going to explain some situations that have come up, how I conquered them, what I consider progress, and how eating what I want no longer makes me feel guilty.
Noom Review Example # 1: Eating at My Favorite Restaurant – Chili’s
My husband said, “How about Chili’s for dinner tonight?”, here is the conversation I had with myself and the ultimate outcome
- To myself, “NO! I am doing so great eating well, I can’t eat out I will want food I shouldn’t eat”
- Response to myself, “Stop! This is the old way of thinking, remember this is a life choice, not a diet, you can go to Chili’s and you can eat whatever you want, if you want”
- To myself, “Ok, you are right this is the point, to live healthy! I will go to Chili’s with my family and I will eat my favorite meal – chicken fajitas”
- On the way to the restaurant, I decided to look up the nutritional value of the foods I wanted to eat. EYE OPENER!
- To myself, “There is no way I am going to eat a WHOLE day’s worth of calories in one meal just because it will taste good”
- I opted for the sirloin steak with grilled avocado and asparagus.
- I also made the conscious decision that I was going to eat the chips and salsa and even a few bites of the queso because I LOVE Chili’s chips and salsa.
The outcome of this situation was that I felt like I had hit a HUGE milestone because I changed my way of thinking, I still decided to eat healthy in the end, and I didn’t feel even a little guilty about eating chips and salsa. Unfortunately, it also turned out that I didn’t care for the meal I chose because the sauce that was on the steak really ruined it for me. However, that just means next time I will choose something else healthier, or I will eat my chicken fajitas and still NOT FEEL GUILTY.
Noom Review Example #2: Baking Salted Caramel Brownies
Is your mouth already watering? My husband has a sweet tooth, mine is more of the salty variety. We had a package of Salted Caramel Brownies, our favorite. I whipped him up a batch of Salted Caramel Brownies and guess what I did? I licked the spoon! When they were done I was really craving some so I had a very small piece, I would say the size of a quarter. But you know the best part? I did not feel even a MORSEL of guilt. I felt proud, I felt progress had been made because I ate a small amount (not one, two, or three brownies) and it curbed my craving and I didn’t feel bad about it. Normally, I would make the brownies and just have this feeling of depression that I couldn’t eat any because they weren’t on my diet (I mean is there any diet that includes salted caramel brownies!?). I even made sure to log my quarter-size brownie so that my calories would show up in my daily log.
Noom Review Example #3: My Favorite Fast Food – Taco Bell
Taco Bell is my weakness, though I have some strong opinions about their reduced menu (but I digress). This is usually how I would give in to my craving and start my spiral down, down, down into that bottomless pit of despair. Guess what? In the past four weeks, I have had Taco Bell twice! I have consciously decided that I wanted to give in to my craving. The difference is not only was it a conscious decision, but I didn’t feel guilty afterward and both times I ate a healthy dinner that evening. I did make some changes. Previously I would order a lot (two burritos, a taco, nacho fries) and add extra sauces like creamy jalapeno, and a large Cherry Pepsi! The first time I ordered a bean burrito and two tacos supremes – no extra sauce. I cut my calories a lot by deciding to forgo the soda and the extra sauce on the tacos. The next time I ordered a bean burrito and only one taco because I really didn’t need that extra taco. The moral of the example is that I decided to eat something I was craving but continued to eat my normal healthy food the rest of the day.
What Do These Examples Mean?
What I’m trying to convey is that Noom gave me the power over my thoughts and emotions when it comes to food. I already had a very solid understanding of food and what to eat when I joined the program, so it wasn’t like I was starting from scratch. You can only take from this program what you want to take from it. The true focus and purpose of this program are to teach you how to make good choices, how to not feel guilty, how to keep striving to eat healthy in any situation, how to deal with environmental triggers (work, restaurants, etc), how to deal with emotional triggers, (acceptance, guilt, etc). If you can really understand the philosophy and commit to really focusing on the lessons I think this program can open you up to a different way of losing weight and eating healthy. With the emphasis on HEALTH! Since I started the program my entire outlook on food and how I eat has changed. I don’t struggle with eating healthy because I am not depriving myself of ANY food, just knowing that NO FOOD is off-limit is freeing. It actually causes me to choose healthy food because I’m choosing to, not because I can’t have the unhealthy alternative.
My relationship with my scale has done a 180. I hated that we were supposed to weigh ourselves daily. I even hated weighing myself weekly. The scale had A LOT of power over me which is why I hated weighing myself. If I thought I did really well all week and at the end of the week I saw a small gain, no weight loss, or even a tiny weight loss I would get depressed. I would be expecting to see a big weight loss for all my effort of not eating “bad” food, and when I didn’t see that I would get upset and you guessed it, I would go to Taco Bell. Weighing myself daily actually took the power away from the scale. Because I was no longer accustomed to seeing “large” weight loss it just became a weight (like how I did that) of logging my progress for the long haul. I actually had a week where 3 days in a row I weighed the exact same amount, while I will admit I got a “little irritated” I also decided to ignore it. In retrospect, there was a reason that week was stingy to me, monthly conditions out of my control ;).
Charted Noom Review Results
I am all about spreadsheets and logging progress (it is the accountant in me). I am going to share with you my weight loss progress below. In this chart, you will see some extra figures beginning in September. That is because I bought a Renpho Scale, which gives you body composition information as well as weight. I HIGHLY recommend this scale if you focus on your weight too much. It helps to see how your body composition changes, and how it can affect your weight.
For an explanation of this chart please see my upcoming post about the Renpho scale and why I recommend it. I will update this post with the link once that post is live (My Renpho Smart Scale Review). For now, what I’m showing you is my daily weight loss. You can see that occasionally I have gains, and some days there is no weight change, but the trend is downward. Don’t let the scale dictate how you feel, but it is a tool to measure progress, just remember it is the long haul progress that is important not the immediate. To flourish in this program you must commit to reprogramming your mind to a healthier way of eating and not just losing weight.
I welcome questions about the program and my Noom review, about my own personal progress, exercise, health, etc. I would love to hear from you if there is anything I can do to help you either to make your own decision on Noom or to find the path to your own healthy living!
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