Noom Review 2024: An Expert Take

Overview

Noom is an innovative wellness and weight loss app that empowers you to make informed eating choices. Using psychology and information from nutritionists, this app is about making emotional and behavioral changes, rather than counting calories to shed weight. You’ll learn more about the foods you love eating and how to make the best choices for your lifestyle.

Noom is a fantastic resource if you want to learn about your diet and health and make some long-term changes, but it takes commitment and a level of personal accountability to be successful. If you’re hoping for an easy button for weight loss, this isn’t the method for you.

If you want to lose some weight by trying a different approach, Noom is a unique option. Noom lets you create a personalized profile, with different membership options, and receive realistic timelines to reach your goals.

There have been over 100 million downloads since the app launched, so I wanted to see for myself how the program worked. Read on for more information and start your Noom journey here.

How Does Noom Work? Multi-Layered Approach to Weight Loss

Noom is like having a nutritionist, fitness instructor, and life coach at your fingertips. It works to change the relationship you have with food and educate you on how to include nutrient-dense meals in your diet.

You also get more aware of your own habits and mental state in regard to food. For this, Noom uses various tools, such as science-based articles, coaching, daily mini-lessons, food tracking tools, and more. All these are available with a paid subscription.

The Noom Weight Program

Noom Weight or the Noom ”diet” is a program designed to help you lose weight. The program works by shedding light on your current eating habits and teaches you how to form new, more sustainable habits. 

The Noom diet doesn’t promote food restrictions or strict calorie counting. Instead, the program focuses on teaching you how to create satiating meals with healthy options. This way, you won’t feel hungry all the time (as happens with restrictive diets), and you’ll have fewer cravings.

To help you better understand food, Noom has created a three-color system:

• Green: Foods that you can eat as often as you want

• Yellow: Foods that fall somewhere in between 

• Orange: Higher calorie foods with minimal nutrition

The colors represent the caloric density of foods. For instance, green is low-calorie foods (like veggies, fruits, or whole grains) that will make you feel satiated quite fast. 

Yellow is foods that have slightly more calories (dairy, meat, and so on). These foods are also filling, so you don’t have to eat much to feel full. Next, we have orange foods, which have the highest caloric density. This doesn’t mean they’re bad – you just need to be aware of the quantity you eat each day.

Noom provides plenty of recipes that help you eat as much “green” food as possible. Some of the recipes I found while browsing Noom’s suggestions included Mango Chicken Salad with Couscous, Grilled Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas, Roasted Orange Tilapia and Asparagus, and Sweet and Sour Shrimp.

Noom encourages you to limit “orange” foods to no more than 25% of your daily calories. If your diet gives you 1,250 calories a day, you can enjoy a breakfast donut so long as you eat Green and Yellow foods at your other meals. Instead of cutting out treats altogether, Noom teaches you to limit your intake.

Noom’s food database has over 3.7 million options in foods and portion sizes. And if you’re eating out, Noom lists almost 200,000 food items at over 850 restaurants and chains.

Daily Mini-Lessons

Noom digs deeper than the majority of weight loss programs out there that only talk about calories-in and calories-out. The app sends out daily bite-size lessons that talk about the emotions and actions that lead to overeating and snacking.

Even better, these lessons focus on more than just calories and nutrients. Noom also covers stress management, sleep, self-care, and other factors that influence your state of mind.

A Strong Community

You can chat with fellow Noomers in Noom Circles, a collection of communities focused on food, exercise, hobbies, or other topics. Losing weight can be a lonely pursuit, so Noom encourages you to socialize and make friends with others who share your interests.

Additionally, you have access to Noom Guides and coaches trained in the science of behavior change. You'll have a weekly virtual meet-up with your coach (it can be more frequent if you need it) in order to track your progress and learn how to build healthy habits.

Food and Exercise Tracker

The Noom app also features a food logger and an exercise tracker. When you track these habits, it’s easier to see and understand your own behavior. Plus, according to research, people who track their food are more likely to lose weight. However, you’ll have to enter every food item yourself, which is a bit of an inconvenience.

Luckily, when it comes to exercise, it’s easier to keep track of progress. Noom syncs up with a wide range of fitness devices, such as Garmin, Apple Watch, or Fitbit. It also works with a bunch of platforms, like iHealth, OMRON, Withings, and more.

Cooking With Noom

Noom doesn’t provide any meals or ingredients, so you’ll do the shopping and planning yourself. You can add on a custom meal plan for an additional cost if you want to skip that step. Noom is simply a tool to help hold you accountable for your health journey.

Prices: Noom Isn’t Cheap, but It Could Be Worth It

To get access to all of Noom’s tools and resources, you need to be a member. You can still use the app without a subscription, but you won’t get access to the articles, quizzes, or other features. All you can do is track your daily calorie intake, weight, and exercise progress. 

If you’re undecided, you can try Noom for a 2-week period. However, the trial is not free – Noom gives you the opportunity to decide on how much you want to pay. At the time of this writing, costs varied between $0.50 and $18.37 for a 2-week trial.

All Noom subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled. Also, the longer your commitment, the less you pay per month. For instance, if you choose a month-by-month subscription, the cost is $70 per month. On the other hand, if you choose a yearly subscription, you’ll pay $209, which is $17 per month!

Noom also offers a number of Premium programs at an additional fee. For example, Noom Mood costs $149 for 16 weeks of personalized one-on-one coaching, daily mood logging, and weekly stress management activities. I didn’t add these when I signed up. After I subscribed, I received the same offers again in my email, and this time there was a larger discount.

Subscription: Step by Step Guide to Joining Noom

Signing up for Noom starts with a long questionnaire, but it’s easy once you get past it. Due to this questionnaire, Noom can personalize its programs for each individual’s needs, so don’t take it lightly. You may have to answer a lot of questions before you get started, but it’s worth it.

How to Sign Up for Noom (Only 4 Steps)

1. Go to the Noom website. You’ll be prompted to fill out a long questionnaire. It’s the longest I’ve ever seen and must have taken me about 15 minutes to complete.

I decided to start out with the “losing weight for good” option. This might be a good way to start – first change your relationship with food then, maybe later, get more serious about exercising. First up was a demographic profile, asking for my height and weight. Then I had to give an ideal weight. After inputting that I wanted to drop 10 kg, I got this cheerful message:

This demonstrated Noom’s method of rewarding and reaffirming positive choices. Developing better habits and mindsets about eating can’t be done through a set of checklists. It’s a process where you have to track your progress every step of the way. Beyond that, I liked that I could change my goals to either “rev up” my progress, or take it more slowly.

2. Answer all the questions – there are questions on everything. It asked whether or not I had good eating habits, to what I usually eat. To be honest, there were just so many questions that I definitely got “input fatigue.” Additionally, in and amongst the questions, were peppy motivational snippets that just prolonged the time it took to actually sign up.

Eventually, I got through all the questions and had to enter my email to be able to see my specific weight loss plan. But hitting the Let’s Go button under this chart brought up a screen telling me I was only halfway there. The next sections were about habits and behaviors and then activity and nutrition.

3. After signing up, you’ll be taken to a page offering additional services. I was assured these were only available at these prices during the initial sign-up.

I decided just to stick with the basic service, and assumed that I could add anything else at a later date, should I want to. I’ll admit I was intrigued about the custom meal plan because I’d initially thought that’s what Noom was. You can add the meal plan, a custom workout plan, or a combination of both.

4. Finally, I then had to fill out yet more details and create a profile. Then, since I filled the info out on my laptop, I had to download the app to my phone as Noom doesn’t offer a desktop app.

Managing Your Subscription

It’s very simple to edit or change your subscription once you’ve made it through the lengthy sign-up process. By logging onto the Noom website, you can edit the length of your subscription with 1 click. There are no phone calls or emails required.

If you want to cancel, you’ll just have to answer a question letting them know why and your account will be canceled. Just look for the buttons shown below when you log in.

Customer Service: Noom’s Support Is Pretty Good

Noom offers 3 distinct ways to contact its customer service team, one of which is quite unusual. You have the option to directly send suggestions or complaints to the company's CEO.

You can get help any time through the chat feature and FAQ page. If you prefer talking to someone, customer service is available from 7 AM to 10 PM Eastern Time.

How Noom Compares to Other Meal Delivery Services

• Noom vs. Nutrisystem: Noom teaches you how to eat healthier meals for longer-term physical and emotional fitness, while Nutrisystem provides calorie-restricted meals and snacks that are intended for short-term weight loss.

• Noom vs. Factor: Factor sends you prepared meals geared toward convenient healthy eating, while Noom helps you track your physical activity and provides you with healthy recipes you cook yourself.

• Noom vs. Trifecta: Trifecta is a meal delivery service geared toward active people who want to get or stay fit. Just like Noom, Trifecta features an app that helps you track food, water, and exercise. You also receive daily recommendations for protein, carbs, and fat targets based on your goals and timeline. Lastly, you have access to Trifecta’s knowledge base, which was curated by the on-board nutrition team.
  

The Bottom Line: Is Noom Worth It?

If you stick with the Noom app, you’ll probably find yourself losing weight. That’s because it encourages you to think more healthily and holistically about what you’re eating. Logging your food intake and exercise output makes it easier to keep track of exactly what you’re eating, which helps you lose weight.

That being said, Noom may not be suitable for everyone. If you feel you can't manage the continuous tracking and engagement with the app, along with meal planning and preparation, it likely won't be effective for you. If your goal is to lose weight and have meals delivered, you might consider trying one of the top 10 meal delivery services for weight loss.

FAQ

What exactly is Noom?

Noom is an app that helps you lose weight and maintain that weight loss long-term. It was developed by a team of nutritionists, behavioral psychologists, and personal trainers, and has helped over 1.5 million people to lose weight.

Does Noom send you food?

No. Noom isn’t a meal delivery or food service, so it doesn’t send you food. What it does is use your personalized information to suggest recipes, but it leaves actually creating a meal plan to each individual user. If you want a plan that offers food, check out our list of the best weight loss meal delivery services.

How much does Noom cost a month?

After your free trial, Noom starts $70 per month. When I looked into the pricing structure, I also found add-on plans, including custom meal and exercise plans that are available at an extra cost. You can sign up for them when you create your account, or add them on later, once you’ve gotten started with the Noom system.

What are the minimum device requirements to use Noom?

Noom is only available on devices running Android or iOS. Android phones must be running Android 6 (Marshmallow), and iOS users must have at least an iPhone 6s running iOS 14.4. Noom isn’t available for Chromebooks, Kindle readers, or desktops. You can run Noom on an Android tablet or iPad but the Step Counter feature won’t be available.