If you’re like most folks, you had high fitness hopes at the start of this pandemic.
Unlimited time at home? No time spent on commuting or dinners out or family gatherings? The only way to get outside is to go for a walk, run, or hike? At the start of all this, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to get in the best shape of our lives.
But, if you’re like most of us, those high hopes probably didn’t quite pan out. Life stuck at home amidst the stress of a global pandemic has been incredibly challenging, and many of us are caught between what feels like neverending work, helping kids through remote learning, and just trying to get by.
So, whether you’re trying to stay on track with your health and fitness or trying to get back on the bandwagon, a little guidance and encouragement can be hugely helpful.
That’s where Noom comes in. It’s is the most helpful tool out there for losing weight, maintaining weight, staying healthy, getting fit, eating well, or whatever other wellness goals you might have.
How Noom Works
Noom is all about behavior and psychology. It isn’t about crash-dieting or burning ourselves out on exercise. It’s about gradually changing long-term habits to create a healthier, more sustainable wellness lifestyle.
When you first sign up for Noom, you’ll be asked some initial questions. What are your goals? What’s your height and weight? What’s your target weight? What’s your age? You’ll also be asked some more in-depth questions about your timeline for reaching your goals, current habits, eating patterns, musculoskeletal and medical issues, lifestyle, and location.
All of this info helps Noom customize your plan for the only person who matters in your wellness journey: you.
Noom Features
Noom offers a variety of tools and strategies for sending you on your wellness journey.
Step Counter
For one, there’s their step-counter, which not only counts your steps but also allows you to set a daily step goal and lets you know if you haven’t reached it. There’s also a weekly exercise log so that you can easily add up all those runs, weight-lifting, or living room dance parties.
Meal Log
For more logging fun, there’s the meal log feature for hassle-free food tracking.
Weigh-In Feature
There’s the weigh-in feature, where you can quickly input your weight each day (or however often you choose to weigh yourself).
More Features
There are features that allow you to self-report things like motivation and mindset.
Psychology And Behavior
Noom also includes lessons to develop your understanding of psychology and behavior as it pertains to weight, wellness, exercise, and diet.
Along with these built-in aspects of the Noom weight loss program, users have access to wellness and weight loss specialists, who will help and encourage you along the way.
My Experience With Noom
I’m a big ol’ diet skeptic. They’re typically wildly restrictive. They often involve a lot of shame. And they tend to (at least traditionally) be based on the notion that when it comes to weight, the skinnier the better.
This is why I like Noom: because it doesn’t rest on or involve any of these icky things.
Noom is a great tool for self-improvement and wellness. But it doesn’t push any specific notions of what self-improvement and wellness look like. You, the customer, get to define your own goals, your own weight targets (if any), your own diet preferences, and any other personalizations you want to add to your health journey.
I also love that Noom isn’t about forcing ourselves into specific restrictions, or about going cold turkey. Instead, it’s about understanding and developing healthy behaviors and thinking around food and exercise.
We’re likely all aware—maybe painfully aware—how many messed up and complicated emotions we develop around food, body image, and weight, thanks to the influences of culture, media, and society. Noom doesn’t play into these unhealthy conceptions of health but instead encourages us to build a more positive relationship with our bodies and self-care. In this way, Noom is really a two-parter in terms of what it offers: it’s a chance to enhance self-improvement, but it’s also a chance to enhance self-acceptance.
Noom ditches the idea that self-improvement necessitates disliking who we are or what we look like now. And it’s helped teach me that self-love and self-improvement can (and should) come hand in hand.
What You’ll Get Out Of Signing Up For Noom
One of the many things I love about Noom is that you can get out of it whatever you’re hoping to get out of it.
If you’re looking for weight loss, it’s an incredibly helpful—and easy—way to set, build, and maintain your weight-loss goals. It’s great having food logging, exercise logging, step counting, and daily motivation all in one place, easily accessible from your phone.
If you’re looking to ramp up your exercise and stay on the bandwagon, Noom is great for that too. It’s hard to ignore your exercise goals when you’ve got friendly reminders to keep at it.
If you’re just looking for a general wellness tool that’ll help with both taking care of yourself and loving yourself, Noom could be just the thing. Using it has the potential to provide huge gains for your physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Try It Out!
It’s really easy—and totally worth it—to try out Noom. If you’d like to just get a feel for it, take advantage of their 14-day trial.
Then, if you love it (we’re pretty sure you will), you can decide how long of a commitment you’d like to make. If you’re going month-to-month, it’s $59 per month. But that amount rapidly decreases the longer you commit to the program and your health. For example, a 6-month plan is $149 (which comes out to $12.42 per month) and a 12-month plan is $199 (which comes out to $16.58 per month).
Noom really is a must-try for folks who’d like a little bit of weight loss help. It’s affordable, it’s effective, and it’s—gasp!—even enjoyable.
