Noom?

[false_aesthetic]

Does anyone here have experience with Noom?

I thought I only gained a little bit of COVID weight . . . then I had to get re-sized for dress pants.

[TTX1]

I've not used Noom, but I know a bit about weight management apps. Noom is the real deal, and they might just put WW out of business. Like all of these programs, it's not for everyone - but - Noom has some legit science, and if you click with what they do, it's very effective.

That's all I got.

[WFSTEKL]

At some point this winter my wife began perusing ebay in search of a piano box. Evidently it was to have handy for when the time arrives that I go toes-up. I guess a regular old sized coffin was not going to be adequate.

I guess some would call what happened next an epiphany. Around mid-February I got to work. I was already "training" 15 hours a week, and it didn't tip the weight balance one bit. I then decided to give up just one thing-----pleasure.

I gave up all desserts, and also alcohol. It was damn hard, but it worked. I lost 10 pounds a month, and by mid-May I was 30 pounds lighter.

My advise is to take the plunge, and just give up one thing. It is easy.

No it is not.

Good luck.

[Noteddy]

Yes, I used it for the first few months of 2021. Wanted to see if I could get closer to race weight. I was initially put off by the fairly invasive seeming start-up questionnaire. Tell me the price and terms up front. But on my daughters’s recommendation I gave it a try. The app consists of a few parts. One is a daily lesson on some aspect of dietary and psychological science with suggestions on how to apply the approach. They are lightly written and are intended to be about a 2-5 minute read. There are occasional quizzes to encourage retention. Almost all the science is pretty current and decently supported. They cite some of their sources. The thrust is eat a wide variety of low-calorie-density foods (e.g. emphasis on veggies and fruits).
To encourage mindfulness about what you are eating, they have a food-tracking portion of the app. You are to track what you eat in some detail each day. Foods are green, yellow or red depending on their caloric density. Based on the questionaire they suggest a calorie budget per day and you track against that goal.
You also track exercise and estimated calorie expenditure. The idea, of course, is to establish a calorie deficit on a daily basis. The encourages streaks of tracking meals, readings, and activities.
It worked for me. I was looking to lose about 5kg and managed that without too much work. Better yet, it helped me make some sustainable changes to the way I eat and made me aware of where and how I was most likely to fall off the wagon.
There is an optional social feature that allows you to interact with other users and a coach, which was not my style. Look around for a discount code. E.g Phil gaimon has one, I think.

YMMV

[rec head]

For tracking your activity will it connect to Strava (or any other) or do you just enter it manually?

[SlowPokePete]

I need to drop twenty (yikes) myself.

Fuck.

SPP

[false_aesthetic]

Yeah the cost of Noom seems quite high without a code. According to Reddit there are (might be) some ways to get a significant discount by trying to cancel when your trial is almost up.

The last year did a number on my motivation. Normally I'd be rearing to go but 16 months of 1st world ennui created some bad habits. I'm hoping that a bit of external motivation and retraining my brain will help.

I'd love to hear some more info from Noom users.

In the meantime, I've asked the lady to hide the sweet treats and removed the booze from the house.

[Noteddy]

For tracking your activity will it connect to Strava (or any other) or do you just enter it manually?

For tracking your activity will it connect to Strava (or any other) or do you just enter it manually?

It connects to some things, but not Strava. E.g. Apple health to pick up your daily step count. It does not connect to Strava, which was an annoyance.

It generally doesn't do great with endurance cycling. It assumes that you will replace half of the calories you burn in significant exercise during a day. Thus, adding to calorie deficit and weight loss. But, for me at least, if I burn 1000 Kcal during a 3-hour ride, and only replace half of them, I'll end up in a hole that might take a while to dig out of. So, I found that I needed to eat as usual during rides and get a solid recovery meal in and ignore daily calorie targets on long days (for me). It also will see most of the carbs that we tend to take in during riding as "red" calorie-dense foods. No surprise, but you probably know what works for you on the bike and that should take precedence.

Food journaling is a strength. I've never been willing to do that in detail, and while the app has some quirks in this area, it tends to remember what you eat and when and gives you pretty quick shortcuts to getting to accurate food records.

Generally, if you are a numbers person and like to see your progress and draw correlations between what you do and how you perform/progress, you might find it engaging. If you operate on feel and find numbers and graphs and tracking to be a burden I'd guess you won't like it as much. Although, the social features, which I didn't use, might be persuasive for some.

Pluses: Fact-based, Aims for long-term sustainable dietary habits, Good feedback, and a decent app interface. Good food/calorie tracking.
Minuses: Inadequate integration with other services (Strava); Less than great alignment with significant endurance exercise needs.

It worked for me and if I need to get back on track, I'd probably sign up again for a few months.

Note: you can, when you leave, download all your data. Not clear that they delete it. Also, not too much you can do with it unless you want to write some python to decipher the JSON it arrives in.

[Noteddy]

Yeah the cost of Noom seems quite high without a code. According to Reddit there are (might be) some ways to get a significant discount by trying to cancel when your trial is almost up.

The last year did a number on my motivation. Normally I'd be rearing to go but 16 months of 1st world ennui created some bad habits. I'm hoping that a bit of external motivation and retraining my brain will help.

They will offer you half price on renewals when you cancel. (Once only, I think.) At least they did.

The emphasis is definitely on retraining your brain.

Good Luck.
Nick

[rec head]

Thanks for the info. I might take a look at it.

[bigbill]

Fuck. Indeed. Late last summer I was having an issue balancing school, work, relationship, and riding. I put riding aside to concentrate on school, probably not the best plan. Relationship survived but my health suffered, it wasn't just weight. My thesis was due by the end of February but I had a 90% product by late January so it was just small rewrites after that. Early February I got back on the bike and it felt like I had never ridden. It's coming back quickly and the weight is leaving very slowly. It make take the rest of the year to get back to "just a little chubby" instead of fatfuck.