Noom Canada Review 2023

Noom: Editorial notes

Noom's credibility and reputation

Noom plans

To begin using Noom, you will complete a very comprehensive quiz on the company's website or directly on the app. The answers you need to give vary between multiple choice, a sliding bar, choosing the best statement, and typing a response. Here are the categories you have to go through before entering the site (a quick note, at the end you will have to pay a small trial fee to get your results and enter the site or app properly):

• • Demographic Profile: What is your weight loss goal? Which sex best describes you? What gender do you identify with? What is your age? What’s your height? What’s your current weight? Are you at risk of any of the following? Do you have an active diagnosis of an eating disorder? 
• • Weight Loss Goals: What is your ideal weight that you want to reach? Which best describes your current priorities (e.g. only weight loss)? What area do you want to focus on in your plan (e.g. nutrition)? Do you have an important event coming up? What is your main reason for wanting to lose weight (e.g. improve physical appearance)? Describe your current lifestyle. What pace would you prefer (e.g. as fast as possible)?
• • Weight Loss Profile: You give your preferred name then complete a Behavioral Profile Quiz: 10 questions around your current habits, what you expect you weight goal to achieve, your biggest barriers to achieving your weight goal. The next part of this section has questions about your past including any events that led to weight gain. It also asks questions to tailor the plan to you e.g. whether you want to read the daily lesson in the morning, at lunch time, after dinner, or before bed. 
• • Eating and Nutrition: This section asks if you have dietary restrictions or food allergies, and about your current eating patterns.
• • Health and Fitness: Asks about your health and specific illnesses you might have (e.g. diabetes), and if you’ve used any wellness apps for the mind. 
• • Understanding Behavior Change: Questions are multiple-choice around your motivation levels, what you hope to feel when you achieve your target weight, and what other topics you want to learn about (e.g. brain, sleep) on the journey. Then there’s a little quiz on healthy options and mindful eating practices. 

Along the way it shows information about the caloric density of foods and how nothing will be off limits but that some foods should be eaten in moderation. Once you’ve completed all of the questions, it starts to analyze each section and pops up some more questions it feels it needs to fill in any gaps. Once the program’s analyzed everything, you’ll be presented with an offer to try Noom for 2 weeks at a reduced cost.

The app uses this information to create a personalized plan for you and provide a realistic timeline for achieving your objectives. Noom requires users to spend around 10 minutes per day on the app and offers daily educational articles, tips, and activities that can be completed at your own pace.

The pricing often changes but you can choose between a rolling one-month plan or a two-month plan and every other month up to 12 months. All of the plans are paid upfront (for how many months you choose), then auto-renew when the month/s are finished, but you can cancel at any time. 

What will you get with Noom?

To understand what type of tangible benefits you’ll get with Noom before going through the questionnaire and buying a trial, here is what you can expect:

• • Daily lessons: Each day you’ll have 5-15 minutes of lessons to complete. These cover everything from food to sleep to stress management. 
• • Food logging: You’ll need to log what you eat each day with the hope that you get to know which foods keep you full for longer (that are in your calorie range).
• • Coaching and community: You’ll get access to coaches who’ll give you encouragement and advice along the way. Plus, you’ll be part of the Noom community and can learn from others who’ve been through the program. 
• • Exercise tracking: If you don’t exercise now, you’ll start with 200 steps a day and then increase the amount.
• • Weekly meal planning and recipes: Choose from more than 1,000 recipes on the database to fit your calorie range.

Noom offers two other popular programs: 

Healthy weight management: For 16 weeks, the Healthy Weight Program is divided into four stages - learning, practicing, advanced learning, and mastery. Participants are given simple tasks and can track their progress using the app. Users also benefit from encouragement and feedback from their support coach and peers.

The diabetes management program: It provides similar assistance but focuses on the carbohydrate content of the foods you eat. The diabetes program is approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which requires the program to meet specific criteria. The criteria are program participation, curriculum review, and other success metrics.

Noom intends to assist you in losing weight in the same way that most commercial diet schemes do — by creating a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit occurs when you consume fewer calories per day than you burn. Noom calculates your daily calorie requirements using your gender, age, height, weight, and responses to a series of lifestyle questions.

Noom uses an algorithm to estimate how many calories you need to eat each day based on your goal weight and time frame. It is referred to as your calorie budget. The estimated calorie budget, for example, was set at 1,320 calories per day. You can manually adjust your calorie budget or select a weight loss speed to increase or decrease your daily calorie allotment.

The app does not allow a daily calorie budget of fewer than 1,200 calories for women or 1,400 calories for men for safety reasons and to ensure adequate nutrition. The self-monitoring behaviours of food logging and weekly weigh-ins, which are linked to weight loss and long-term weight loss maintenance, are promoted by Noom.