Noom is a digital health platform that was created after research found about half of premature deaths were linked to behavior and preventable causes. Thirteen years and millions of downloads later, Noom offers users a holistic approach to weight loss and healthy living.
If you know your holidays almost always end with an extra 10 lbs. registering on your bathroom scale in early January, then you already know that history most certainly repeats.
That isn’t much of a surprise considering how much of our normal everyday behavior is often dictated through sheer force of habit. You do it today because you did it yesterday. And those behaviors are often deeply ingrained and have been with us for so long that we’re mostly blind to them. Yet, those firmly embedded behaviors can stand in our way even when we know it’s time to make a change.
Noom’s mission is to reshape how a person thinks and reacts to food and their health by digging into why they made their original choices, then helping them find a better, healthier way. Of course, Noom isn’t all about your head. The program starts with the fundamentals, with a short quiz that explores the new user, their approach to food and activity, and their ultimate wellness goals.
Armed with those goals, Noom fashions a customized plan that it thinks can help you hit that goal. For instance, if you want to lose 50 lbs., Noom can craft an approach that can give you a date for reaching that milestone 6 to 8 months later, based on your specific health facts.
Noom education usually comes in the form of short articles and quizzes. Unlike some weight loss plans that hinge on offering specific meal plans and recipes, Noom educates users about how healthy individual foods are. It doesn’t restrict you from eating “red” foods like bacon, potato chips, or pizza, but it’ll explain how those high-calorie, low-nutrient foods can impact your goal.
But since many of us grab those comfort foods out of habit, Noom centers much of its philosophy on helping users understand why they’re making that choice in the first place. When users can tie their unhealthy decisions back to stress, or daily schedules, or even ties to their childhood, they’re in a better position to make better choices going forward.
Noom backs up this approach with a platform that makes tracking and monitoring progress easy, as well as an assigned coach who can help each user build their path to their health goal. Meanwhile, users also have access to support groups filled with fellow Noom users for tips, insights, or just positive reinforcement to bring their healthy changes to life.
You can head to the Noom website, take the quiz, and see the plan Noom constructs to help put you on the path to a healthier future.