Reviews (1)

Noom promises coaching help. It’s their thing. I signed up for a two-month run. First, I will say I have lost weight. The accountability of the daily logging definitely helps me succeed. I also like the color coded system.

But here’s the thing: there are lots of free food logging apps. There are no other apps that will give you real, meaningful person to person coaching. Noom dyes you up with a goal specialist and a group coach. The first goal specialist they assigned to me introduced herself; after a week of automated messages, the app spits at you by telling me it’s her last day and she’s off to have a baby. IDK why they assigned a new person to an employee who would be leaving in a week. I’m going to assume it wasn’t a surprise that the baby was coming.

The second was a male. I had requested a female as a replacement before the boy was assigned, so they didn’t listen to that. After almost a week of waiting I was finally assigned to a girl goal specialist who wasn’t about to go on maternity leave. Yay! Except she takes at least 24 hours to respond to anything, follows a canned script and doesn’t even attempt to help with anything that doesn’t have a script. Honestly, a bot would likely be more helpful. Example: I’m building off grid and my challenge is eating enough food to keep up with the calorie demands but trying to keep it all healthy without power or refrigeration. She kept sending me links to "quick on the go meals" and such from the Noom library, zero of which were actually useful. Everything she sent required refrigerated items. Or a blender. Or something from the freezer. Seriously, every article she sent. At least artificial intelligence will follow some sort of algorithm and eventually get it (somewhat) right.

If you are thinking about this app for the coaching, don’t get it. If you like the support of a group, that will all depend on the group. My group has 40 members. No one ever posts things and the coach-bot just generates the articles and topics Noom requires her to generate, without any effort to go beyond that. There is very little in the way of encouragement or an effort to bring members in for conversation. Maybe other groups are more active, but again, if the group is what attracts you to this l app you might want to look elsewhere.

So, big thumbs down on the coaching aspect, big thumbs down on the goal-setting. I haven’t set a single goal with my specialist. Not one. I actually sent a long, almost begging, message: Please help me set a goal! I’m interesting! I’m funny! You won’t regret helping me! I’m motivated and I will work hard for you! The response? None.

If, however, you like things like little quizzes and links to psychology based research you may find this app helpful. But in that case, there are cheaper options.