Is Noom Weight Loss Program Worth The Money?

I recently tried the Noom Weight Loss Program. A lot of people have asked me if it is worth the money. For me, the answer is IT DEPENDS. I found many things pretty confusing about the program, particularly the pricing. I’m now wishing I’d taken better notes during the course of it so I could pull more facts together for you.

Pricing for the Noom Weight Loss Program – Confusing and VARIABLE

Here’s one thing that I found super confusing about the program and a little bit shady, honestly. During less than three months of using the program, I was given at least three different sets of prices. My starting price was $18.37 for the trial period (I think it was a week long trial). Then at the end of that period, I would be charged $143.98 for an 8 month period – yikes! And auto-charged that same price every additional 8 months. About $18/month, which isn’t too bad, but good luck getting a refund if you quit by month two or three.

By the end of my trial period, I still hadn’t met my goal specialist OR my coach, so I wasn’t feeling like I wanted to move forward. So I contacted customer support and they advised me to quit and restart to avoid that 8 month charge. When I restarted, I had a whole different set of pricing. A FREE trial this time and now I had the option of monthly pricing of $36.19/month. Not cheap, but better than being locked in for 8 months. Then when I quit the final time, I was offered a “come back deal” of about $22/month.

So, like I said, confusing. So if you aren’t happy with the pricing you see, know that that it’s not particularly set in stone. Different people or different situations apparently get quoted different prices.

The Psychology of Noom Weight Loss Program

This was actually my favorite part of the program, although again, it was a bit confusing and misleading. During the first trial period, the lessons were brief little videos that were rather sweet. But then things changed at some point – probably right after the trial period ended, and the rest of the lessons were all text-based. Fortunately, I prefer text-based, but I know most people don’t.

Still, the lessons were only 10 minutes per day and covered a lot of helpful topics like managing snacking, dealing with cravings, and choosing foods that are filling and substantial without being calorie packed. They were fun and engaging with little quizzes every few lessons. Like I said, the lessons were the best part in my opinion and there was some helpful info on weight loss psychology. Some of which I knew and some I didn’t.

The Noom Weight Loss Promises

One of the most disappointing things for me was the Noom weight loss promises that they made. In order to sign up for the program, you HAVE TO take a little quiz. They ask you to set a short-term goal and a long-term goal. My short-term goal was to lose weight for an upcoming vacation (see my post about my Alaska Trip). And my long-term goal was to lose 40 lbs by the end of the year.

So, Noom started right out by promising me that I’d definitely lose at least 12 lbs in the 8 weeks till my vacation and lose the 40 lbs by the end of the year. That was just what I needed to get me excited to sign on the dotted line. But people lose weight at such different rate that I think it’s kind of irresponsible to make such specific promises. I especially struggle with losing weight, even when I stick closely to a diet, so I was sorely disappointed when I initially GAINED weight and only lost a couple of pounds for my trip – not even close to the 12 pounds.

The Tracking Process – Meh!

Since the entire process is run on the app, the tracking process is well, not fabulous. Like any weight loss program, you need to track all the basics – your weight, your meals, your exercise, water consumption, etc. The app could use a lot of improvements in this area.

They advocated daily weigh ins – not my favorite and you couldn’t easily see how much weight you’d lost without doing some math. Also, you can’t easily see when you are in your day on the food tracking screen. As you’re entering meals, you couldn’t easily see your daily calorie goal (which changes with exercise), how many calories you’d eaten or where you were with their measurement of green, yellow, and red foods. I like to be able to play with different food choices before you commit for a meal.

I did like the bar code scanner, and it was fairly easy to track simple foods like an apple, or a piece of chicken. But each time you log a meal, it kicks you back out to the dashboard screen, which annoyed me because I typically track my meals and snacks at the end of the day. Minor annoyance, but still for $30/month, you’d think they’d have a better tracking system, especially since you need to use it several times per day….

Also, I happened to have an off-brand step tracker, so I had a devil of a time trying to track my exercise. I finally got it to link, but I would have to refresh it every single day to get an accurate count of my steps, which affected my daily calorie goal. Kind of a pain in the neck.

The Coaching Program – BLEH!

This comes to my LEAST favorite part of the program. The coaching program, in my opinion is really bad. It’s pretty obvious that they are trying to cut the spending in this area to the absolute bone! I didn’t even get my “goal specialist” until about week 3 and it was at least week 6 or 7 before I was added to a coaching group. By then, most people have already bailed on a new weight loss program. Maybe that’s what they’re counting on…

Both coaching options are only text-based in the app. You never get to speak to a “real person”. Your goals specialist helps you set goals and then helps you track if you’ve achieved them. I found it very robotic. My person never introduced herself or asked me any useful questions about what my particular struggles were. She would just ask me what goal I wanted to set for the week and sometimes remind me to track my meals or meet my exercise goals. So, not at all the “personalized support” I really needed.

And the coaching program that I finally got into. Also pretty useless. It was just a group chat with about 50 other people who were constantly changing as we combined with other groups. I had to shut off notifications the first day because it would ping me every time anyone made a comment. So annoying!

So, again a very impersonal version of coaching. Still, the people in the group were friendly enough, but it’s kind of hard to get any meaningful conversation going in such a big group. I’d expected something more like WW or Real Appeal, which both had short weekly videos followed by a helpful conversation with a coach. Nope. The coach would set out helpful quotes or ask group questions every couple of days and respond of any questions, but that was about it.

Noom Weight Loss Program Feedback

I feel like I’m being kind of whiny here, but I paid out more than $100 for this program, and I just don’t feel like I got much in the way of value or help from the Noom Weight Loss program and I quit it after less than 3 months. I had much better results – both in terms of weight loss and emotional support from both WW and the Real Appeal programs. I’m actually moving into a privately run weight loss group and hoping I’ll find the type of personal support I’m looking for.

They did send me surveys several times and I shared every bit of this information with them, but again, it was all automated and very impersonal. I did ask several times to speak to a real person, but I never got the chance. So, if you’re still thinking of trying Noom, go ahead but you’ll definitely want to have a good picture of what they are offering, because I think their advertising is a bit misleading.