An ode to BABR…
Your biceps are flabby.
Your belly rolls are, too.
Abs are made in the kitchen.
Arms are made in the weight room.
One of my Be Pain Free tactics is to lose weight. Why? Less weight > less pressure on my spine > less pain. Super simple. I also want to build a stronger core to protect my spine. (Don’t worry. I’ll always have the rolls. I had a baby. Let’s be serious.)
Of course, you’d think I’d have a 6-pack by now walking around all day with my abdominals flexed in attempt to move pain-free from one position to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER POSITION.
But, no.
I suck at losing weight. I’m much better at eating whatever I want. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I figure a little help won’t hurt, so I signed up for a 14-day trial of Noom.
Noom is a wellness program (read: weight loss program) designed to help users live healthfully by changing habits (read: losing weight). I’m a tad pessimistic about the “wellness” claims — if that wasn’t obvious. I was annoyed to discover the personalized meal planning and workout parts of the program were add-ons and cost extra.
Necessary parts of the wellness program don’t come with it.
Seems weird for something that costs $50/month.
I also purchased the workout because they were having a Black Friday sale that made it pretty inexpensive. It’s a PDF. That was disappointing.
Noom is not a diet. It doesn’t tell people what they can and cannot eat — or provide a personalized meal plan unless you pay more — but the structure of the program is built around food and users’ psychological triggers to food. #NoomNerdsLovePsychology
They use a lot of hashtags…
#See.
Noom uses a three-color system to categorize food to help users make better decisions about what they choose to eat.
- Red foods are non-so-great-for-you foods, such as red meat (delicious), doughnuts (heaven) and ice cream (my favorite).
- Yellow foods are ok-for-you-in-moderation foods, such as lean meats, eggs and avocados.
- Green foods are best-for-you food, such as leafy greens (not Romaine), broth-based soups and brown rice.
Green foods also have low caloric density, which means you can eat fewer calories of these foods and still feel full. Foods with high caloric density, such as almonds, have a lot of calories packed into a smaller space.
Almonds aren’t bad for you, but that trick to eat a handful of almonds when you feel the hanger probably doesn’t work because almonds won’t fill you up.
I’m behind this. Eating a handful of almonds is horrible.
The goal is to eat a well-rounded diet of each of these types of foods: 30 percent green, 45 percent yellow and 25 percent red.
How do you figure out if you get your ratios right? You log your food. Yes, Noom requires you to log everything you eat.
So if you hate food journals, Noom is not for you.
They makes it pretty simple, thought. Logging food is as easy as searching for it in their database. If it’s not there, you can add it. The library also has generic food items like “chicken strips,” “rose wine” and “tomato soup.” While you might not be getting the most exact recording, it’s better than not recording.
Here’s what a typical Noom day looks like:
- Wake up, weigh in. You have to weigh yourself every day.
- Eat breakfast, log breakfast.
- Learn a thing. Noom walks users through a habit-changing tactic or food lesson every day.
- Eat lunch, log lunch.
- Get your steps in. Noom will be a pedometer through your phone, but it also connects to Fitbit. Handy (and way more accurate)!
- Do more. You can add exercise, blood pressure and glucose levels through the app.
- Eat dinner, log dinner.
- End the day with a quick quiz about what you’ve learned, and then get ready for the next day.
Pretty easy. (Yes, that’s how much I weigh.)
Throughout the week, a Goal Specialist will help users create and meet the SMART goals for their programs. My Ultimate Goal is to Be Pain Free. Surprise, surprise. Noom also asks for an Ultimate Why. Mine is to play with son without pain.
You’ve never not been able to lift your toddler when he wants to snuggle and feel bad about it until chronic back pain.
My Goal Specialist is very energetic, and I almost can’t take her seriously.
Other Noom things:
- Noom piece-meals information to you because they don’t want to overwhelm you, according to them. I asked my Goal Specialist a bunch of question over the weekend that were answered the very next day in the “lesson.” Oops.
- It has a recipe library with the green-yellow-red ratios prepared for you. Make the food to the instructions, get your ratio.
- You can also add custom dishes to the library, which I’ve been wanting in a meal planning app. It’s time-consuming, but it works. (It also looks like you ate one calorie of vegetable stock.)
- You can save daily tips and tricks to your personal library. Say I wanted to be able to refer to something multiple times, but I didn’t want to go hunting for it through the week, I can add it to my library.
- Supposedly, there’s some sort of Group you get to be a part of to challenge each other and provide support — like Weight Watchers, I guess — but I haven’t seen it yet.
I completed my first week with Noom, and I nearly don’t hate it. Daily weigh-ins don’t bother me. Logging food is a pain, sure. The Goal Specialist is fine. I didn’t lose any weight, and my ratios were red-heavy.
It’s just… wine is a red food. And that makes me very sad.
I promised myself to try harder my second week. They say it right at the start that they can’t make you eat right or work out. Your job.
The closest thing to Noom I’ve ever tried is having a Beachbody coach, which was all sorts of annoying.
So, why Noom?
I saw an ad for it on Instagram, which is also why I own a pair of dress-pant yoga pants.
I will report back on this program… unless I cancel it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
