Noom?

[DLgal]

That's really the key, isn't it? You see all these programs and pills etc. and they want you to think, "If I take this and jog 7 miles a day and eat healthy, I'll lose weight." Yeah, but you know, maybe just try the last two.

Chiming in with the obligatory "it's not that simple" response. There has been a lot of more recent research done that shows that it is NOT just all about CICO. In fact, it's hardly about that at all for the majority of people. There are numerous things that can affect metabolism (hormones, illnesses, medications, autoimmune conditions, etc), and ignoring that just serves to shame people into thinking their weight gain is their own doing.

My husband has gained about 30 pounds in the last year. It's due to medication for severe depression/PTSD in combination with (finally diagnosed but not yet managed) severe sleep apnea. His cortisol is sky high. He has not changed his diet. He eats around 2000 calories per day mostly healthy proteins and carbs and fruits/veggies. He is a Marine. He works out 6 days a week for an hour. He does 25 pull ups a day. He is still gaining weight every week, regardless of what he is eating/doing as far as exercise. It's an unfortunate side effect of the medication that keeps him from wanting to off himself, so the absolute last thing he needs is someone telling him to "just eat less and exercise more."

Off my soapbox now. Carry on.

 

[BrianL]

Chiming in with the obligatory "it's not that simple" response. There has been a lot of more recent research done that shows that it is NOT just all about CICO. In fact, it's hardly about that at all for the majority of people. There are numerous things that can affect metabolism (hormones, illnesses, medications, autoimmune conditions, etc), and ignoring that just serves to shame people into thinking their weight gain is their own doing.

My husband has gained about 30 pounds in the last year. It's due to medication for severe depression/PTSD in combination with (finally diagnosed but not yet managed) severe sleep apnea. His cortisol is sky high. He has not changed his diet. He eats around 2000 calories per day mostly healthy proteins and carbs and fruits/veggies. He is a Marine. He works out 6 days a week for an hour. He does 25 pull ups a day. He is still gaining weight every week, regardless of what he is eating/doing as far as exercise. It's an unfortunate side effect of the medication that keeps him from wanting to off himself, so the absolute last thing he needs is someone telling him to "just eat less and exercise more."

Off my soapbox now. Carry on.

That's fair, and I'm not talking about legitimate medical reasons and proper treatments for them. I'm talking about fad diets and pills they shill on TV.

 

[DisGirlAllie]

To quote my registered dietitian friend (who hates Noom)--"a diet by any other name is still a diet"

 

[AppleDumpling]

I’ve been considering it as well, and appreciate all the comments from everyone here.

 

[aprilgail]

Noom had me on way too few calories too. I've been on enough 1200 calorie diets to know that they just result in yo-yo dieting for me and regaining more than I lost in the first place. The 1 lb a week loss on MFP is the sweet spot for me.

i found i couldnt even eat all the calories i was allowed per day-once i started eating more of the “green foods” and less of the “red foods” there was so much food i couldnt eat all the calories in a day.

 

[Sinder]

My friend did it for a few months and lost weight. She said the cost was too high to continue though and could just find what she needed free online

 

[Sinder]

I used Noom and lost weight with it. After a few months, progress slowed. Noom was great for teaching me about biochemical reasons for cravings, hunger, and my emotions around it all. It’s good. It’s not the end all be all of weight loss plans, though.
MyFitnessPal is my favorite app for tracking food.
Lumen is a great tool, too, if you want to try Keto or just track ketosis. I lost 25 lbs last year using Lumen, intermittent fasting, and eating Keto (and obsessively watching Thomas Delauer on YouTube). I didn’t want to exercise…
Now I’m trying to get back into shape by getting back onto Keto and exercising more regularly. (Women should carb cycle while on Keto to keep their hormones from going wonky.)

I just restarted Keto and holy hormones Lol
It’s been a good 5 years since I’ve done Keto and I don’t remember being effected like this.
I don’t know much about carb cycling but I’m going to look in to it. I use the keto test strips so I can keep track so it should be easy to adjust my carbs and stay in ketosis.

 

[GreatLakes]

Calories In Calories Out has been shown over and over not to work. The specific calories you eat is just as important as the number of calories you eat. 1,000 nutritional calories will not be treated the same way as 1,000 calories of processed garbage.

If someone wants a simple strategy for not only weight loss but long term health it would be to eat real food in realistic portions, get plenty of movement, and get enough sleep. There is a little nuance in all of that but those three things will work better than any diet plan every will.

I don't think it matters if you eat mostly good meat or vegetables or what type of movement it is as much as doing both is important. Hormones are also important and staying out of the constant stress cycle of the sympathetic nervous system is a key to healthy weight.

Lastly, both your blood sugar and insulin levels are as important, if not more important, than the caloric intake and that is why it is important to eat the right foods, not just the right caloric count of the wrong foods. The number of people that are insulin resistant and don't even know it because their fasting glucose looks good would astound most people.

 

[DLgal]

Calories In Calories Out has been shown over and over not to work. The specific calories you eat is just as important as the number of calories you eat. 1,000 nutritional calories will not be treated the same way as 1,000 calories of processed garbage.

If someone wants a simple strategy for not only weight loss but long term health it would be to eat real food in realistic portions, get plenty of movement, and get enough sleep. There is a little nuance in all of that but those three things will work better than any diet plan every will.

I don't think it matters if you eat mostly good meat or vegetables or what type of movement it is as much as doing both is important. Hormones are also important and staying out of the constant stress cycle of the sympathetic nervous system is a key to healthy weight.

Lastly, both your blood sugar and insulin levels are as important, if not more important, than the caloric intake and that is why it is important to eat the right foods, not just the right caloric count of the wrong foods. The number of people that are insulin resistant and don't even know it because their fasting glucose looks good would astound most people.

All so true.

In addition, "movement" doesn't result in weight loss. At least not in any meaningful way. It's great for heart health and maintaining healthy bones and immunity, but the human body has a fantastic way of burning a steady, consistent number if calories every day, regardless of how much or little you move around. These metabolic set points vary slightly by individual, but not by enough to really matter. It is fascinating how your body will compensate for a vigorous amount of daily exercise by cranking your metabolism WAY down while at rest to maintain the balance. No matter how hard you work out , your overall daily calorie burn will not change from day to day. Your body will simply allocate energy differently throughout the day to compensate. This is why people who overtrain end up injured and sick...the "repair" mode suffers when the body doesn't have enough energy to allocate to rest. Stress is an energy hog too, so when you are overly stressed, your workouts will be counter productive because they will just add MORE physical stress.

This is also why I roll my eyes so hard when diet programs let you "earn more calories" by taking steps or exercising. It doesn't work that way at all. You can't earn a higher daily calorie burn.

 

[Park Pirate]

This is also why I roll my eyes so hard when diet programs let you "earn more calories" by taking steps or exercising. It doesn't work that way at all. You can't earn a higher daily calorie burn.

I will certainly admit that I am not a doctor, nutritionist, whatever. I agree that your body does adjust and an active person will have a lower metabolism at rest. And people do greatly overestimate the benefit they get from exercise. However, I personally think your statement goes too far the other way. You most definitely do burn more calories when you are active and it is quite possible for you to increase the amount of calories your body requires, even if your metabolism has adjusted. It depends upon the level of exercise. Say your daily base metabolic burn rate is 1500 kcal and you run 5 miles. There is no way your base metabolism is going to go to 1000 or less to compensate for the 500+ kcal the body burns during the run. It is a simple energy balance equation.
There is no black and white. Yes, the body adjusts, but saying that exercise does not increase the amount of calories your body needs is also just wrong. Why do you think athletes like Michael Phelps had to eat a 2000 kcal (or something like that) breakfast every day to maintain weight, athletes at high levels often lose weight during a season, many athletes gain weight when they retire, and distance runners are typically extremely skinny? Also personally, since I have restarted running over the last year and a half, I can see it first hand. While my resting pulse has gone extremely low (body adjusting), I need to eat more to maintain my weight.

 

[footballmouse]

Thanks for everyone's input. I was thinking it focused more on your mentality towards food. I know I eat when I'm bored so I didn't know if would focus on helping me with tools to use when I'm bored. I talked to a food therapist about 6 mo. ago and we touched on the boredom issue. It was a free 2 visit thing, I just feel like I need it more.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Figure out your calorie needs to maintain your weight. Then, cut 20% from your daily calorie intake. This will result in slow, steady, sustainable weight loss.

Slow and steady is definitely best!

Noom was great for teaching me about biochemical reasons for cravings, hunger, and my emotions around it all.

I haven't done Noom myself, but have heard from friends that this was the component that really helped. Figuring out the emotional piece might not be the only key to losing weight, but I think it's the key to not being miserable while you're losing weight.

If someone wants a simple strategy for not only weight loss but long term health it would be to eat real food in realistic portions, get plenty of movement, and get enough sleep.

Amen - especially to the sleep part! People don't realize how much sleep matters.

Thanks for everyone's input. I was thinking it focused more on your mentality towards food. I know I eat when I'm bored so I didn't know if would focus on helping me with tools to use when I'm bored. I talked to a food therapist about 6 mo. ago and we touched on the boredom issue. It was a free 2 visit thing, I just feel like I need it more.

I'm a boredom eater too, so I know how you feel!

Here is an article with some tips.

 

[DLgal]

I will certainly admit that I am not a doctor, nutritionist, whatever. I agree that your body does adjust and an active person will have a lower metabolism at rest. And people do greatly overestimate the benefit they get from exercise. However, I personally think your statement goes too far the other way. You most definitely do burn more calories when you are active and it is quite possible for you to increase the amount of calories your body requires, even if your metabolism has adjusted. It depends upon the level of exercise. Say your daily base metabolic burn rate is 1500 kcal and you run 5 miles. There is no way your base metabolism is going to go to 1000 or less to compensate for the 500+ kcal the body burns during the run. It is a simple energy balance equation.
There is no black and white. Yes, the body adjusts, but saying that exercise does not increase the amount of calories your body needs is also just wrong. Why do you think athletes like Michael Phelps had to eat a 2000 kcal (or something like that) breakfast every day to maintain weight, athletes at high levels often lose weight during a season, many athletes gain weight when they retire, and distance runners are typically extremely skinny? Also personally, since I have restarted running over the last year and a half, I can see it first hand. While my resting pulse has gone extremely low (body adjusting), I need to eat more to maintain my weight.

Resting heart rate is not directly correlated with metabolism at all. Simply put, a slower resting heart rate is associated with a SLOWER metabolism , but also can be a sign of fitness, and athletes/very fit individuals actually have FASTER metabolisms. On its own, a slow heart rate can mean either thing.

I was not talking about basal metabolic rate. I'm talking about TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) which is BMR + "activity".

The reason why diet programs let you "earn" more calories for exercising is that they set you daily calorie allowance WAY too low to begin with. No one should EVER eat less than their BMR. 1200 calories, for example, is not enough to sustain a TODDLER, nevermind a grown adult. So, they make it seem like you can "earn" more calories by taking steps or doing a workout, but all that is is letting you eat the amount of calories you SHOULD be eating, minimum, to stay healthy.

Some really interesting studies have been done of hunter gatherer tribes. The expectation was that because these groups of people are SO much more active than us "sedentary westerners", they would have much more efficient metabolisms and would burn way more calories per day. What they found, however, was that even though these people are FAR more active than they typical sedentary westerner, they used the SAME overall amount of energy per day.

In your example of elite athletes, you are right. People training at an elite level WILL burn thousands more calories than a regular person will, but that is a temporary situation. Eventually, the body adapts. NO one can sustain that level of training long term. What happens with those people is that after they stop training, they find that their metabolism resets to a LOWER level than before and now they must work even harder to maintain their weight, because now their BMR is lower than it was before. Same thing happens with crash diets or a combination of too few calories and too much exercise.

As you age, your BMR naturally declines, so you can't continue to eat the same amount of food you used to. It's not necessarily that you are less active, it's that your body literally requires less daily calories to function.

Still, the bottom line is that somewhere around 2000 calories is how much energy the adult human body burns in a day. For most women, it's closer to 1800 and for most men it's closer to 2300, thus why 2000 calories was chosen as the "goal" for adults.

This is a good article that explains how your body's calorie expenditure works.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/07/16/study-of-hunter-gatherer-lifestyle-shows-why

 

[GreatLakes]

Back to the movement discussion for a minute, I believe it is extremely important and not just for weight loss/maintenance but for overall health. You will never outrun a bad diet but lack of movement leads to way more health issues than just weight gain. How many people end up in assisted living due to mobility issues as they age? It doesn't have to be that way. A not insignificant subset of older people would be able to live independently much longer if they just moved more. The ability to get off the floor is a very good marker of health even if it isn't necessary for weight loss.

Everyone should get plenty of movement every day, even if they are at their ideal weight. It doesn't have to be a 4 hour run with 6,000ft of elevation gain. It could be a walk around the block, some yoga at home, water aerobics, anything and the more dynamic the movement the better.

Thanks for everyone's input. I was thinking it focused more on your mentality towards food. I know I eat when I'm bored so I didn't know if would focus on helping me with tools to use when I'm bored. I talked to a food therapist about 6 mo. ago and we touched on the boredom issue. It was a free 2 visit thing, I just feel like I need it more.

The mental aspect of eating is important. I can't speak to whether or not noom is good there or not but in my reading over the years the overall theme I've gathered is the following:

• As you mentioned some people eat to fill time. If you are aware of this you can counter it by trying to change your response to the boredom trigger.
• Just thinking about eating will start the process of salivating and priming your body and mind to eat. I notice this myself because I fast and do time restricted eating. If someone brings in doughnuts at work even though I know I am not hungry I will start to feel hungry. I have to know that feeling is not real and ignore it until it subsides. This is learnable but not intuitive.
• We have learned patterns of behavior that work against us. If you always grab a bowl of ice cream when you sit down to watch a show in the evening your mind will learn that pattern. Even if you aren't physiologically hungry that trigger will try and make you eat. Some people can simply know that and ignore the trigger, others will need more help.
• Highly processed foods, especially those with simple sugars and fats, will not satisfy hunger long. That is a part of why calories in calories out don't work. Some foods, even when adjusted for actual calories, make us feel full longer than others.

When you feel like you need to eat ask yourself if you are actually hungry or just eating because you think you are hungry.

 

[PinkPixel]

It's a 1200 calorie diet dressed up in a colorful app. It's a whole lot of B.S.

Just don't do it.

Figure out your calorie needs to maintain your weight. Then, cut 20% from your daily calorie intake. This will result in slow, steady, sustainable weight loss.

Do you know of any good weight tracking, calorie counting apps? I used to have a good one where you put your current weight in and choose a goal weight and length of time and it shows calorie options. Noom had this but not worth the subscription for me.

 

[DLgal]

Do you know of any good weight tracking, calorie counting apps? I used to have a good one where you put your current weight in and choose a goal weight and length of time and it shows calorie options. Room had this but not worth the subscription for me.

My Fitness Pal

 

[PinkPixel]

My Fitness Pal

thanks!

 

[georgina]

I tried it. I didn't like it. My biggest gripe with it is the casual manner it was written in. Very "cutesy", full of puns and nonsense. I don't like weeding through someone's else's attempt at humor if I am looking for information. Just my personal style of reading!

This was my EXACT reaction! I kept thinking I am a woman in my 50’s, not some 20 year old who talks like this. I quit after my free trial and told them why.

 

[Park Pirate]

Resting heart rate is not directly correlated with metabolism at all. Simply put, a slower resting heart rate is associated with a SLOWER metabolism , but also can be a sign of fitness, and athletes/very fit individuals actually have FASTER metabolisms. On its own, a slow heart rate can mean either thing.

I was not talking about basal metabolic rate. I'm talking about TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) which is BMR + "activity".

The reason why diet programs let you "earn" more calories for exercising is that they set you daily calorie allowance WAY too low to begin with. No one should EVER eat less than their BMR. 1200 calories, for example, is not enough to sustain a TODDLER, nevermind a grown adult. So, they make it seem like you can "earn" more calories by taking steps or doing a workout, but all that is is letting you eat the amount of calories you SHOULD be eating, minimum, to stay healthy.

Some really interesting studies have been done of hunter gatherer tribes. The expectation was that because these groups of people are SO much more active than us "sedentary westerners", they would have much more efficient metabolisms and would burn way more calories per day. What they found, however, was that even though these people are FAR more active than they typical sedentary westerner, they used the SAME overall amount of energy per day.

In your example of elite athletes, you are right. People training at an elite level WILL burn thousands more calories than a regular person will, but that is a temporary situation. Eventually, the body adapts. NO one can sustain that level of training long term. What happens with those people is that after they stop training, they find that their metabolism resets to a LOWER level than before and now they must work even harder to maintain their weight, because now their BMR is lower than it was before. Same thing happens with crash diets or a combination of too few calories and too much exercise.

As you age, your BMR naturally declines, so you can't continue to eat the same amount of food you used to. It's not necessarily that you are less active, it's that your body literally requires less daily calories to function.

Still, the bottom line is that somewhere around 2000 calories is how much energy the adult human body burns in a day. For most women, it's closer to 1800 and for most men it's closer to 2300, thus why 2000 calories was chosen as the "goal" for adults.

This is a good article that explains how your body's calorie expenditure works.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/07/16/study-of-hunter-gatherer-lifestyle-shows-why

I think we certainly agree on some things, but still, the assumption that a person cannot increase the amount of food they can intake through exercise is still false. Even for a non elite athlete. As I stated before, I am not a doctor, physiologist, nutritionist, etc. However, I am an engineer and realize that the laws of physics still apply in this case. To maintain weight, energy (such as food) in must be equal to energy burned. If there is more energy needed than has been taken in, the difference has to come from somewhere.

The reason I brought up my resting heat rate was to agree with you to a degree. A calorie is a unit of energy. We all know that the body needs a certain amount of energy to survive. This energy is required to maintain life - breathing, pumping blood, etc.. Your heart is a pump and the speed at which your heart pumps is related to the amount of energy being consumed by it. Therefore, when my heart now pumps less when I am at rest, it means that my heart at least is requiring less energy to maintain my body at rest over my previous state where my heart had to beat faster at rest. My body has adjusted my heart to burn less calories when at rest, which is an example of how your body does adjust to consistent exercise.

However, we are talking about a given person and the amount of food they can consume when they do extra movement vs not doing extra movement. Say that person (not comparing a westerner to someone else, staying relative to that person's personal philology here) runs or walks (10,000 - 12,000 steps) five miles extra. They are exerting extra energy as they are moving their weight over a certain distance. This is in addition to their daily activity. Even if you are in good shape and your body has grown efficient with activity, this is probably still on the order of 400+ calories. This extra 400 calories has to be accounted for.

So, unless you are telling me that a body that requires a certain amount of food to maintain weight (not including additional activity) can quickly adjust to burn 400+ more calories at the same food level, the amount of calories burned with the additional exercise has to be accounted for. I am not saying that this is a 1:1 difference, as your body will adjust and does not need account for all 400+ additional calories. But, it will not be 0 either. Thus, with exercise the person can now eat more food, or eat the same amount and the extra will come from stored energy within the body (losing weight).

Again, I fully agree that the benefits of exercise alone on weight loss can be greatly exaggerated and I also agree that a lot of diets/programs/apps/businesses exploit this misunderstanding. However, increased exercise does allow for more food if you simply want to maintain.

On another note, your body will do the same type of adjustment if you simply just eat less (it is not the eat 3500 kcal less to lose a pound than many try to say). Luckily, if you eat more than you should, your body will also adjust somewhat so that 400 kcal overeating does not equate to 400 kcal of fat added (but it will add some, especially over time).

 

[DLgal]

However, we are talking about a given person and the amount of food they can consume when they do extra movement vs not doing extra movement. Say that person (not comparing a westerner to someone else, staying relative to that person's personal philology here) runs or walks (10,000 - 12,000 steps) five miles extra. They are exerting extra energy as they are moving their weight over a certain distance. This is in addition to their daily activity. Even if you are in good shape and your body has grown efficient with activity, this is probably still on the order of 400+ calories. This extra 400 calories has to be accounted for.

So, unless you are telling me that a body that requires a certain amount of food to maintain weight (not including additional activity) can quickly adjust to burn 400+ more calories at the same food level, the amount of calories burned with the additional exercise has to be accounted for. I am not saying that this is a 1:1 difference, as your body will adjust and does not need account for all 400+ additional calories. But, it will not be 0 either. Thus, with exercise the person can now eat more food, or eat the same amount and the extra will come from stored energy within the body (losing weight).

So, your example ignores stored energy already in the body. Technically, I can eat nothing for a day and my body will still "find" the calories it needs. This can go on for several days, as you probably know. Fat and muscle will br broken down for energy in the absence of "enough" calories from food. That's how weight loss happens, after all.

The other thing you are doing is thinking about calorie burn as a math equation when it's more like a budget. The body doesn't burn an equal number of calories per hour over a 24 hour period. Quite the opposite. If someone runs or walks 5 miles, the body provides that energy at that time. LATER, when you are resting, your body shifts and now instead of burning 80 cal/hour, it knocks that down to 50 cal/hour. Your body will adapt and use more energy when more energy is required and less energy for both essential and non essential processes when you are at rest. This is why "calories in/calories out" does NOT work.

If one wants to lose weight, what needs to happen is you need to feed your body just SLIGHTLY less than it needs to maintain its weight, but not so little that stress hormones get activated to hang onto your fat stores out of fear of starvation. You want your body tapping into your fat stores just a little bit every day. It's a delicate balance.