Hey, has anyone tried Noom or Bodyfast? I’m usually not one for apps, but I’ve found using an app has helped me quit booze and nicotine, so I’m down to try a diet app. Has anyone used/using an app and loving it, or tried it and said nah.
I did try Noom a few years back, though I ultimately didn’t stick with it I did learn a few things from it and it promoted some good changes in me.
So Noom has a few shticks. The big diet related thing they drill is calorie density. The same calories in grapes is very different satiety than raisins. They also push a lot of daily content. In theory stuff to help you analyze why you eat the way you do, focus on your goals, etc. There other big deal is connecting everyone with a couch and community. Basically they put you in a little group with a few other folks and have someone that moderates and checks in on you all. The idea being that you have other people to talk, discuss, and share with.
So maybe that appeals to you, but you can probably get a lot of what they are selling with a tracker like Lose It or My Fitness Pal and Reddit.
I used Noom for a bit, and it kinda kickstarted me but I also got sick of the cutesy cutesy phrasing (and having to go through ‘lessons’ every day or it got grumpy). I use BodyFast for my fasting. I’ve paid for the coach and I like the variation in the weekly plans.
I tried Noom. It’s more of a CICO thing with articles and quizzes built in. There are other features like a “coach” who messages you and a group chat function. I didn’t like it. There was too much going on and I didn’t understand it so I stopped using it and went back to tracking in My Fitness Pal.
This was before I discovered IF. Now I use My Fitness Pal to ensure I’m not eating too much and to track macros. I like Fastic for IF but I hear great things about Zero too.
I love the LIFE app for tracking fasts. It shows you when you go into ketosis and you can update your moods, create groups with other people who fast so you can encourage each other, and set reminders through the app so they’ll send push notifications to remind you when to fast and when you can break fast. Super easy. They also will update their “learning” tab pretty frequently with articles and studies on the benefits of fasting which I find super motivating as well.
Zero is great for tracking fasts, and it pulls in my Apple Health data which is super convenient. I can see weight/RHR/activity/etc. right in my fast tracker. Zero also does something smart that I’ve not seen in other apps: I weigh every morning, and when Zero pulls that data in from Apple Health, it reports my average weight instead of today’s weight. Awesome for people who can’t stomach the dips and peaks of daily weighing (I don’t mind them, but average is the best way to track progress).
It has a super-basic food tracking function that allows you to enter the estimated size (<350 cals, 350-750 cals, 750+ cals) and makeup (keto, low-carb, balanced, high carb) of your meal or snack. That’s specific enough for me. I spent too many years meticulously weighing/logging/obsessing over my food. Done with that.
The teaching content is helpful and well produced.
I sprang for the Plus version of Zero (\~$70/yr) so I’m not sure how the free version differs.
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I used Noom for a year, stopped about 8 months ago.
On the plus side: I liked the “Ultimate Why” process to determine why you’re doing the program, and also the green/yellow/red food categorization based on caloric density (though their demonization of full-fat dairy—they’d bump it up to red even when the density didn’t support that—was lame and unscientific).
On the minus side: The cutesy content paired with copious typos drove me nuts. The coaching prompts felt canned, and the clunky group chat interface made that feature nearly useless to me. Don’t even get me started on the incredible tone-deafness of their “tame your inner elephant” metaphor. 🙄
Eventually the negatives outweighed the positives and I jumped ship. I did pick up some valuable tools, though, so I don’t regret trying it.
I use myfitnesspal (free version) to track calories & macros/day. I don’t use an app to track fasting, I just make note of the time of my last meal of the day so I know when I can break my fast the next day. No need to over-complicate things.