They say the best form of advertising and marketing is word-of-mouth. And it is true. One of the topics of discussion in more than one of my Masters of Marketing degree classes was how valuable it is when your customers “sell” your product/service for you. That entails them telling family and friends about your product/service – and essentially endorsing it. This works because the people you truly believe and trust are those who you know! And this is precisely how Noom got my business.
My good friend Kristina Proper (you may have read some of her fitness advice here at Main Street), was telling me about her Noom experience about a month ago. Now, for those who don’t know, Kristina is a fitness enthusiast and has been since I’ve known her. She loves it so much that years ago her husband suggested that she just “get certified already” so that she could teach fitness classes instead of paying to just attend them. So that’s what she did, and she’s a certified spin instructor, amongst other things. But the reason for sharing that tidbit of information with you? Besides the fact that I’ve known Kristina for over a decade and trust her judgment, I obviously trust her A LOT when it comes to matters of health and fitness. Obviously.
So Kristina and I were Zooming and she shared that she had lost over 20 lbs. using Noom. I thought, “Wow!” Because she didn’t really need to lose weight – or so I thought. So I was quite surprised, impressed, and curious. And in my head a five-year old version of me was going, “I wanna lose 20 lbs., too!”
I had seen the commercials on TV and on social media for Noom, and their whole shtick is that they use psychology to help you get healthier and to lose weight. The times I’ve seen their ads I always think that that’s a neat perspective and wondered how it worked, but never took it further than that thought. Well now, because of my friend Kristina and her sending me a 20% discount code, they had my attention. I was on their website, I was reading – and then I signed up, gave them my credit card, and I was committed.
I’m home, in quarantine, so what better time than now to devote to my health? I have the time (in theory)…
Also, obviously what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working – so what did I have to lose (besides around $100 and a few minutes a day of my time) if it didn’t work? I used the philosophy that I learned from the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book years ago, that I had more to gain than I had to lose. So I punched my credit card info in, gave them my info, and downloaded the app. They got me and I was committed! And if I didn’t like it after the 14-day free trial, I’d just erase my info and delete the app. Sounded pretty good to me!
I had tried the Lose It! app years ago, and it became cumbersome to input all of your food to count the calories every day. And yes, Noom asks you to input what you eat as well, and it counts your steps and activity, but it is so intuitive and you have support! It doesn’t feel like a chore to input any of this info daily, because it is not just about inputting food and counting calories. Their whole mentality and approach is fascinating! They color code foods and it is all about the calorie density of food. For example, which is better for you to eat: 50 calories of raisins or 50 calories of grapes?
The grapes of course! There is less caloric density in them, so you’re technically eating more food so you feel fuller and more satisfied, and you’re also getting water. And that is the first lesson you learn too: calorie density.
So when I set my account up I input my general info like my gender, age, weight, and then you tell them what your goal is. You are assigned a person – that’s right, I’ve got a person. Her name is LaShawnda. So you are messaging one-on-one with a person in the app and this person helps and guides you. They also communicate with you to help keep you working toward your goals, and they also just check in on you, “Hey! How are you doing today?” It’s nice!
Every day you then input your weight, and you input what you eat at every meal. They’ll send you reminders (if you want) to input your meals. But the meal logging is quick and easy. And here comes one of the most important things that I’ve learned so far: Noom breaks foods down by color – there are green foods, there are yellow foods, and there are red foods. Don’t think that red foods are bad foods, because they’re not necessarily bad. They’re just considered calorie dense, and so you should only consume a certain amount of it. Red foods include things like red meat, chocolate chip cookies, whole milk, peanut butter, and cheese. Yellow foods are leaner foods like chicken breast, fish tacos, orange juice, and 1% milk. Green foods include basically all fruits, vegetables, and whole grain-type things and you can eat just about as much in the green category as you want.
Another thing that you have to do every day is to do their little tutorials. At the beginning when you sign up, you decide how much time you want to spend doing these things – I opted for about 12 minutes a day. But they are so quick, interesting, funny, and informative. It doesn’t even feel like work!
The next thing Noom does is that it gives you a group. You become part of a group of people that are on the same journey that you are on – and you’ve all been matched to be in this group together, with a specialist of course. So the specialist, or coach, gives us topics to discuss and answers questions from us – but the group is there as community support and to give insights into different topics and issues as well as successes. So it’s like a little support network.
I’m past the 14-day trial and I’m a paying Noom member now. I’m on day 20 today and I have made great progress this week! Finally!!!
I wasn’t being too hard on myself the first two weeks because I was getting into the flow of it and it was my birthday (and I over-indulged and blew my red calorie allotment way out of the ballpark). But in these almost-three weeks since, I’ve started to feel a difference in howI feel. And I do feel a difference! In the past three days, my weight is consecutively down every day. I’ll say that finally getting my Apple Watch to sync with my Noom app made a big difference mentally because my steps were now automatically being input. I’m just feeling really good and motivated. But now I’m understanding how and why I should be doing things. As I said above, what I was doing before was obviously not working, because I wasn’t losing any weight and I was just feeling … the same. And that’s no one’s fault but my own. Yes, I was taking steps like going to the doctors and being checked out. But I didn’t realize how much my diet lived in the red! When you see it in black and white, it becomes quite apparent and that truth is just in your face!
So this entry into my “Healthier Life” post that you’re reading here is simply setting the groundwork for the coming weeks and the coming entries. According to the Noom app and their whole scientific data, it will take me until early June to reach my weight goal. And it is all up to me.
Will you join me on the journey?
I’m Noomin and I’m loving it! So if you want to Noom too, email me, I’ll send you a 20% discount code. Shoot me a message at info@mainstreetmag.comand start your own health journey.
