Noom Observations, Part 2
As mentioned earlier, it’s July and I’ve been using Noom since January. I’ve lost a lot of weight. Some things Noom does well, some things they don’t.
Psychology
Noom says they use psychology and small goals to get the weight off and keep it off.
They do understand a lot and give a lot of reference to article and psychological studies about eating and weight-loss to help and give tips. Eat crunchy things and here’s why. Use smaller plates and here’s why. Things like that.
However, I feel they give too much. I understand that they probably feel like they should give lots of information so that you feel like you’re getting lots of information, but what it feels like is trying to drink from a firehose.
Use a smaller plate. Start your meal with soup. Smaller bites. Something crunchy. Eat more “green” foods. Eat without distractions like your phone. Be mindful of you food when preparing it. Be mindful of your food when you’re eating it. Don’t rush. But stop every so often. Count your calories.
I think the above was stuff from the first two weeks. 1
While all of that is great information, I could’ve done with it in smaller chunks with reiterating.
For example, if I were to rewrite Noom, days 1 through 5 (7?): Concentrate on learning to log calories to get used to it. Explain what a calorie is. Explain why your body needs calories and why starving yourself is bad. Explain the difference between calorie-dense and not-dense foods. Little bites of information to learn in little steps and get that one important thing set in stone in your head. Calories in must be less than calories out to lose weight. Period. So understand calories.
One of the problems of inundating the user with too much information is that there is then an “excuse” for the user to fail. “I only did 5 of the 7 steps and that’s why I didn’t lose weight, I’m a failure.” No, you’re not. But now you’ve got an excuse to blame Noom rather than looking at the simple fact that you’re putting too many calories into your face.
Better yet, if Noom really wanted to be “personalized” they could allow the user to hit a “pause” or “shut up” button — “Let me work on the things I’ve learned up until now and get those down before you give me something else to do.” This might drag the program out longer, but I can’t see how that would be a bad thing for Noom financially.
As I said, I understand why they do it — many of their customers probably don’t feel like they’re getting their money’s worth unless they’re getting new and vital information each and every day. Well, that’s one piece of psychology Noom should work on breaking right off the bat — weight loss takes time, so does learning about it. Their users didn’t put on 80 pounds too many overnight (we hope). Gonna take time to come off, too.