Is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy the Future of Weight Loss?
This popular weight loss app empowers users to be their best self.
Weight loss is hard. Diet plans are often confusing and restrictive and gym memberships can be costly.
Enter Noom. As the world’s leading behaviour change company, Noom combines the power of artificial intelligence, mobile tech, and psychology with the empathy of over 1,000 personal coaches to help users live healthier lives by changing their long-term habits. Unlike quick-fix diets that aren’t sustainable, Noom integrates cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) into its program for long-term results.
CBT is a common form of psychotherapy that helps people learn to identify and change how their thoughts and attitudes might be contributing to negative thinking or destructive behaviours (such as overeating). For example, say you can’t help but indulge in the baked goods at your work break room. Instead of avoiding the break room in order to stop eating, CBT would help determine the factors contributing to your endless indulgence in sweets so you’re able to identify and change those behaviours.
How does it work?
Think of Noom as a wellness program rather than a diet. Noom takes all aspects of a person’s lifestyle into account, including the mental aspect of weight loss in addition to the physical.
Once you sign up with Noom, you’ll record your daily meals and activities in the app. But more importantly, you’ll also get weekly one-on-one goal setting and support from a Noom Goal Specialist who is trained in CBT. This is where Noom helps you identify those individual thoughts, feelings and behaviours that contribute to weight gain and replaces them with healthier responses. Not only does Noom help you lose weight, it helps you keep it off.
It’s a personalized plan.
The first thing you’ll do when signing up for Noom is complete an in-depth quiz that covers everything from the basics (age, weight, height) to lifestyle questions such as how often you eat, where you live, and how busy you are on an average day.
During your first week, you’ll be asked to identify your “Ultimate Why.” More than likely, your goal is about more than wanting to lose weight. It might be a much more personal motivation like being healthy for your kids. Each week your Goal Specialist will work with you on your personalized program based on your “Ultimate Why.”
It’s an all-in-one program.
You can log meals, access workout plans and track exercise, read articles for inspiration, search recipes, set goals, track progress, receive support from a personal health coach, and even connect with a community with similar goals for support. There’s no need for a fancy gym membership or meal delivery service. Everything you need for successful long-term weight loss can be found within the app.
It’s not restrictive.
Noom doesn’t give you a specific diet plan to follow. Instead, the emphasis is on educating users about nutrition and teaching good, healthy habits. Rather than assigning foods points or making some off limits altogether, Noom breaks down foods into green, yellow, and red categories.
Green foods are the least calorie-dense and usually contain the highest concentration of healthy nutrients, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Basically, green foods should make up the bulk of your diet.
Yellow foods have more calories and may have fewer nutrients per serving than green foods but should still be part of your diet in moderate proportions.
Red foods include those that are higher in calories with the least nutrition, such as red meats, desserts and processed foods. These foods aren’t off limits but should be eaten less frequently and in smaller portions.
Sounds doable, doesn’t it? That’s the key to successful weight loss.
Take the quiz at Noom.com to receive your personalized package.
