In a world moving beyond toxic diet culture, many individuals seek assistance in tracking their food intake for accountability or to support workout goals. Weight loss apps offer a healthful and sustainable way to monitor eating habits. This article provides a detailed review of several popular weight loss apps, including Omo.
Top Picks for Weight Loss Apps
Several apps stand out in the crowded market, each catering to different needs and preferences:
- Best Overall: Noom. Noom distinguishes itself by looking at your entire lifestyle, not just food intake, offering actionable insights for overall well-being.
- Best Free: MyNetDiary. MyNetDiary is an excellent free option for those comfortable managing their own food choices.
- Best on a Budget: WeightWatchers. WeightWatchers has a long history of helping people lose weight and has successfully transitioned to the digital age.
- Best for Fitness: MyFitnessPal. MyFitnessPal encourages users to consider their diet in the context of being active, offering suggestions based on foods that can improve fitness.
- Best Food Tracking: Lose It! Lose It! provides comprehensive tools for tracking food intake and managing calorie consumption.
Detailed Reviews of Weight Loss Apps
Noom: A Holistic Approach to Weight Loss
Pros: Comprehensive diet plan backed by nutrition experts, assesses a user's entire health profile, offers a food log and calorie tracker.
Cons: Expensive.
Noom stands out by pairing users with health and nutrition experts to craft personalized plans. It considers factors like age, height, weight, activity level, target goals, medical history, and personal goals. The program suggests which foods to eat, how much physical activity to do, and other healthy habit reinforcements. The goal is to provide tools to adjust your current lifestyle gradually, making small changes that can be sustained over time, leading to better overall health and fitness.
Read also: Weight Loss Guide Andalusia, AL
The Noom app includes a food log, calorie tracker, and activity monitor. It provides incentives to be more active and mindful, taking into account caloric intake, fitness levels, and other variables.
Noom utilizes a color-coded system for tracking consumption:
- Green Foods: Vegetables and whole grains, which are the least calorie-dense and most nutrient-dense.
- Yellow Foods: Lean meats and starches, encouraged in moderation.
- Orange Foods: Desserts and red meat, to be eaten in smaller portions and less frequently.
Noom also offers tools to track progress, including meal logging, exercise regimen setup, and weight tracking. It also provides access to virtual coaching teams, biometric tracking, weekly challenges, and educational information.
While some users have reported negative experiences, citing issues such as a lack of screening for eating disorders and an anxious roster of coaches, many others find Noom to be a great way to learn better eating and exercise habits.
MyNetDiary: Budget-Friendly and Anonymous
Pros: An excellent app for anyone on a budget, offers food and exercise tracking and a variety of meal-planning options.
Read also: Beef jerky: A high-protein option for shedding pounds?
Cons: The advanced tracking options are behind a paywall.
MyNetDiary offers excellent free services, making it a great option for those on a budget. These features include food and exercise tracking, meal planning options, graphical charts to map progress, daily analysis of eating habits, and access to an active online community. These services don't require the user to create an account, ensuring complete data anonymity.
The premium version of MyNetDiary unlocks compatibility with Fitbit devices, health tracking for those who are diabetic or pre-diabetic, and personalized diet advice from a nutritionist.
WeightWatchers: Leveraging a Proven Dietary Plan
Pros: Familiar diet plans, offers a barcode scanner for use at the store, has more than 8,000 recommended recipes, allows members to attend workshops and coaching sessions.
Cons: The app can be glitchy at times and can have trouble logging food.
Read also: Inspiring Health Transformation
The WeightWatchers WW app supplements its dietary plan by providing resources members need at their fingertips. This includes a database of rated foods using the WeightWatchers point system, emphasizing awareness of what foods are being consumed rather than just counting calories.
The app offers over 9,000 healthy recipes, a barcode scanner for foods at the grocery store, and access to advice from a diet coach. Members can connect to offer advice and encouragement, and earn rewards for leading a healthy lifestyle.
WeightWatchers members get access to the WW app as part of their benefits, or a digital-only membership can be purchased.
MyFitnessPal: Balancing Diet and Exercise
Pros: Offers a wide variety of cardio and strength workouts, has a database of over 11 million different foods, features a barcode scanner for use at the store, its recipe importer gives you info on custom at-home meals, free features.
Cons: $80 annual membership is required for the full suite of features.
MyFitnessPal acts as both a diet and exercise coach. It includes a database of over 11 million foods, a barcode scanner, and a recipe importer for evaluating home-cooked meals.
The app includes over 300 cardio and strength workouts and integrates with Apple's HealthKit and the MapMyRun, Garmin, and Fitbit apps to accurately track steps and workout routines. It also has an online community for support, advice, and encouragement.
Lose It!: User-Friendly Food Tracking
Pros: Easy to use food tracking, intuitive app, can take photos of your food to estimate calories, offers a social aspect to connect with other users, plenty of free features.
Cons: App can be buggy, and requires you to be highly specific about some foods.
Lose It! stands out for its versatility and smarts. Users can easily add food entries by selecting from the app's extensive database or by scanning barcodes. The app can estimate calories from photos of meals and includes a water-tracking feature.
A $40 annual membership unlocks additional features like a Fitbit-compatible activity tracker, macronutrient goal setting, and access to a detailed meal planner. The app also has an active community.
Fooducate: Making Smarter Food Choices
Pros: An excellent informative tool to help people become more aware of their nutrition, uses an easy-to-understand grading system for a variety of foods, offers insightful tips on what to look out for when shopping.
Cons: The food database isn't entirely comprehensive (but gets updated often).
Fooducate helps users make smarter food decisions by suggesting healthier alternatives. Scanning a product's barcode provides a letter grade for its nutritional value, along with an explanation of why the product received that grade.
The app points out important things to be aware of, including added sugars, artificial coloring or sweeteners, and other unhealthy additives. It also serves as a health tracker, offers diet tips, and provides healthy recipes.
Carb Manager: Diabetes-Specific Tracking
Pros: In-depth tracker for a variety of diets, offers a deep diabetes-specific tracker that monitors blood sugar and the amount of ketones and insulin for each meal.
Cons: Isn't purely for diabetics, so might be overwhelming to some.
Carb Manager is designed for a wide range of lifestyles and diet choices, but its offering for diabetics makes it invaluable. It offers blood sugar tracking, carb counting, and the ability to see the amount of ketones and insulin from each meal.
Zero: Intermittent Fasting Support
Pros: Useful timer that can be customized to personal fasting times, easy to access stats and personal data, ability to sync health data across other apps.
Cons: UI can be somewhat cluttered at times.
Zero is a resource for understanding what and when to eat during intermittent fasting, and how to approach fasting windows. It provides a timer to track fasting periods and informs users of whether they're in fat-burning mode. The app is customizable and offers expert insight and information.
Nutrition Coach: Food Tracker: Personalized Guidance
Pros: A near-endless variety of recipes, an easy-to-use barcode feature for logging food, intuitive calorie tracker, and useful expert insight.
Cons: Lacks some deeper tracking capabilities.
Nutrition Coach offers food tracking capabilities, a barcode feature, and a calorie tracker. It provides thousands of recommended recipes based on food preferences, diet, and desired calorie intake.
Omo: Weight Loss with Psychology
Omo is a weight loss app designed to help users achieve their goals with ease. It aims to build new healthy habits using a psychology-based approach. The app offers a weight loss course designed to teach users how to build new healthy habits and achieve long-term success. It also includes calorie tracking and nutrition coaching.
Key features of Omo include:
- Calorie tracking
- Custom workouts
- Weight-loss course
- Fasting tracking
- Healthy recipes
- Weight tracker
Omo is available for iPhone, Apple Vision, and Apple Watch.
User Reviews of Omo: A Mixed Bag
User reviews of Omo are mixed, with some praising its effectiveness and others reporting negative experiences.
Positive Reviews:
- Some users appreciate Omo for enabling them to keep track of their weight loss efforts and for its fasting and water intake trackers.
- One user reported losing 9kg in 2 months, attributing their success to calorie counting and the app's lessons.
- Another user found the lessons useful and simply explained.
Negative Reviews:
- Several users reported unexpected charges after signing up for a free trial and difficulty obtaining refunds.
- Some users described Omo as a "scam" due to unauthorized charges and difficulty canceling subscriptions.
- One user reported that the app didn't work for them and that they didn't lose any weight after months of use.
- Some users complained about the app freezing and being unable to contact customer service.
- One user found the app misleading, as the initial payment only covered daily lessons and not meal planning or exercise plans.
Company Responses:
The company typically responds to negative reviews with courteous messages, offering to investigate the issues and provide assistance. However, many users report that these responses do not lead to satisfactory resolutions.
BBB and Trustpilot Information
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) indicates that the business may be out of business. Trustpilot reviews can be written by anyone and may not always reflect genuine experiences.
Noom: A Deeper Dive
Noom has been around for over 15 years and boasts one of the most trending weight loss platforms. It combines diet and exercise, expert support, and psychology.
According to Noom, users who adopt a healthy lifestyle can expect to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. Noom focuses on behavioral changes, calling itself a lifestyle rather than a diet.
Noom offers a 7-day trial.
Long-Term User Experience with Noom
One tester, Kim Currin, has used Noom for several months and shared her experiences:
- Month 1: Kim returned to Noom after years away, benefiting from an altered mindset and improved eating habits.
- Month 2: Kim used Noom for meal management, exercise, and weight loss, getting support for health improvements without medication.
- Month 3: Kim experienced weight loss progress with Noomâs tools and community support.
- Month 4: Kim leveraged Noomâs programs for behavior change during her weight loss journey.
- Month 5: Kim tackled weight fluctuations and health challenges with Noomâs guidance.
- Month 6: Kim felt empowered after six months of education and lifestyle changes with Noom.
- Month 7: Kim decided if GLP-1s are right for her and is excited to learn that Noom offers a GLP-1 plan.
- Month 8: Kim is invigorated by GLP-1 assistance and finds it easier to exercise through Noom Move.
- Month 9: Kim enjoys more weight loss milestones and embraces appetite control with Noomâs GLP-1 support.
- Month 10: Kim continues her weight loss journey with Noomâs education and new eating patterns, reaching her lowest weight of the year.
Getting Started with Noom
- Take the online quiz: The app asks for details about your current diet, activity levels, and habits.
- Set your goals: The app uses information from the quiz to create a custom plan and provide a realistic timeline.
- Start using the app: Noom requires users to spend just a few minutes per day on the app, providing daily educational articles, tips, and activities.
The app encourages users to log food intake, exercise, and weigh-ins, send messages to their Noom guide, and join Noom Communities.
Noom's Features
- Noomcoin: An in-app reward system designed to increase motivation.
- Body Scan: A feature to record body measurements and track progress.
- Logging: Tasks to log progress, including body scans, weekly commitments, meals, and water intake.
How Noom Supports Weight Loss
- Reduces calorie intake: Noom estimates daily calorie needs based on individual characteristics and lifestyle.
- Promotes healthy habits: Noom encourages regular exercise and provides a generic workout guide.
- Social support: Noom Vibe and Noom Communities make exercise social.
Noom Subscription Plans
Noom offers various subscription plans, ranging from monthly to annual auto-renewing plans. Discounts are frequently offered throughout the year. Noom Med, which provides GLP-1 drugs, costs an additional $49 per month, not including the cost of medications.