New Year, New You!

​"Getting into shape" is probably the number one resolution each year, judging by how crowded the gyms become each January 1. I'm not the kind of person who makes resolutions around the new year because I don't want to lean on January 1 as an excuse to wait to get started on things like "getting into shape." I actually started this resolution to lose 20 pounds just before Thanksgiving.

​You've probably heard of the Noom app, which is designed to help people lose weight. If you're like me, you might have seen the ads that promise to change your relationship with food with a plan that's personalized for you and thought, "Yeah, no." ​

---

I don't know if "yeah, no" is universal, but in the Midwest it simply means...no. In this case, not likely.

I had been working out nearly every day, and each week my weight fluctuated between 180 and 185 pounds. For months, this was my plateau. A frustrating cycle. I love fast food, but had limited it to maybe twice per week. I hate vegetables. I have always been a stress-eater. I never felt shame with my eating habits, but rather frustration. When stress hits me, I would think I needed a large pizza--all that cheese and grease and flavor of comfort food was my go-to. No longer being the young college kid who could call a large pizza and a six pack dinner and not gain an ounce...well, no wonder my weekend binge undid my weekday efforts.

I had decided to give something different a try. Enter Noom. Does it work?

---

How personalized is it? I don't know, but it did pick up on my stress-eating and the fact that I hate veggies, and give me a daily caloric intake window that takes into account that I want to gain muscle while losing fat. 

Noom did change my relationship with food. Whenever stress kicks in and I'm craving that large pizza, a few things happen:

1. I try to cut off that binge-monster before it consumes me...and a whole pizza. I take notice that I'm stressed. I know what I will begin to crave in a short while. And I'll snack on healthy--and sometimes not-so-healthy--snacks so I don't feel as hungry when I am ready to order the pizza.
2. I go ahead and order that damn pizza. Instead of just a large, though, I get extra large. Makes sense? Not at all. My binge-monster WANTS that pizza. Sometimes, just having one delivered is enough to calm that desire. The trick, though, is that the first thing I do when that pizza arrives is to put a few slices on a plate and immediately wrap up the rest and stick it in the freezer. That limits how much I will eat TONIGHT, while having pizza available for the next time stress kicks in.
3. Sometimes, the binge-monster wants what the binge-monster wants, and doesn't relent. In those instances, I relent and forgive myself. This process is not at all about punishing oneself, but it is a process. On those nights, I binge MINDFULLY. That is, eating slowly, I literally pay attention to each bite--how do I feel NOW? I eat another bite and ask the same question--how do I feel NOW? It kind of reminds me of a joke I once posted on Facebook, "What's better than a Twinkee? TWO Twinkees! What's better than two Twinkees? It's definitely not three Twinkees." (True story. Try it and you'll see what I mean.) Eventually, I found my sweet spot--somewhere between three and four slices--where each bite has a diminishing rate of return on satiating that monster. I begin to feel sick, stuffed, bloated, gross. Now, I simply stop at three slices even if there are four on my plate. So, binge-monster gets happy, but not out of control. That's progress.
4. The part of me that remains logical about pizza feels satisfied that I won't need to order another pizza for at least another month...when before I started doing this, ordering at least one pizza each week was a given. That's a huge money savings. Whenever I want pizza, I simply pull three slices from the freezer. And, yes, I limit that to no more than one day each week. Knowing that the pizza is already here and available is, quite often, enough to keep the binge-monster calm, like a security blanket chilling away in my freezer.

That is perhaps the worst of my diet that Noom has helped me tackle. I have also been able to gamify getting more veggies in my diet...and I'm surprised that the more I eat them, the more I actually seem to like them. Except kale. Kale is evil.

Through daily lessons and tons of quizzes, Noom has me thinking more intentionally about how I stuff my face. There are literally no foods off limits, and I like that. Since starting Noom two months ago, I have lost 15 pounds and I can see reaching my target weight inside 2 weeks...exactly as Noom had predicted when I took its initial lifestyle quiz. That's pretty impressive.

Will it work for you, too? Probably. Granted, I started this process merely "overweight" according to BMI scales, and not "obese." I wanted to lose only 20 pounds...but this was after being on a plateau for many, many months. Noom was the change I needed because it gave me a structure in which to work. I don't rightfully know if it will work for you, too...that's entirely up to you.

Pros

• It's informative. Daily lessons and quizzes help you analyze your behavior and suggest strategies to try.
• It works in a realistic way. That is...it's not restrictive, not a fad diet. It sets you up for long term success by teaching you to eat intentionally/mindfully. On a day-to-day basis, I'm very focused on what I eat, but I haven't ever felt like I was on a diet.
• It integrates activity tracking with wearable tech like Fitbit.

Cons

• It's expensive. $60/month? That's crazy. I truly recommend this, but only if you're serious about making changes. Otherwise, spend that money on the food that makes you happy, forgive yourself and be happy with that choice.
• The app makes it difficult to re-read previous lessons. You can bookmark a page and re-read your bookmarks, but to re-read an entire lesson you need to "swap out" the old lesson for the lesson you're currently on. First world problems, I know. But it's really damn frustrating when you think you want a refresher on a lesson about psychology and you can't just re-read it. You lose progress on your current lesson, and you can only re-read a day's worth of pages instead of the entire lesson. And, no, I don't want to bookmark every page as I read them just in case I want to return for a refresher.
• Calorie counting is perhaps the biggest con. It's tedious. But, if you're like me, tediously managing your daily caloric budget actually reinforces the eating behaviors because...if you do the work, why mess up the eating?