Noom vs Lose It: An In-Depth Comparison of Features, Pricing and Effectiveness
Introducing Noom and Lose It
Noom and Lose It are two of the most popular weight loss apps on the market. Both were founded in 2008 with the goal of making weight loss and healthy living more accessible through technology. However, they take slightly different approaches.
Noom was created by Saeju Jeong and Artem Petakov to focus more on the psychology behind overeating and making lasting lifestyle changes. The app provides personalized lessons and interventions based on cognitive behavioral therapy and scientific studies on habit formation.
Lose It was founded by Charles Teague, Joseph J. Allaire and Paul DiCristina to simplify calorie counting. By making tracking calories easier to understand, the app helps people learn which foods contribute to weight gain and how to balance meals for healthy, gradual weight loss.
While both apps aim to educate and provide community support, Noom places more emphasis on changing thought patterns and behavior, while Lose It focuses specifically on calories as the key factor for weight management.
In this comprehensive review, we’ll delve into the similarities and differences between Noom and Lose It across these key factors:
- How each app works
- Pricing and subscription options
- Key features and extras
- Ease of use
- Customer reviews
- Discounts and promotions
Let’s explore how Noom and Lose It stack up.
How Noom and Lose It Work
Both Noom and Lose It require new users to take a quick assessment quiz when signing up. This quiz asks for details like current weight, goal weight, diet preferences, exercise frequency and more.
Noom’s Approach
Based on your quiz answers, Noom creates a customized weight loss plan and calorie goal specifically for your needs. However, the app does not strictly count or restrict calories. Instead, Noom focuses on developing healthier eating habits over time.
Some key parts of Noom’s approach include:
- Color-coded food classification system: Noom divides all foods into color categories (red, yellow, green) based on calorie density. Red foods should be limited, yellow foods eaten in moderation, and green foods have little restrictions.
- Interactive lessons: Users go through a 16-week education curriculum covering topics like managing stress, understanding nutrition labels, overcoming emotional eating triggers, building self-confidence and more. Lessons aim to address root psychological causes behind overeating.
- Food logging: Users log meals each day and get feedback on their food choices. Logging helps identify eating patterns and areas for improvement.
- One-on-one coaching: Personal coaches provide accountability, support and motivation over text message. Coaches congratulate milestones and provide guidance when users struggle.
- Peer support group: Group chats connected users struggling with similar challenges for camaraderie and advice.
The goal of Noom is to build healthy habits from the inside out by understanding your personal pitfalls and triggers. Education and support aim to set users up for long-term success once the 16-week curriculum finishes.
Lose It’s Approach
Lose It focuses specifically on calorie tracking for weight loss. The app provides each user with a personalized daily and weekly “calorie budget” to promote gradual, healthy shedding of pounds.
Here’s an overview of how Lose It works:
- Calorie budget: Based on your stats and goals, Lose It calculates the exact daily calorie intake needed for you to lose weight. As you log food or exercises that burn calories, the budget adjusts.
- Food database: Lose It has an extensive database of over 7 million food items. You can easily search for exact matches or reasonable approximations of what you eat to log calories.
- Macronutrient tracking: For paying users, Lose It also tracks carbs, protein and fat consumption to help balance your diet.
- Exercise logging: Log any workouts in the app to subtract calories from your budget.
- Weight tracking: Users can track weight fluctuations over time and adjust daily calorie goals accordingly.
- Advanced settings: Customize nutrient goals, glucose tracking, water intake, recipes, meal plans and more.
The approach of Lose It puts numbers and data front and center. By understanding calories in versus calories out, users learn how to manage weight in a flexible, customized way based on their unique needs and preferences.
Noom vs Lose It Pricing
Both Noom and Lose It offer free versions of their apps with limited functionality. To unlock all features, users must purchase a subscription. Here’s how pricing shakes out:
Noom Pricing
Noom has tiered subscription lengths ranging from 1 month to a year, with discounts for longer commitments.
- 1 month: $59
- 2 months: $99
- 3 months: $129
- 4 months: $139
- 5 months: $149
- 6 months: $159
- 7 months: $169
- 8 months: $179
- 1 year: $199
All plans automatically renew monthly but can be canceled at any time.
The free version of Noom provides limited access to food and exercise logging features. However, free users do not get personalized meal plans, interactive lessons, coaching or group support.
Lose It Pricing
Lose It has a flat annual subscription fee of $39.99 per year. Alternatively, users can pay $7.99 for one month to test premium features.
The Lose It free app allows tracking calories, logging weight and accessing the food database. However, creating custom meal plans, macro nutrient tracking and other advanced features require a paid membership.
When comparing cost, Lose It’s simplified annual pricing beats Noom for budget-focused users. Keep in mind Noom’s longer prepaid subscriptions (6-12 months) drop the monthly fee significantly.
Over a whole year, here is the total spending difference:
- Noom annual subscription: $199/year
- Lose It annual subscription: $39.99/year
However, Noom’s varying lengths and option to pause or cancel provide more flexibility for times when finances are tight or motivation wanes.
Key Features and Extras
Beyond basic tracking and education tools, Noom and Lose It also provide these bonus features:
Noom Features
- Goal specialist: Get one-on-one guidance from a personal coach.
- Group support: Chat with other users facing similar challenges.
- Articles and recipes: Read health tips and find meal ideas.
- Mood tracking: Log emotions to identify triggers and improve coping strategies.
- DNA analysis: Get genetic testing to personalize weight loss approach (extra fee).
Lose It Features
- Challenges: Compete against others toward fitness goals.
- Groups: Join online communities for inspiration.
- Connected apps: Sync with wearables and apps.
- Meal plans: Browse pre-made meal plans and recipes.
- DNA analysis: Upload DNA test results to personalize plan (extra fee).
The community and personalization components aim to enhance accountability, motivation and engagement within the platforms beyond just tracking data points.
Noom goes a level deeper into the emotional and genetic factors that contribute to wellness and weight loss hurdles. Lose It focuses on actionable steps like competitions and meal planning.
Ease of Use
Both Noom and Lose It aim to provide user-friendly, intuitive app interfaces to track nutrition, activity and progress.
Here is how the apps compare regarding ease of use based on customer reviews and expert analysis:
Noom
- Simple food logging with color categories
- Straightforward lessons each day
- Some users find food database lacking
- Can be time intensive for logging
Lose It
- Huge food database makes logging easy
- Barcode scanner simplifies tracking
- Syncing with wearables is seamless
- Many analytic tools can feel overwhelming
Both apps aim to save users time with shortcuts like barcode scanning,favorites lists and recipe builders that make relogging meals a cinch.
However, Noom’s simplified color system better suits beginners, while Lose It provides more advanced tracking for seasoned calorie counters. Users that dislike lots of data entry may find Noom’s broad categories easier for a quick check-in.
For handy tools that sync across devices, Lose It edges out Noom slightly regarding ease of use. But Noom’s approach feels more intuitive overall.
Customer Reviews
With over 100,000 customer reviews across platforms like the App Store, Google Play and TrustPilot, both Noom and Lose It have stellar reputations.
Here is a high-level snapshot:
Noom Reviews
- App Store: 4.7 stars across 582,000+ ratings
- Google Play Store: 4.6 stars across 46,000+ ratings
- Trustpilot: 4.4 stars across 53,000+ ratings
Positive Noom reviews highlight the customized lessons, coaching support and psychology-based educational approach. Users struggling with emotional or binge eating tend to see great success using Noom’s behavioral tools.
However, some users find the calorie tracking and food database lack precision compared to apps solely focused on data.
Here is a sample positive Noom review:
“I love how Noom helps you understand the psychology behind your eating patterns. By working on my underlying issues, not just counting calories, I‘ve finally been able to kick unhealthy habits!”
Lose It Reviews
- Google Play Store: 4.7 stars across 118,000+ ratings
- App Store: 4.8 stars across 489,000+ ratings
Fans of Lose It highlight the huge food and exercise database, advanced tracking features and community competitions that keep them motivated towards weight loss goals. Users report losing significant weight using Lose It’s calorie budget approach.
However, some users find all the detailed tracking overwhelming or tedious. Beginners may want more education or coaching.
Here is an example 5-star Lose It review:
“I love that I can scan barcodes and track everything I eat then exactly see the net calories for day. The data really keeps me accountable towards my goals!”
Based on publicly available customer feedback, both apps receive glowing reviews and deliver proven weight loss results. Noom offers more behavioral coaching, while Lose It has more robust tracking.
Promotions and Discounts
As of this writing, Noom is offering steeper discounts for first-time subscribers. Discounts range from 10-80% off depending on subscription length.
For example, you can currently get 80% off a year-long Noom subscription, dropping the price from $199 to $39.
Lose It occasionally offers coupon codes and extended trial periods beyond the standard 7-day free trial. However, the bulk discounts Noom provides make the pricing extremely competitive.
Before signing up, be sure to search for active Noom promo codes online to score the best deal. Lose It may announce specials around the holidays or New Year when motivation to get fit spikes across their user base.
The Final Verdict
Both Noom and Lose It stand out as top contenders among weight loss apps by providing customized plans, tracking tools and community support to help individuals overcome hurdles.
Here is a quick side-by-side snapshot:
Noom
- Best For: Emotional eaters needing psychological tools and coaching
- Standout Features: Color-coded food system, one-on-one coaching, and daily education curriculum tailored to you
- Downsides: Requires more user input for logging all foods; analysis can feel tedious
- Price: $39-$199/year depending on plan
Lose It
- Best For: Data-driven dieters that want robust calorie and nutrient analysis
- Standout Features: Huge verified food database, barcode scanning, macro and calorie budgeting
- Downsides: Less education and emotional support; can feel overwhelming
- Price:$39.99/year
At the end of the day, Noom offers better strategies for long-term habit change, while Lose It helps efficiently track day-to-day weight fluctuations.
We recommend Noom for beginners focused on making lasting improvements holistically across mindset, nutrition and exercise.
Lose It suits calorie-counting veterans needing deep data support as they progress towards more defined body or athletic composition goals.
Regardless of which app best aligns with your approach, both provide proven frameworks to help anyone at any stage of their wellness journey lose weight sustainably.
Ready to get started? Click below to download Noom or Lose It and start working towards the healthy lifestyle you deserve today.
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