Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet - How Do These Plans Compare?

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – There are thousands of weight-loss and healthy lifestyle programs available today – not to mention the massive list of “healthy” diets out there. Today we take a look at a program based on science and technology and compare that to a diet that’s been touted as an answer to inflammation.

What is Noom?

Noom is a healthy weight and lifestyle program that lasts a total of 16 weeks. After the 16 weeks, you have the opportunity to stay on the plan for additional support with weight maintenance. You are encouraged to log food intake and track exercise, which is common among weight-loss apps. However, the most unique part of Noom is that you’re partnered with a personal coach who’s there to guide you through the program. Each week of the plan builds upon what was learned the previous week via lessons, articles, and quizzes.

What is the Anti-Inflammatory Diet?

Inflammation is a problem many men and women who are overweight or obese experience daily. The anti-inflammatory diet is designed to reduce inflammation and prevent it in some cases. The diet focuses on whole foods, nuts, seeds, and healthy fats. The diet has been shown to reduce the risk of certain inflammatory diseases.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – History

Brief History of Noom

In 2008, friends Artem Petakov and Saeju Jeong got together to develop Noom. The idea was to create a weight-loss and healthy lifestyle program that worked beyond the traditional tracking and logging. The duo partnered with doctors and psychologists to find the best way to integrate the mind and body. By 2018, Noom was one of the most searched diets on Google. Then in 2019, Noom partnered with Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company, to fight obesity.

From the time the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) started listing lifestyle programs, Noom has been on the list.

To check out the lifestyle plan shared by the CDC, a free trial offer is available to Dietspotlight readers.

Brief History of the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Though there is no specific author or creator of the anti-inflammatory diet, foods have been used to alter overall health for thousands of years. There is no one anti-inflammatory diet that’s more effective, or more supported, than another. Each is founded on the idea that certain foods are thought to reduce inflammation.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – Who’s Behind the Plan?

Who Created Noom?

Artem Petakov started learning coding at nine years old. He worked with dot com companies throughout high school before going to college for computer science. While attending college, Petakov found himself drawn to psychology, particularly the psychology of decision making. At first, when Saeju Jeong came to Petakov with the concept of Noom, Petakov was hesitant, but finally, he jumped on board.

There’s not as much information about Jeong. He started as an entrepreneur at 19 and moved on to create BuyHard Productions in Korea, where he stayed for six years. When Petakov didn’t want to leave behind his job at Google, Jeong was patient. Over time, Jeong convinced Petakov to give Noom a go.

Who Created the Anti-Inflammatory Diet?

The anti-inflammatory diet has evolved over time. From the first use of foods and herbs for health, it has been known that what we eat can affect our health. Over time research showed that some foods actually decreased inflammation or helped relieve the symptoms of an inflammatory condition. Eventually, this research collectively formed the basis for the many anti-inflammatory diets.

Some inflammatory conditions that could be affected by diet include those that affect the cognitive system, heart, lungs, and immune system.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – The Rules

Rules of Noom

Psychology is the cornerstone of Noom’s weight-loss philosophy. The user is taught how to make the most informed decisions and how to recognize the changes these decisions make to your health and wellness – along with weight loss. This foundational education is used as a platform from which Noom passes along lifestyle habits, in small pieces, that collectively provide a new outlook on how to lose weight.

Atop the foundation of psychology are three pillars to success – food logging, exercise tracking, and lessons.

Food Logging: Noom uses a traffic light system to categorize foods. The idea is to teach users how to pick the right foods from various categories to create healthy meals and snacks that promote weight loss and weight maintenance. The three categories are green, yellow, and red. Noom uses these colors like a traffic light. Green is go, yellow is slow, and red is stop (though only most of the time in Noom’s case). Let’s take a look at the three colors and what they mean in the Noom plan.

• Green: Green foods are the go-to when it comes to serving sizes. These foods have the lowest number of calories and the best nutrition. About 30% of total daily calories will come from green foods like fruits, vegetables, some grains, and non-fat dairy.
• Yellow: Yellow foods are halfway between green and red, in terms of calories and nutrition. About 45% of your calories will be from yellow foods. Typically, yellow foods are similar to some green foods, but with more calories per serving size. Foods that fall into the yellow category include additional fruits and vegetables, grains, meats, seafood, legumes, seeds, and low-fat dairy.
• Red: Red foods are only to be consumed on occasion. These foods have the highest calorie content and the lowest nutritional support. Your diet should only contain 25% red foods. Red foods include high-fat grains, fried foods, and sugary desserts and drinks.

Exercise Tracking: Next up in the Noom lifestyle program is exercise tracking. This is a part of most weight-loss apps because it is proven to help users stick with a workout routine, but with Noom, it’s about more than that. It has been shown that most people overestimate the total calories they’ve burned. Noom wants the user to get credit for the work they’ve done, so 50% of the total calories burned, based on your exercise tracking, are added back into the total calorie goal for the day.

Lessons: The final pillar of the Noom program is the lessons and education learned along the way. The program is designed to teach how to make better decisions, but there’s also a focus on why. Users are taught lessons like why certain foods are better than others or why specific exercises may be more effective for one person than another. Each lesson, and quiz, helps move you along the path to weight loss in a way that helps you build the knowledge needed to keep the weight off.

The Noom lessons and quizzes are what really make this program different. Get a taste of how you can lose weight for the last time with a Noom free trial offer.

Rules of the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

There are seven essential elements of the anti-inflammatory diet: foods, smoking, alcohol, exercise, sleep, stress, and weight. Let’s take a look at how each of these fit into the plan.

Food: First and foremost, you want to eat anti-inflammatory foods like fruits, vegetables, omega fatty acids, and healthy oils. You want to avoid foods that are thought to cause inflammation, like refined foods, hydrogenated fats (trans fats), saturated fats, dairy, and red meat. You also want to stick with foods that offer moderate amounts of complex carbs with a low glycemic index. The glycemic index is the measure of how a food affects blood sugar levels.

Some of the foods you eat need to be rich in fiber. Few people eating a traditional Western diet get the amount of fiber the body needs daily. With the anti-inflammatory diet, the aim is at least 30g of fiber per day.

Exercise: Getting exercise most days of the week has been shown to reduce inflammation. If you’re just starting, work from 10 minutes a day (or 10 minutes two to three times a day) to longer workouts. Something as simple as walking five minutes, then turning around and walking back is enough to get things started.

The anti-inflammatory diet suggests exercising at least 150 minutes a week, or an average of 30 minutes a day, five days a week.

Stress: Stress has caught quite a bit of attention in overall health and weight loss. The body doesn’t recognize the difference between daily stress, like that that comes with work, relationships, and a true physical threat. Thus, when these stressors present, the body reacts as it would in a situation that poses the threat of danger. This overreaction to daily stress is caused by the fight or flight response. Keeping your body in a constant state of fight or flight can have negative impacts on health and increase inflammation.

Weight: Being overweight or obese increases the risk of inflammation. Losing weight can reduce the risk, lessen the risk, or reverse inflammation.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – Eating Plans

The Noom Eating Plan

The eating plan that comes with Noom is personalized to the individual. After answering a detailed questionnaire, with specific questions that help guide the customization, you are given the information you need to get started. Your personal coach is there to work with you if there are any hiccups with the plan, or just if you need support along the way.

The traffic light food system teaches you how to make the best food choices, and the reasoning behind the system is simple to understand. For example, one cup of broccoli contains about 30 calories, as compared to one cup of rice that contains about 200 calories. Not only could you eat more than six servings of broccoli for the same number of calories, but you are also getting much better nutrition from the vegetable.

“With Noom, you’ll learn about social eating, cognition and food, stress management, managing emotions in relation to food, how exercise affects you, why we eat and act the way we do as humans, along with so much more. Noom aims for these changes to be sustainable, increasing the chance that they will become permanent thus helping you keep the weight off for the rest of your life.”

The Anti-Inflammatory Diet Eating Plan

On the anti-inflammatory diet, there are foods you should increase in your diet and those that you should decrease or eliminate altogether.

Foods to Increase

• Fruits and vegetables
• Omega 3s
• Monounsaturated fats
• Fiber
• Protein
• Herbs and spices

Foods to Decrease

• Trans fats
• Refined oils
• Sugar and simple carbohydrates
• Processed meats
• Saturated fats

There is also mention that certain foods known to cause intolerance should be watched or avoided. These include whey, eggs, dairy, and artificial ingredients.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – Plan Duration

How Long Does Noom Last?

The Healthy Weight Program from Noom lasts for 16 weeks. You can choose to pay for one month or sign up for a longer plan to reduce overall cost. Plans are available up to 12 months, so you can stay on the program after the 16-week weight-loss period for additional support from your personal coach and dedicated community.

How Long Does the Anti-Inflammatory Diet Last?

The anti-inflammatory diet doesn’t have a specific timeframe. The plan is designed to be followed for life. One hiccup is that all the details of the plan are dropped on you at the same time. There is no progression or help making smaller changes that add up to more significant lifestyle changes.

Significant Differences Between Noom and the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

The significant difference between Noom and the anti-inflammatory diet is simple. In essence, one is an app that provides a 16-week program, and the other is a set of rules suggesting lifestyle changes that can reduce inflammation.

Can You Follow the Anti-Inflammatory Diet on Noom?

Yes, you can follow an anti-inflammatory diet on Noom. The rules aren’t outrageous, and entire food groups aren’t restricted. The main focus of the diet is to reduce total body inflammation, which is a common issue with people who are overweight or obese.

Possible Side Effects of Noom vs. the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

There are no side effects of Noom, other than weight loss based on the research. The only side effect of the anti-inflammatory diet would involve increased fiber intake.

Fiber can cause gas, bloating, and even constipation if you don’t drink enough water. Fiber works as a bulk-forming laxative that helps keep the bowel system moving. It’s best to start out adding just 5g of fiber to your diet each week to get your gut used to the extra fiber gradually.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet – The Research

Clinical Research on Noom

When looking for clinical research to support Noom, we found some fantastic results. A clinical trial published in Scientific Reports showed that among 35,000+ participants, more than 77% reported weight loss while using the app. An interesting fact revealed by the research was that Noom users who tracked evening meals and exercise were the most likely to lose the most weight.

We also found research that showed Noom helps users keep the weight off after they’ve lost weight. This is especially important because the Noom plan offers an extended program for weight maintenance. According to the study published in Metabolic Syndromes and Related Disorders, Koreans who were overweight or obese, and had lost weight, were more likely to keep the weight off when using Noom.

Clinical Research on the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

The anti-inflammatory diet suggests an increase in omega 3 fatty acids because an imbalance between omega 6s and omega 3s can cause inflammation. The Western diet is packed with omega 6s, too much to be exact. Intaking extra omega 3s is not only good for inflammation, but it also helps promote heart health, according to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

The Journal of Restorative Medicine says, “an anti-inflammatory diet…showed modest improvements in body weight and trends in benefits for inflammation.”

One of the healthiest of all anti-inflammatory diets is the Mediterranean diet. This diet, like all anti-inflammatory diets, is rich in healthy fats, fruits, and vegetables, as per ICT.

Research published in Nutrition in Clinical Practice reiterates the power of the anti-inflammatory. According to the research, healthy fatty acid “supplies an abundance of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains, has shown anti-inflammatory effects when compared with typical North American and Northern European dietary patterns in most observational and interventional studies and may become the diet of choice for diminishing chronic inflammation in clinical practice.”

The Facts About Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Quick Facts on Noom

• The Noom weight-loss program lasts for 16 weeks.
• The user can follow the program after 16 weeks for weight maintenance.
• The more months you subscribe upfront, the more money you save.
• The program is clinically proven to help with weight loss and weight maintenance.
• There are no food restrictions.
• The program was developed with the help of doctors and psychologists.
• When you log exercise, you earn back 50% of the calories burned.
• The user is encouraged to eat whole foods.

Quick Facts on the Anti-Inflammatory Diet

• The anti-inflammatory diet suggests whole foods, healthy fats, and reduced intake of refined and processed foods.
• Exercise, stress management, and good sleep habits are encouraged.
• Weight loss has been associated with reduced inflammation.
• There is no step-by-step program to walk you through the changes.

The Final Take on Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet

There’s no doubt we love the anti-inflammatory diet and everything it stands for. Eating more fruits and vegetables, upping your omega 3 fatty acid and fiber intake, and getting out there and exercising are excellent ways to lose weight and fight inflammation. But, where Noom stands out is that the habits needed to lose weight and keep it off are taught over 16 weeks through lessons and quizzes, along with personal interaction with your coach.

Check out Noom today for a full free trial offer and see how much weight you can lose.

Noom vs. Anti-Inflammatory Diet Questions and Answers

Does Noom work for weight loss?

Yes, based on clinical research and user experiences, Noom does work to help with weight loss and weight maintenance.

Does Noom give you a meal plan?

Yes, Noom supplies an eating plan that’s tailored to each individual. The plans are flexible, and the assigned personal coach can help you make changes if needed.

How do you log food on Noom?

On the main page of your app, click the button to log your meals and choose the meal you want to log. From there, you enter the foods.

How does Noom actually work?

Noom actually works by teaching small lessons daily. Over time, these short lessons add up to lasting lifestyle changes. The lessons cover everything from eating, to exercise, to mental health.

Is Noom just calorie counting?

No, Noom is not just calorie counting. While you are given a calorie target, the aim is to teach the user how to choose the best foods without needing to count calories. That’s where the green, yellow, red categories can come into play.

How does Noom track steps?

There is an app that works with Noom called Noom Walk. The pedometer tracks steps and syncs with your Noom app to log exercise.

How long does Noom last?

Noom lasts for 16 weeks before the user moves onto the post-program. As long as you have an active subscription, you will have access to your personal coach.

How much is Noom after the trial?

After the free trial, Noom retails for $59 a month. If you choose to purchase multiple months, you will pay a lower price per month. Based on April 2020 prices, you will pay:

• About $50 a month for a 2-month plan.
• About $33 a month for a 4-month plan.
• About $25 a month for a 6-month plan.
• About $20 a month for an 8-month plan.
• About $17 a month for a 12-month plan.

How do I quit Noom?

When you’re ready to cancel your Noom subscription, log into the app, and send a message to your personal coach. The coach will process your cancellation. When the cancellation has been processed, you will receive an email notification.

What does Noom stand for?

Noom stands for Moon backward. The moon provides a guiding light in the night, and Noom offers the same guiding light through the weight-loss journey.