I just finished my 4th week on the Noom program, and I’m down 10 pounds.
That’s pretty phenomenal.
And it’s not the result of starving myself. I was talking to my friend Lex the other day, and I said that exact thing — I don’t starve myself. If I’m hungry, I eat, even when it takes me over my calorie budget.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going hog wild and pig crazy! But that’s another part of Noom: changing habits.
Where I would previously have potato chips, I have carrots and hummus. Where I would previously have a grilled cheese sandwich, I have a Boca Burger on sprouted whole grain bread. Those are both better choices for my current fitness goals, because the foods I’m choosing now have a lower caloric density than my old choices (Green or Yellow on the Noom color scale), and, from a hunger standpoint, that is more satisfying than those old Red foods.
Plus, I like those new choices. They are foods I ate before, but now I just eat more of them.
It’s not all about the new choices, though, because I still eat my Barbara’s Morning Oat Crunch cereal, and my Joe’s O’s, both Red foods. And I still love my crystallized ginger., also Red.
Another key to my weight loss beyond diet is more exercise.
It’s just walking, but I’m doing a lot of it. Noom has increased my daily walking requirement from 2,000 steps at the beginning to 8,600 now. I almost always get more steps than Noom requires, and that helps offset the extra calories I consume. Like today, I’m 144 calories over my caloric budget, but I got in about 2700 extra steps.
How do I get all the walking in?
How I do it now is by walking instead of driving to places I need to go. For example, today I walked to the UPS Store where I have a mailbox. That was 3.5 miles in about 1:05, a decent distance and pace. Then I walked to Target to pick up a couple items. That was 1.2 miles in about 20 minutes. All told, including any incidental walking I did, that was about 11,300 steps. And the day’s not over yet!
There was a time about 10 years ago when there were no places to walk, because I lived in the suburbs, and everything was too far away to walk to. So I used to get in steps by parking far away at the grocery store, waking around my car while pumping gas, always walking if I were on the phone. I’d get in steps any way I could!
Here’s where I’ll plug my Letsfit fitness tracker. Outside some anomalies tracking my sleep — not sure what’s going on, but usually it seems to track my sleep properly — it’s been great. Especially for the price.
That thing is light on my wrist. I rarely notice it’s there. And it charges very fast by plugging it into a USB port on my computer.
So, yeah, my weight is dropping off on the Noom program, and I’m building new eating and exercise habits.
Great program so far.