One way to make your weight loss journey easier is by choosing a program that will promote healthy habits, offer guidance, and make you accountable. The issue is that there are so many to choose from. We decided to have a look at Noom Vs. Nutrisystem to see how they compare as successful weight loss tools.
Noom
Pros
- Full lifestyle, whole body, science-backed approach to losing pounds
- Not like typical diet programs, Noom addresses the emotional side of weight gain
- Daily lessons are educational and motivating
- Personal nutritional coach checks in on you
- Helps track other key health metrics, including blood sugar and blood pressure
- Economical if you can afford to pay for the annual membership upfront
- Enjoy your own food
Cons
- Month to month option is expensive
- Not as comprehensive as weight loss plans that offer meals
- Need to be self-motivated to shed pounds
- Nutritional coaches are not registered dietitians
- Only paid members have access to the app
Nutrisystem
Pros
- Complete weight loss system with prepared meals
- Limits time spent shopping, meal planning, and cooking
- A long history of success
- Promotes quick weight loss in the first two weeks
- Diabetic program available
Cons
- Expensive to follow long term
- Less variety than making your own meals
- It may be difficult to sustain once no longer on the program
- Although the meals are low in sodium and unhealthy fats, they are still processed
Weight Loss Programs
One of the key differences between Noom Vs. Nutrisystem is their approach to losing weight.
Noom is a weight loss and health app that offers structure, calorie and exercise tracking, personal coaching, and science-backed lessons to help you lose pounds. Nutrisystem is a food-based weight loss program designed to help people shed weight quickly by reducing calorie intake through pre-made meals.
Nutrisystem
Nutrisystem is a full-fledged weight loss plan with prepared meals designed for portion and calorie control. The goal of Nutrisystem is to help people start losing weight quickly because they know that people are more likely to stick with a program when they see results.
Nutrisystem, in many ways, is comparable to Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig. All programs promote weight loss by reducing calorie intake and redefining one’s relationship with food. Unlike Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem’s core centers around prepared meal delivery that completely takes the guesswork out of what to eat and when.
When you sign up for Nutrisystem, you choose from several plans. There are plans specifically for men or women, with options for the basic plan, Uniquely Yours, or Complete 55 (for ages 55+) for each.
Nutrisystem also offers diabetes and diabetes prevention programs. Each plan is a little different in what it offers, but they all work off of the same basic idea of losing weight through the calorie and portion control of the prepared meals.
Noom
Noom isn’t so much of a diet plan as it is a weight loss tool. The whole of Noom is based on the Noom App, which is where you can access food logging and exercise tracking features and Noom’s list of green, yellow, and red foods.
These food lists help with weight loss and weight management by helping people see they can eat the foods they choose and that healthy eating is all about balance and eating for your body and lifestyle.
Noom’s claim to fame is their science-backed approach. With the app, you work through daily lessons (at your own pace). These lessons are designed to address the behavioral changes needed to achieve weight loss. With Noom, you look at the “why” of your weight challenges rather than just approaching your goal weight through a dietary approach.
Noom also offers a community and connection with a personal coach. This isn’t the constantly-in-your-face type of coaching that some other programs offer. It’s more laid back, with weekly check-ins being the norm. If you need more accountability than that, a program like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig may be better suited for you.
Weight Loss Programs Winner
We honestly like what Noom offers, but there’s no denying that Nutrisystem is more of a complete weight loss program. Pre-made meals make meal planning easy and also add a bit of a novel element to “dieting.” In a perfect world, we would combine what Noom and Nutrisystem offer to create one ideal plan.
Apps
Both Noom and Nutrisystem offer apps to make for easier access to all of the weight loss tools you need. The difference between the two is that Noom is entirely app-based, while Nutrisystem is a dietary meal plan that offers an app as an additional feature.
Noom App
Noom is entirely app-based, so the quality and features of the app are hugely important to Noom’s success. Since its founding, Noom has had tens of millions of subscribers, with most of them being pleased with the features the Noom app offers.
The Noom app offers daily lessons, which are key to losing weight and keeping it off. Noom users have access to activity and food logging, along with water intake tracking, blood pressure tracking, and blood sugar tracking.
You can also easily access Noom’s food lists, meal plans, recipes, exercise plans, the Noom community, and more, all through the single app. The Noom app can integrate with a number of fitness devices.
Nutrisystem App
Nutrisystem offers an app called NuMi for those signed up. The NuMi weight loss app is customized to your Nutrisystem plan, so it works more like an accessory than it does a stand-alone feature. With NuMi, you can keep track of your eating habits, including food tracking.
The Food log, which automatically registers the nutritional content of Nutrisystem meals, is one of the key features of the app. There are also reminders, daily articles centered on healthy habits, and access to challenges and contests.
Weight Loss Programs Winner
If you want an app to help you lose weight, Noom offers a more comprehensive weight-loss app. Like Nutrisystem, Noom offers activity and food tracking, but Noom focuses more on the whole person rather than on just measurements of food intake and exercise.
Community Support
Noom
- Online
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Nutrisystem
For many of us, having a support network is important for sustained weight loss. Since neither Nutrisystem nor Noom offers in-person support, the level of community support they offer is important.
Noom Community Support
When you sign up for the Noom app, you automatically have access to the Noom online community, plus a personal coach that checks in and helps you modify your plan if needed. The Noom community is divided into circles, which are meant to provide a more need-specific and closer-knit support group feeling.
The complaint that some have about Noom’s community is that it just isn’t as active as they need it to be and that being shuffled among groups makes it difficult to form relationships or meet potential weight loss buddies or accountability partners.
Nutrisystem Community Support
Nutrisystem isn’t well known for its community support. They don’t offer in-person support groups as Weight Watchers does, but they have recently added some support features with the “All New Nutrisystem.”
Community support groups can be found on Facebook, and there’s the possibility of connecting with other groups that aren’t officially affiliated with Nutrisystem. Another new feature that Nutrisystem has added is personalized coaching options, but the success of these program additions is really yet to be seen.
Community Support Winner
Overall, Noom has a larger, better-established community support network, and their weekly check-in with a personal coach is important for accountability.
Menu & Food
Noom helps you learn how to eat by providing you with information and tools to make healthy food choices. Nutrisystem offers actual meals for your weight loss plan and then delivers them to your door.
Noom Food
With Noom, you’re given tools to decide how to eat. You’re provided a list of over 200 foods that places each of them down into one of three categories – red foods, yellow foods, and green foods.
Green foods are the ones that are lowest in calorie density, and it’s this calorie density that’s really behind the success of Noom’s eating plan. Fill your plate with more healthy, less calorically dense foods and less of the foods that pack on calories without filling you up as much.
Yellow foods are still healthy, but they’re not the bulk of your diet. A few examples of yellow foods include lean protein, healthy fat, whole grains, and dairy.
Red foods aren’t off-limits, but they should definitely not be regular fixtures on your plate. Red meat, cookies, pizza, and popcorn (the buttery kind), are all examples of red food categories.
With Noom, there’s no such thing as forbidden or off-limits food, and you can still eat all of your favorite foods. But low-calorie foods are prioritized to help you lose weight and also to benefit your health in other ways.
The question about whether Noom supports an intermittent fasting lifestyle often comes up, and the answer is that yes, you can follow an intermittent fasting schedule with Noom, but the app itself isn’t built around a specific timed eating structure. The flexibility for it is there, but you do have to build the schedule yourself.
Noom does also offer the service of having a nutritional coach create custom meal plans for its members, but this is an add-on service.
Nutrisystem Meals
In addition to being a weight loss program, Nutrisystem doubles up as a meal delivery program. A major component of the Nutrisystem program is the selection of premade meals that you enjoy daily.
Nutrisystem offers multiple meal plans, and you choose the number and type of meals depending on which plan you choose. The menu is broken down into the categories of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
There are about 20-30 choices within each. Nutrisystem offers fully prepared meals, so it takes away the stress of meal ideas, shopping, and cooking when you’re trying to adapt to a new dietary lifestyle.
Nutrisystem’s pre-portioned meals stand out from some of the other popular weight loss programs that offer a similar service.
Nutrisystem seems to make a genuine effort with its diet plans to make sure the meals you eat are healthy and not just convenient, low-calorie foods. The meals are low in sodium and unhealthy fats while featuring all the good stuff, like lean protein, whole grains, and plenty of members of the plant family.
You can choose an entire week of meals, but Nutrisystem also offers something called Flex Meals. Flex Meals are designed to help you get a handle on long-term weight control for when the day comes you decide you don’t need or want Nutrisystem meals anymore.
With Flex Meals, you have a set number of meals per day or week that you create meals using your own food, according to the guidance offered by Nutrisystem.
Each meal will feature a specific composition from the Nutrisystem food categories of PowerFuels (Lean meats and plant protein and high-quality, healthy fats), Smart Carbs, Vegetables, Free Foods, and Extras. These meals can contain lots of fresh produce, but fresh fruits are less common due to the sugar and calorie content.
Flex Meals aren’t as convenient as the pre-portioned meals, and they do require some planning and meal prep, but they are nice because you can eat your own food, eat according to your own dietary preferences, and learn how to eat for nutrition and calorie density on your own.
Menu & Food Winner
When it comes to the battle of food with Nutrisystem Vs., Noom, we have to give the nod to Nutrisystem. With a wide variety of prepared meals to choose from, Nutrisystem makes it easier to lose weight without worrying about meal planning, shopping, cooking, and all that other time-consuming stuff.
But Nutrisystem also realizes that sustainable weight loss is about navigating a world with actual food, where temptation exists around every corner, so they help to prepare you for that with FlexMeals, where you make your own meals with the guidance of a custom meal plan.
Pricing
Noom
MONTHS | PRICE PER PLAN |
1 | $60 |
2 | $119 |
3 | $149 |
4 | $159 |
5 | $164 |
6 | $169 |
7 | $174 |
8 | $179 |
9 | $185 |
10 | $189 |
11 | $195 |
12 | $199 |
Nutrisystem
NUTRISYSTEM PLAN | PRICE PER DAY |
Basic | Starting at $9.99 |
Uniquely Yours | Starting at $12.14 |
Uniquely Yours Max + | Starting at $13.57 |
Partner Plans | Starting at $9.99 |
Your health and well-being is an important investment, but it still needs to fit within your budget! Here’s how Nutrisystem Vs. Noom compares in terms of price.
Noom Pricing
Noom offers a pricing structure that’s based on how long of a commitment you’re willing to make. There aren’t any premium memberships, and all members have access to all of the same features, with the exception of a few add-ons that can be purchased.
Everyone has access to the lessons, food & fitness tracking, health tracking, Noom community, and a nutritional coach that will help you develop a personalized plan (custom meal plans may cost extra).
This is all great, except Noom is on the expensive side if you pay month to month. The monthly membership rate is $70 per month, but you can choose to sign up for any duration of time between one month and a full year.
Need to lose weight before a big event and think three months will do the trick? The cost is lowered to about $53 per month. If you sign up for seven months, the cost is just over $26 per month.
If it’s in your budget to pay for an entire year, you’ll end up paying just over $17 per month. As you can see, there’s a tremendous cost savings for longer-term memberships.
Nutrisystem Pricing
The cost that Nutrisystem users pay depends on which plan they choose. On the lowest end of the spectrum, Nutrisystem will cost about $10 per day.
The most expensive plan is the Max Vitality Plan for men over the age of 55. This plan costs a little over $15 per day. The plans for men generally cost more because the higher suggested daily calories equals more food.
If you have someone that you’re on this weight loss and health journey with, Nutrisystem also offers a partner plan, where you can get meals for two at a cost saving.
Pricing Winner
This category was hard to choose a winner in because what the two services offer are so different that it makes sense there’s such a difference in how much they cost. We chose Noom simply based on the fact that it’s cheaper, and you have more control over your budget by purchasing your own food.
Even Noom’s most expensive option for a month covers only about a week on Nutrisystem’s most basic plan, but that cost does average out a bit when you stop and consider you still have to pay for food.
Reviews & Results
Noom
Nutrisystem
Nutrisystem has been around for decades, while Noom, in comparison, is much younger. But, how long a company has been around doesn’t necessarily speak of its success compared to a relative newcomer.
Noom Success
Research suggests that the majority of people who try Noom and stick to it do lose weight, although the amount of weight lost by the majority might not be what everyone considers significant. People being able to successfully lose 5-10 lbs when you’re looking to lose 50+ might not be that meaningful to you.
Where Noom has the most potential is long-term success. Noom provides the tools to help you develop sustainable lifestyle changes. On sites like TrustPilot, Noom rates at over four stars with tens of thousands of reviews, the majority of them positive.
With the negative reviews, it’s mostly that the program just wasn’t well-suited for the person, or they felt like they were unfairly charged without notice when it was time for their subscription to renew.
When you sign up for a renewable plan, this happens. If you sign up for Noom, make sure to make careful note of when your plan is set to renew and cancel well ahead of that date if you’re no longer interested.
Nutrisystem Success
Many people who sign up for Nutrisystem do lose weight initially, but the question is really how sustainable the program is. Once you’re on your own, not receiving perfectly portioned meals, some people quickly fall off their trajectory and begin regaining weight.
For that, we think Nutrisystem’s success has largely to do with how much weight you need to lose and how much money you’re willing to invest in the program.
When looking at Nutrisystem reviews on Trustpilot, the overall result is not as positive as we see with Noom, but there are also considerably fewer reviews – which is odd, considering how many people have subscribed to the program over the years.
Nutrisystem has a 1.5-star rating on TrustPilot, with negative reviews ranging from shady billing practices and false health claims to bland food and just being unsustainable.
Reviews & Results Winner
When we first compared these two programs, we thought Nutrisystem would win this category hands-down, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. While many have had initial success with Nutrisystem, Noom seems to be more successful and sustainable overall.
Winner
Noom
In our experience, while some may lose significantly more weight initially with Nutrisystem, Noom wins sustainable weight loss. Noom is more cost-effective, teaches you how to eat your own real food instead of relying on pre-packed meals, and also approaches the different facets of losing weight,
Still, what works for one might not work for the other, so consider these things before signing up.
Choose Noom if you:
- Are self-motivated but still want access to a support network
- Want to learn how to lose weight and regain health by eating meals you prepare
- Are working with a limited budget
- Are willing to use the app religiously for the best results
- Want to approach losing weight from different facets, including mental health
Choose Nutrisystem if you:
- Like the convenience of premade meals and meal delivery
- Don’t need a coach or weight loss counselors to check in on you
- Feel you can easily make the transition from premade meals to making your own food when the time comes
- Aren’t a picky eater or don’t have any dietary restrictions
- Have a bit more money in your budget to afford Nutrisystem