Noom is a health and weight loss app that uses psychology to help you stick to your fitness goals and diet plan. It provides motivation, coaching, and guidance for your weight loss journey.
There are plenty of alternatives to Noom in the market. Fooducate, Lose It!, Cronometer and several others offer similar features to what Noom does. However, the best apps similar to Noom are WW (Weight Watchers), and MyFitnessPal. While WW is the best option to interact with seasonal coaches, MyFitnessPal is great for fitness management.
Why explore alternatives to Noom?
Noom is not the number one app in its space. To start with, it is not free – it can be a bit expensive, and pricing isn’t always transparent.
Furthermore, many Noom users complain that the food database is bad, with incorrect calorie counts for many food items. The Android app is also not very intuitive, and it is missing simple features like a recipe builder.
A lot of dieters also find the humorous motivational style of the app cheesy and annoying after a while. It may sound cute at first, but it gets repetitive and old real quick.
Another common complaint revolves around the coaching, with many users feeling like the coaching isn’t personalized enough. According to many users, personal interaction with the coach slows down significantly after the trial period ends and you start paying.
If you’re starting to think that Noom is a glorified and overpriced calorie tracker, you’re not alone. Fortunately, as mentioned above, there are many other apps like Noom that can help you lose weight, maintain a healthy diet, and keep in shape.
Let’s check out these apps in detail.
Best Apps Similar To Noom
1. WW (Weight Watchers)
WW, commonly known by its former name, Weight Watchers, is the best app similar to Noom. Founded in 1963 as a provider of dietary subscription programs, Weight Watchers is a lot older than Noom, and it pioneered many popular diet plans and ideas.
The WW app now brings all the features of Weight Watchers straight to your phone.
You may find Weight Watchers more flexible than Noom. Instead of counting calories outright, Weight Watchers uses its proprietary SmartPoints systems, which assigns point values to different foods.
This system goes beyond simple calories and focuses on the quality of the foods you eat. So, for example, you’ll be able to eat more fruits and vegetables than sugary foods while keeping within your point limit.
Some foods in the SmartPoints system don’t have any points at all.
These are called ZeroPoint foods, and you can eat as many of them as you’d like. The exact foods included in the list can vary.
In general, however, ZeroPoint foods tend to include items like fruits and vegetables. The thinking here is that it is hard to get fat from eating apples – WW also wants you to be able to stay full at all times, instead of being hungry and miserable all the time.
Weight Watchers has now introduced myWW+, with three different levels. Depending on your level, you may have only around 100 or as many as around 300 ZeroPoint Foods in your plan, and your Points budget can vary too.
Weight Watchers also doesn’t put as much of an emphasis on daily or weekly weigh-ins as Noom does.
Noom will encourage you to weigh yourself frequently. All of these weigh-ins can help you track your weight loss, but they aren’t necessarily best for your mental health.
If you need more interaction with your coach, Weight Watchers is also the best Noom alternative for you. You can take your weight loss journey beyond the digital and meet coaches and other people in person at WW Studios and meetings across the nation.
WW has built up this network of studios over the many decades it has been operating.
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2. MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal is one of the best fitness apps on the market. It’s the second top-grossing app in the Health & Fitness category on the Google Play Store (after Fitbit).
MyFitnessPal has one of the largest and most accurate food databases in the industry. If you’ve found Noom’s food database restrictive or incorrect, switch to MyFitnessPal for more accurate calorie counting.
There are over 14 million items in the MyFitnessPal database, making it larger than the Noom database. You’ll be able to automatically calculate calorie intake, as well as macros or even carbs.
You don’t even need to enter data manually, as you can track barcodes to quickly enter data from the food you purchased.
With 200 million members (more than 4x the number of Noom members), you’ll also get access to a large and active community. You’ll also get access to expert meal plans from experienced dietitians.
It’s more than just a calorie counter, though, as it also allows you to track your fitness progress, analyze your nutrition habits, and learn more about how you can improve your diet. Hundreds of recipes, meal plans, and workouts are available.
MyFitnessPal integrates with over 50 other health apps, including Samsung Health and Fitbit.
There is even a free version, which includes the food database and calorie counter only. You can try out the premium version, which will give you full access to all features, for 30 days at no cost.
Check out the best alternatives to MyFitnessPal for iPhone and Android.
3. Fooducate
Fooducate goes beyond simple calorie tracking. It’s the perfect alternative to Noom if you’d like to analyze your eating habits in terms of healthy and wholesome ingredients rather than just calories.
Sure, calorie counting is important for weight loss. If you have a calorie surplus, you’ll gain weight, while you’ll lose weight if you maintain a caloric deficit.
At the same time, health is about more than just calories. It’s critical to eat foods that have quality ingredients, and Fooducate will help you do that.
Fooducate’s goal is to educate people about healthy eating habits. It will analyze your eating habits, give you a score based on your average food intake, and recommend foods that help you boost your immune system.
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Each food item on Fooducate gets a ranking (from A-D). This ranking measures calorie quality as opposed to calorie quantity, and it’s broader than Noom’s stoplight system, which measures calorie density.
That’s not to say that you can’t track calories with Fooducate. You can – you can track your food intake, the number of calories you are eating, your macros, and more.
You’ll be able to see how many calories you have left on your food plan, based on your intake limit, the number of calories you have already eaten, and the number of calories you burned while exercising.
Fooducate’s database is pretty big, and it has over 250,000 barcodes that you can scan to automatically track calories.
When you scan a product, Fooducate will display important health details. For example, you may not have noticed that the product has a high MSG content, added sugar, or certain additives that can have negative health effects.
The community is helpful and friendly too, and you can stay motivated and educated by reading Fooducate’s health articles. There are plenty of recipes to choose from as well.
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4. Lose It!
Are you looking for a free app similar to Noom? In that case, Lose It! is probably your best bet, with a robust free plan that allows you to log your calorie intake and exercise activity.
You can create a personalized weight loss plan using the free version and even use the smart camera to take pictures of what you are eating and automatically track your calorie intake.
Just take a picture of the food you are eating. For example, if you eat an apple, just snap an image of it, so Lose It! can automatically include it in your report.
You can also track water intake to make sure you don’t get dehydrated.
The free plan includes access to the helpful community and allows you to sync Lose It! with other health apps.
If you upgrade to the premium version, you can enjoy advanced tracking, meal plans, and other perks. You can also sync your Lose It! app with external health devices.
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5. Cronometer
Another free alternative to Noom is Cronometer. Featured on blogs such as Lifehacker and Women’s Health, Cronometer has a smaller user base than Noom, but it still features an active community of over five million members.
In addition to tracking calories, you can track up to 82 macros, such as proteins and fats. Moreover, you’ll get in-depth reports about your nutrition habits and how they correlate with your biometrics.
Set goals and macro targets and use the reports to see how you are achieving them.
Cronometer is excellent for all types of diet plans. If you’re a fan of intermittent fasting, you can use its fasting timer; if you’re on a keto diet, you can go with a keto meal plan.
The app is entirely free for individuals, but healthcare professionals can use Cronometer Pro to help their clients. Whether you’re a nutritionist, fitness coach, or dietitian, Cronometer Pro lets you access client accounts, set goals, and change their diet plans to help them reach their weight loss goals.
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6. Nutracheck
Nutracheck is a calorie counter and dietary app. With over 300,000 items in the database, uploading calories is as easy as searching for the food you are eating and selecting it from the results,
You can also scan barcodes or enter calories manually.
The recipe counter is a useful tool. By entering the ingredients you will be using to make your recipe, you will be able to see the total calorie and fat content for each serving and the recipe total.
While Noom allows you to weigh in, Nutracheck takes weigh-ins to a whole new level. You can weigh in together with other members in real time, sort of like a virtual health club.
It’s a fun activity. Choose an avatar for the virtual weigh-in, join the queue, stand on your scale, and weigh in when your turn comes around (do be mindful of your mental health).
There are also 1,000 exercises in the exercise database. In addition to calorie tracking, Nutracheck helps you track six key nutrients: protein, carbs, sugar, fat, saturated fat, and salt.
While Nutracheck is based in the UK, and the support team is located there too, it has launched a US version for the US app stores. It also has a US website.
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7. MyNetDiary
MyNetDiary is a superb alternative to Noom. To start, pick a diet plan, such as keto, vegan, or low-carb; you can also simply choose to count calories.
Then, set your goals. You can set a weight loss goal for a specific date or a macro percentage goal – for example, you might want 35% of your calories to come from proteins.
Once you do that, it’s time to start tracking your calories. MyNetDiary tracks 51 nutrients in addition to calories, including many vitamins and minerals.
The barcode scanner makes it effortless to track your dietary habits, as MyNetDiary has over 1,126,000 products in its food database.
The database is very accurate, so you may find it easier to use than Noom’s. Not only that, but if you do find a product to be outdated or nonexistent in the food database, you can update it yourself so that you can add it to your logs accurately in the future.
Simply scan the barcode and snap pictures of the food labels, and the MyNetDiary team will update the database within a few hours.
MyNetDiary also makes it easier to eat out. You can take pictures of in-restaurant menus or send the restaurant’s website URL to MyNetDiary, so the restaurant can be added to the database.
The food database includes products not only in the US but in Canada and some other countries too, allowing you to continue your tracking while you travel up north.
The hundreds of recipes and expertly-written articles will help you stay on track.
8. MyPlate (Livestrong)
MyPlate, by LiveStrong, is a calorie counting app that comes with free meal plans and healthy food recommendations.
Signing up is easy, as you can use your Google or Facebook account. Start by choosing from one of the available diet styles (gluten-free, vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore).
You can set weight loss goals and activate meal reminders, so you don’t forget to eat properly.
Track your calories manually or scan barcodes to have your data uploaded automatically. In addition to seeing net calories for the day or week, you can view in-depth daily nutrition charts that can help you optimize your diet.
Unlike Noom, MyPlate is free to use, though you can upgrade to the Gold plan to enjoy additional perks, such as macro breakdowns by meal, daily macro breakdowns, and a clean eating guide.
9. FatSecret
FatSecret is a free app you can use in place of Noom. Tracking calories is effortless, as you can just scan barcodes or snap pictures of the foods you are eating.
The app uses smart technology to identify the food items in the pictures you take and log their calories. Moreover, you can maintain a photo diary of the foods you have eaten, in addition to a dietary calendar displaying your calorie intake over time.
The exercise calendar will also help you record calories you burn while working out. With a supportive community and a helpful phone widget, FatSecret is one of the best ways to stay on track and attain your fitness goals.
You can even share your diet, exercise, and weight loss progress with your dietitian or healthcare professional using FatSecret Professional.
While FatSecret is free, the premium plan will give you access to special meal plans for different diet styles (keto, Mediterranean, intermittent fasting, etc.), meal planning in advance, and more.
10. Nutritionix
Nutritionix is another first-class alternative to Noom if you’re unsatisfied with Noom’s database, especially if you eat out often.
With over 180,000 restaurant items on the Nutritionix database – in addition to the hundreds of thousands of grocery and common items – you can go shopping or eat out regularly and still track your calories.
According to Nutritionix, 95% of common grocery food items in the United States are included, and there are over 750 US restaurant chain menus in the database as well. If you don’t see an item, simply scan the barcode, snap some pictures, and submit it to the team for review – it will be added within a few days.
One useful Nutritionix feature is the ability to export your data in a spreadsheet.
Unlike Noom, Nutritionix is free to use, though you can upgrade to the premium version to share your stats with your dietitian or trainer.
11. Healthi
Healthi, formerly iTrackBites, is the perfect Noom like app for you if you’d like to track your food intake without getting too caught up in exact calorie amounts. If you’d like to improve your diet overall and not just cut the number of calories you are eating daily, Healthi will help you do that.
Every food gets a unique score on Healthi – some foods are counted as zero “bites,” while others are counted as two or three.
Your plan will include a daily and weekly allowance of these bites. If you exercise, you can earn additional bites.
By consuming more lower-bite foods, you will be able to eat more overall while sticking to your plan. You can eat as many zero-bite foods as you’d like.
The zero-bite foods include beets, cauliflower, watermelon, asparagus, and many others.
It’s a brilliant way to learn which food items are unhealthy and minimize your consumption of them.
The food library on Healthi has over six million items, which is a lot more than Noom.
Furthermore, the Healthi app comes equipped with features such as a barcode scanner and voice recognition to help make tracking your diet easier. Just talk into the app to enter the food you’ve eaten for the day.
There is also a restaurant guide and recipes with set bite counts, making it easy to try out new dishes while sticking to your goals.
12. YAZIO
Another free Noom alternative is YAZIO, which comes with over 1,500 tailor-made recipes. YAZIO is also more optimized than Noom for intermittent fasters, with a free fasting tracker that supports different intermittent fasting schedules.
Both hourly and daily intermittent fasting schedules are supported. Some popular hourly fasting schedules include 12:12 and 16:8, while some popular weekly schedules include 5:2 and 6:1.
The OMAD plan – One Meal A Day – is also supported.
There are over 20 fasting meal plans to choose from, and the food database covers 95% of foods in the United States, according to YAZIO. There are four million foods in the database, which makes the YAZIO database slightly larger than Noom’s database.
Each product in the YAZIO database comes with a rating, and it’s easy to build recipes and meal plans.
The app also helps you track your water intake, and best of all, you can get started for free without even registering.
13. HealthifyMe
Another app you can use to get expert coach guidance and weight loss help is HealthifyMe. It’s great for goals like weight loss, muscle gain, and improving your eating habits overall.
Unlike Noom, HealthifyMe lets you get started with a free consultation with a certified diet coach. You can chat with the coach on the app or via WhatsApp, giving you more flexibility in how you communicate.
If you decide to sign up for one-on-one coaching, you can choose periods of three months, six months, or one year.
If you don’t want to talk with a health coach, don’t worry. HealthifyMe has something called Ria, an AI-powered health coach.
Using machine learning, Ria has accumulated enough data from over 500 million food logs and 20 million messages to help you advance in your weight loss journey. Ria can be your personal coach for 3-12 months.
HealthifyMe also goes beyond live coaching and introduces live workout classes, performed over the internet. If working out with other people helps you stay motivated, but you don’t have time to leave the home, you can join these virtual classes – it’s just an option you won’t get from Noom.
Of course, HealthifyMe has the standard calorie counting, water counting, and meal plan features that you can expect from a calorie counter app.
Wrapping It Up: What Is The Best App Similar To Noom?
WW (or Weight Watchers) is the best app similar to Noom. It has been around for so long because it works.
Furthermore, you’ll be able to benefit from unlimited access to a coach and in-person meetups at the WW Studios. Noom coaching can be a hit and miss, on the other hand.
If you only need calorie tracking and nothing more, I recommend MyFitnessPal. It’s extremely accurate, has a free calorie tracker, and is a fraction of the price of Noom.
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