Why #Noom Now?

Here’s my review of Noom – so far… and in case you’re wondering, yes, I do know how to write in English – I used to teach English – and if there’s someone who appreciates a succinct paragraph, it’s me – but now I’m experimenting with new techniques – like this all-in-one-breath writing – think Virginia Woolf and perhaps you won’t judge me!

My whole life I’ve been diet-avoidant, well, if that’s not a word, then it should be, meaning someone who refuses to diet – just the opposite of some other people around me who I’d seen taking the whole food thing far too seriously, so I just figured, god or the goddess gave me this body – it’s pretty good, not too fat not too thin, and it works, mostly – and even with the menopause now behind me they all say – oh when you’re post menopause you’ll get a fat tummy and I always thought, well I already lost all my stomach muscles with c-section number one and then births two and three didn’t help, now did they? But that’s all besides the point, because one day – about a month ago I stepped on the brand new scales that my dear darling was kind enough to buy for us (read: me) and was shocked to see a number I had never seen before – except for in the last phases of those pregnancies over 20 years ago – and that was a resounding 74 – for me I was on the tipping edge of red in the BMI and I had noticed that my jeans were feeling more like sausage skins than anything else, so I decided then and there to do something about it, and I mean more than the usual healthy food regime I’d already implemented about a decade ago, and more than the once in a while workout I’d been doing and more than just the 10 to 20 minute walk around the block that was keeping me sane, so I decided to really do something crazy and drastic, and just as I was thinking this, you do know that google can read minds, right and Insta too, so out of the blue Noom appeared on my Instagram account, well yes, it had been appearing regularly and I’d been ignoring it more or less, but letting it seep into my subconscious and I had some kind of prejudice against Weight Watchers who seemed all high and mighty and what the heck is their point system all about, so I decided to go with Noom and give it a try for two weeks – while it was still free but very aware that after 2 weeks I’d pay a hefty 59 euros for 2 months, and that did seem a bit ridiculous especially for me since I already know so much, don’t I? Having eaten Paleo which cured my frozen shoulder some years back and now keeping mostly off gluten and lactose, carefully ignoring most processed foods etc., but still, desperate times mean desperate measures or however that saying goes, so I dove off the high diving board and into the Noom world which actually hasn’t been all that bad since basically the first thing they do – just like with any good cult is ask you to believe and while I’m basically the biggest skeptic in the world when someone tells me to believe something usually I just say, have you done all the fact checking and which channel or source told you this anyway, but in this case, I decided to go with the flow since if believing is the first step to shedding the 7 kilos I was aiming for, then why not just give it a go and see what happens? Then next thing I knew I was drinking 8 to 9 glasses of water a day – pretty easy, just filling up my 750 ml bottle and gulping it down, refilling it, gulping it down, and happy that also my sugarless herbal tea counts as water too, suddenly at one point this week I remembered my colleague Shree who I once met in the hallway at school when I was weak and hungry after a day teaching and he said to me, “Just drink some water,” and although he died later of pancreatic cancer, I now see that the water thing works quite well, so there are lots of lessons you have to read, since I didn’t listen to Shree then, but now I’m paying for it, you better believe I’m reading the stuff – Noom does seem to have a cute sense of humor and also quizzes and if there’s someone competitive around here, it’s me, so I love those quizzes and was quite disappointed in myself yesterday when I only got 2 out of 5 on my last one, but anyway, it didn’t deter me since I not only now keep track of all my food with the Noom app, I see that if I work out then I get an extra calorie “allowance” and I love the little extra calories that allow me to have some dessert or extra fruit or some nuts or even carrot cake, and yes, some of the foods are ‘red’ foods, so I do feel a bit guilty when I eat them, but I’m learning which foods are better and which less, I’m walking much more than before and even challenged myself to workout daily for two weeks in the morning and kept to it and now something marvelous has happened and the little muffin top on the sides of my hips are gone and my pants are much less tight, I actually enjoy and look forward to my morning workout although my knee is acting up a little, and I’ve lost about 2 and half kilos in 3 weeks, so that’s not bad, in fact there’s a chance I’ll make my weight target by my birthday in June and since I’m getting brainwashed in the process, there’s a good chance I can even keep this weight off, I mean did you know that 12 nachos with cheese is almost 500 calories? That’s almost half of what I can eat daily, if I don’t work out, so, nachos will not be a regular on my plate – but once in a while – yeah, why not, I mean, don’t forget – I’m still a diet-avoidant deep down, and still love good food… And according to the gospel of Noom, that’s okay!

By the way, those are not my feet in the picture! I totally want to thank: Photo by i yunmai on Unsplash