- Noom helps users lose weight through color-coded food tracking and psychology-based lessons.
- MyFitnessPal helps users lose weight by encouraging them to exercise and also track their caloric intake.
- Lose It! helps users lose weight with calorie budgeting, food tracking, and macronutrient monitoring.
- Most importantly, You want a weight-loss program that fits your lifestyle so you can sustain it for the long term.
When you’re attempting to lose weight, the sheer number of weight loss programs available can be overwhelming.
Some programs emphasize exercise and fitness, while others focus on calorie counting. But which one will help you achieve lasting, meaningful change?
The key is finding a plan that fits your lifestyle, promotes sustainable eating, and gives you the tools needed to make healthy choices on your own.
In this roundup, we’ll compare the features of three popular weight loss and fitness apps—MyFitnessPal vs LoseIt vs Noom.
| Noom Weight | Loseit! | MyFitnessPal | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What Can You Eat? | Nothing is off-limits as long as you stay within your daily calorie budget. | Nothing is off limits as long as you stay within your daily calorie range. | Nothing is off-limits as long as you stay within your daily calorie range |
| Lessons based on psychology | Yes | No | No |
| Food logging | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Coaching | 1:1 coaching at no extra cost | No | Coaching is available for certain topics if you choose a premium MyFitnessPal plan |
| Recipes and weekly meal planning | Subscription includes a database of thousands of recipes to choose from | Loseit! posts recipes on its blog for anyone to access. | A database of thousands of recipes to choose from is available with a premium plan |
| Price | • Monthly: $60 • 2 months: $119 • 3 months: $149 • 4 months: $159 • 5 months: $149 • 6 months: $164 • 7 months: $174 • 8 months: $179 • 10 months: $195 • 11 months: $195 • Annual: $199 | Premium plan: • $9.99 monthly • $38.99 annually | Premium plan: • $19.99 monthly • $79.99 annually |
Noom Weight
Noom Weight believes that sustainable weight loss comes from examining your root behaviors around food rather than just focusing on what you should or shouldn’t eat.
Our psychology-based approach incorporates daily lessons, food logging, 1:1 coaching, and other tools that help shift your behaviors around food for the long-term.
Here’s how Noom works:
Lessons
Noom’s daily lessons help you unlock the motivation behind your eating habits so you can recognize your triggers and overcome emotional eating.
Noomers have credited these lessons with being key to helping them lose weight.
In just 5–15 minutes each day, the lessons create awareness around behaviors that may have affected your weight in the past—like the all-or-nothing thinking that causes you to give up on your weight loss goals after eating a slice of key lime pie.
Real results with a personalized weight loss program
Take the quiz!
The lessons also cover critical weight-loss concepts like nutrition, portion control, and caloric density so you can make educated food choices that help you sustain a healthy weight.
Food tracking and the 3-color system
No food is off-limits when you use Noom Weight.
Instead of putting restrictions on what you can and can’t eat, Noom helps you choose satisfying foods that won’t bust your calorie budget.
How? With a three-color system that helps you identify foods that have a low caloric density.
Noom’s food tracker designates all foods as either green, yellow, or orange.
Green foods have the lowest caloric density (like veggies and whole grains), while orange foods have the highest caloric density (like cheeseburgers and ice cream).
Orange foods aren’t “bad,” but they will bring you to your calorie budget faster than green foods—and you might still be hungry.
As you log your meals in the tracker, you’ll learn how to fill your plate with more delicious green foods to stay within your calorie budget and lose weight.
Coaching and community
Noom guides and coaches are right there when you need them.
Our coaches adapt to your needs. If you only want to check in once every couple of weeks, great.
Your coach is trained in the science behind behavior change, and is a huge resource to help you develop the accountability you need to hit your goals.
Along with receiving support from your coach, you can tap into Noom Weight’s active online community. Join a group of like-minded Noomers to share weight loss tips, check in on each other’s progress, and celebrate wins.
Exercise
While exercise is a healthy habit that we encourage at Noom Weight, it’s not a requirement of the program.
When you’re ready, we’ll help you take those first steps toward fitness.
Using Noom Weight’s pedometer, you’ll start with 200 steps each day and progress from there as your confidence grows.
Noom Weight also has an exercise tracker. Log your daily movement, and Noom will calculate the calories you’ve burned, adding calories back to your daily budget.
You can sync Noom with your Apple Watch, Fitbit, or Garmin.
It’s also compatible with iHealth, Misfit, Polar, OMRON, Qardio, Runkeeper, Withings, and YOO.
Recipes and meal planning
You’ll find a database with over 1,000 delicious recipes to choose from right within the Noom app.
Each recipe includes a color-coded scale based on our three-color system so you can quickly see how it fits into your calorie budget.
The recipe tracker automatically logs calories per serving, so you don’t have to log each one manually.
Since no food is off-limits with Noom, it’s suitable for anyone—even if you’re following a gluten-free, vegan/vegetarian, or even a keto diet plan.
Cost
Our current plans range from $70 per month (for month-to-month) to $209 for an annual plan (billed upfront as a 12-month auto-renewing plan that comes out to $17.40 per month).
Our most popular subscription is four months, which comes out to $42.25 per month (billed upfront as a four-month auto-renewing plan at $169).
Read our post How much does Noom cost (and what do you get)? for more details about our subscription plans.
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal (MFP) is an activity- and calorie-tracking app.
During the sign-up process, you’ll enter your gender, age, and current activity level, as well as your goal weight and how fast you hope to reach it.
Based on that, MFP recommends a daily calorie budget.
Lessons
The app doesn’t have a structured, step-by-step curriculum for weight loss.
However, the MFP blog does include articles about weight loss and other health and wellness topics (which can also be accessed via the app).
You can also opt to receive a weekly email newsletter as well.
With a premium subscription, you can sign up for educational coaching and content around specific topics such as building healthy habits, toning specific muscle groups, and low-carb diets.
Food and calorie tracking
MyFitnessPal’s food database contains millions of user-submitted foods, making it easy to track your food intake.
Along with calories, you get a breakdown of macros in each food item. There is also a nutrients tab that sets goals for carbs, sugars, fiber, and protein.
MFP recommends a daily calorie target for each member, but it doesn’t provide guidance on the type of calories you consume.
Coaching and community
1:1 coaching is not a standard feature of MFP.
But it does have an active online community where you can chat with other users, ask health- and fitness-related questions, and share tips and success stories.
Exercise
Tracking physical activity is a core element of MFP.
You can log any cardio, strength, and workout routines with the exercise tracker. MFP calculates the number of calories you burn and grows your daily budget with those calories.
MFP does offer some exercises with the free tier of service, but many of the app’s on-demand workout routines can only be accessed with a paid membership.
Members can link MyFitnessPal with the Apple Health app, Fitbit, MapMyRun, and other apps and wearables.
Recipes and meal planning
You can find some recipes for free on the MyFitnessPal blog.
The paid subscription has a Recipe Discovery feature, which allows you to explore recipe collections ranging from high protein to gluten-free.
You can log and bookmark recipes or save them for later.
Cost
The free version of the app includes core features—including food, calorie, and exercise tracking— but users have to view advertisements.
Premium membership is ad-free, and the current cost is $19.99 per month or $79.99 per year.
The premium membership includes on-demand workouts, personalized goal tracking, and other features.
Lose It!
Lose It! is a weight loss app that lets you track calorie and water intake, macronutrients, and exercise.
The program’s app generates a daily calorie goal and a personalized weight loss plan based on stats, including your age, weight, and health goals.
Lessons
Lose It! doesn’t offer structured lessons for members, but its blog includes articles about weight loss, nutrition, and fitness, as well as recipes and success stories.
Food and calorie tracking
You’ll track everything you eat in the Lose It! food diary, which includes a database with millions of foods.
You’re allowed to eat anything you want—the only requirement is to meet your daily calorie budget.
The Noom Weight, MyFitnessPal, and Lose It! apps listed all come with a barcode scanner for easy tracking.
One unique feature of the Lose It! app is a smart camera that lets you log your food by taking a picture—the item itself, not scanning a barcode—and then choosing from a list of options.
Coaching and community
Lose It! doesn’t currently offer 1:1 coaching, but it has an active online community where Lose It! users come together to discuss weight loss-related topics and provide peer support.
Exercise
The basic version of Lose It! comes with a tracker for logging exercise.
The premium version also includes an exercise planning feature and syncs with wearable fitness devices.
Recipes and meal planning
You’ll find some free recipes on the Lose It! blog.
Premium membership comes with a meal planning feature that helps you pre-log your food to help you stay within your calorie budget.
Cost
The free version of Lose It! includes basic features for tracking calories, food, and exercise.
Lose It! Premium is currently $39.99 per year and includes additional features such as meal and exercise planning and advanced tracking for water intake, blood pressure, and more.
