One of the biggest challenges when it comes to being vegan or vegetarian is food services are often inaccessible or provide too few options, so can vegans do Noom?
The good news is, Noom is suitable for vegans and vegetarians as it is up to you to buy and prepare your own food by following their guidelines.
We’ll guide you through how the process works for vegans and vegetarians, and what those on meat-free diets can expect.
Can Vegans Do Noom?
Many vegans and vegetarians can struggle to use food services because the options are often slim to none. While many places will have plant-based recipes, only being offered very few food choices, which are often just salad or fries, is not sustainable for vegans long-term.
If you have a small selection of food to choose from, you are unlikely to stick to a customized plan. So, where does that leave Noom?
Unlike other programs, Noom does not send you food. It is up to you do to your own groceries, cook, and choose food based on their recommendations.
Each Noom plan is customized to the user by taking, age, sex, height, lifestyle, and weight loss goals into account. It uses this data to suggest how much calorie intake per day and for how long.
Noom has lots of options for vegans. They offer grocery food lists and teach users about nutrition, which are suitable for most healthy diets. They rank foods into green, yellow and red categories based on what foods you should consume more often, and what to limit.
These foods are generic, for example, they list tofu as a green food rather than a specific tofu brand or product. This makes it accessible to people around the world who may not have certain brands in their country. Noom even made a cookbook for vegans.
The green category is full of fruit, vegetables, brown grains, and plant-based milks such as almond, cashew, coconut, hemp, and oat milk.
Popular plant-based foods like soya milk, rice milk, seitan, tempeh, chickpeas, and beans are considered yellow. Nuts, oils, and cheese alternatives are in the red category.
Does Noom Have Many Plant-Based Meals?
Noom has lots of meal plans for vegans so you will not need to eat the same thing every single day.
Noom determines its food categories based on caloric density. So, they put foods with high water content in the green category because they make you feel fuller, but do not contain as many calories as denser foods.
The red foods are not off-limits entirely, but you are encouraged to consume them in moderation. So, their meal ideas are mostly made up of green and yellow foods.
Here are some of their options for breakfast:
- Tofu scramble with fruit
- Strawberry brown rice bowl
- English muffin
- Peanut butter-banana toast
Lunch:
- Crunchy vegetable salad
- Miso shiitake ramen
- Red curry carrot noodle bowl with baked tofu
- Burrito bowl
- Crunchy hummus wrap
- Antipasto Salad
Dinner:
- Rainbow veggie spring roll bowl
- Roasted spaghetti squash & veggie bolognese
- Bean enchiladas
- Spanish quinoa stuffed peppers
- Black bean tacos
- Spiced red lentil, tomato, and kale soup
- Pad thai
Snacks:
- Air-popped popcorn
- Grapes
- Quinoa & lentil stuffed vegan cabbage rolls
- Hummus with celery sticks
- Edamame pods
- Tortilla chips with guacamole
- Watermelon
- Clementines
These meal ideas are also great for those trying to add more fruit and vegetables to their diet regimen. Noom relies on whole foods, rather than “fake” meats which taste like the real thing but are often heavily processed.
If, after reading this, you’re a vegan who wants to try Noom, then you can sign up here.
Is Noom OK for Vegetarians?
Vegetarians on Noom will have more options than vegans since they can consume dairy products, honey, and eggs.
With that said, whole milk, full-fat yogurt, and full-fat cheese are categorized as red foods by Noom. The majority of the green foods are actually plant-based. A large portion of the yellow foods is meat-free too.
So, while you have more options, if you’re vegetarian, you will notice that many of your meals are ending up being vegan anyway or are overwhelmingly plant-based on Noom.
Will Noom Work for Vegans or Vegetarians?
Many people think there is no point in vegans or vegetarians doing Noom because they assume these diets are healthy by default. Whole foods like tofu, veggies, and whole-grain rice are considered healthy.
These healthy foods are considered green by Noom. However, there are lots of other popular plant-based foods like soya milk, seitan, and chickpeas which are in the yellow and red categories.
As meat-free diets become more mainstream, more and more fast food, highly processed meat alternatives, sweetened non-dairy milks, and candy alternatives hit the market. So, it is very easy to overconsume foods with no nutritional value or struggle with portion control on these diet plans.
Noom is also largely about making positive mental changes; regardless of whether you’re on a plant-based diet or not.
While Noom is a weight loss program, you will need to cook and do your own shopping. They do not sell their own premade food as other programs such as Weight Watchers do.
They utilize psychology, technology, and human coaching to help their users lose weight, maintain weight, and change their behaviors for the better when it comes to managing their health status.
They also encourage users to read articles about wellness while on their journey. So, in this regard, there is no reason why it is not suitable for vegans and vegetarians. If you want to give it a go, you can sign up to Noom here.
I hope this cleared up any concerns you may have had about trying Noom as a vegan or vegetarian, and I hope it helps with your weight loss journey!
