What is the Best Weight Loss Program?
Weight loss programs can offer a helpful tool on your journey to healthy eating and exercise. However, they aren’t right for everyone. If you have a history of disordered eating or eating disorders, you may want to avoid online weight loss programs and instead work with a credentialed professional who is trained to support you. Also, some chronic health conditions can require different recommendations than a typical diet plan or have specific dietary restrictions.
Many of the best weight loss programs, including Weight Watchers, the Mayo Clinic Diet, and Noom, provide general nutrition and wellness education and choices for people with diabetes and those who are vegan or vegetarian. They don’t encourage extreme food restriction or label foods as “good” or “bad.” They also focus on overall health and include meal planning, exercise, and support.
A successful weight loss program can help you develop long-term healthy habits to maintain a sustainable, healthy weight. To help you find the best one for you, we reviewed and tested a number of popular weight loss programs that can be used on your phone or computer to track your food and fitness. These programs provide daily lessons, coaching, and community support to motivate you toward your goal.
One of our favorites is Noom, a weight loss app with 63,522 user reviews on Trustpilot. This program helps you learn to set realistic goals, celebrate small successes, and educate yourself about the science of weight loss and behavior change. It also has a weekly video chat with a coach, who can give you personalized feedback. Noom also offers a premium option called Noom Med, which pairs eligible members with a board-certified physician or physician-supervised nurse practitioner for more clinical support.
Calibrate is another weight loss program that focuses on the four pillars of metabolic health: food, sleep, exercise, and emotional well-being. Its coaches use a cognitive behavioral therapy technique that targets thoughts, emotions, and behaviors associated with overeating and binge eating. It also recommends GLP-1 medications, which are injectable prescription hormones that were originally developed to treat diabetes but have been shown to help with weight loss. Calibrate is expensive, though, and has strict eligibility criteria.
We also looked at a few other apps that provide similar functionality, such as PlateJoy, which is not technically a weight loss program but can be a useful tool for people who need help tracking their meals and exercise. It allows you to create meal plans and track calories, carbs, fat, and protein, and includes an optional grocery list and recipes. It costs $39 per month or $15 per week.
Some other apps, like MyFitnessPal, are a bit more traditional in that they focus on counting calories and have a built-in meal planner. They also have an extensive food database and allow you to track your workouts. MyFitnessPal also has an app that can suggest strength-training exercises, which are a great way to build muscle and increase your resting metabolism.
