5 for Friday: Oh we are NOOMIN' NOW!

 

Hey all!  I'm not even going to apologize for being MIA since April.  I had a big old book project that ate up all my time and pretty much sucked the patience I had for the outside world right away.  However, I am pleased to announce that my 16th book DEAL WITH A DEVIL  is now available in print or digital format on Amazon or if you want an autographed copy, leave a message in the comments and I can hook you up!  

With the publication of #16, I get a bit of my life back which means I'm out and about and watching humans being humans to other humans. Which is fun.  But...not NEARLY as fun as the new thing Hubby and I are now doing to ourselves.  

We are NOOMIN'!

Ah yes, you've seen ads on TV, you've ignored posts on Facebook, but now, here I am, and I'm doing this and I'm going to up on the vegan-crossfit-NPR listener soapbox (If all those folks will just clear out for a moment) to tell all about NOOM!

Well, at least I'm going to tell you five things I've learned in the 3 weeks we've been Nooming.  

Ready?

5)  It's the Noomiest Noom that ever Noomed!

The Noom app involves 9-11 minutes each day of mini educational sessions.  That's fine.  But what they don't tell you in the TV commercials is that the people who write these little sessions are, apparently, the bastard children of Dr. Suess.  Terms like Noomify, Noomnerd, Noom Coach and phrases like "tame your elephant," are quite common and have actually changed how Hubby and I talk to each other.  

"Did you Noom today?"

"No, I haven't. I'll Noom later."

"I'm going to have to Noomify dinner so it'll fit into our calorie budget."

And fun stuff like that.

 

4) I can't feel superior anymore.

I am one of the many, many, many people who watch "My 600 pound life" and cheer and jeer the...what, contestants...the 600 pound people because of all the denial they're in.  

"I only eat two meals a day."

Yes, one that takes all morning, and one that takes all afternoon.

"I only cheated a little."

Cue images of the chunky monkey eating a gallon pail of...chunky monkey.

"I stuck to the diet, I have no idea why I gained weight."

Cue image of the diet-testant eating an extra large thick crust extra cheese extra everything pizza while shot-gunning a 2 liter of grape soda.

"All I ate was a salad."

Topped with a pound of bacon, a pound of cheese, and a whole bottle of full fat dressing.

Well, kids, I'm here to tell you, I can't mock these people anymore. I've always said, I know why I'm fat. Exercise hurts and food is yummy.  Well, the reality is that I am just as much in denial as any of the fine folks weighing in on Dr. Now's scale.  Portion control, number of meals a day, actual caloric content of my diet...it's all very, very, very shocking.

Dr. Now tells those fatties on his show that they've got to be eating 10,000 calories a day.  That's a shocking number. Or it was, until I started writing down every single mouthful of food I inhale.  Then 10,000 doesn't seem so bad.

Yep, Noomin' involves logging all your food. Now, there are a crap ton of foods already in the app, but I like to break things down to their microscopic pieces.  (It helps that I rarely cook anything with more than four ingredients.)  This has become a game for us.  We sit there on the couch, logging our food, and then say, "what did you come up with?"

I'm probably still in denial about portion size.  I mean, a quarter cup, that's what, like the size of a cereal bowl, right?  But I'm learning.  Wait, no I'm NOOMING.

3)  Eat a pound of salad or a pound of cheese. Either way, you're going to want to die.

While I am learning to eat more green food I have a sneaking suspicion that Noom was NOT invented by anyone from Wisconsin. All dairy products seem to be on the RED list (foods to be limited).  

Noom does a lot of comparing foods. Like, let's say a pound of cheese vs. a pound of salad.  It's a pound.  But the cheese is...delicious.

Wait, no, that's not the NOOM BRAIN.  

The cheese is calorie dense, see.  So if you actually ate a whole pound of cheese, you'd shoot your entire caloric budget for several days, plus you'd be, you know, really clogged up.

Now a pound of salad, says Noom, is Noomalicious!  If I'm Noomin' properly, I could eat a pound of salad every single minute of the day because it is not (at least, as long as we don't add bacon, cheese, or dressing) calorie dense.

However, eating a lot of salad, which I have done in the last three weeks, also takes its toll on the human system.  In short, I'm really, really NOT clogged up.

Given my extreme love of public restrooms (hear the sarcasm?) I can only go out for as long as my system tolerates whatever amount of GREEN food I've dumped in there. Without the usual metric ton amount of RED foods to balance it out, well, let's just say I've added NOVELS to the reading material in the bathroom.  

2)  True Noomin' involves what?

When you're Noomin', Noom gives you a calorie budget for each day.  That number, at first, is a little reminiscent of a certain Dr. with long name and a wildly heavy accent...I won't mention any names or numbers...but it's a tiny number...new Noomers feel like they might starve.

But, and here's where Noom is super sneaky...you can EARN more calories per day.

How?

Well, get off your couch and EXERCISE!  

Those of you who know me, know I enjoy talking to people who are on crutches or in slings.  I like finding out how they got hurt. And then I like saying, "Hey, you know who didn't get hurt?  ME! Because you can't get hurt lying on your couch!"

But now, if I want ice cream, I can have it.  But if I want ice cream and want to fit it in my calorie budget for the day, I HAVE TO MOVE my fat butt!

Which means that there's a real mental struggle every night around 9 PM when I'm sitting there, craving some Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream, I know I can have it...if I get up and lift weights or go walking for like half an hour.

So if you drive past my house and it's 100 degrees outside and I'm walking, or it's 10PM and I'm on the treadmill or lifting weights in my basement if means I'm trying to earn more calories so I can eat a red food without the crushing weight of guilt.  (And if you hear a sonic boom late at night, don't worry. That's just my brain exploding, after I spent ten minutes staring at in the fridge trying to do the math to find out if I can eat something that wasn't harvested from a garden.  Because, you know...math.)

So, exercise and math.  Two things that go great together, at least in Noom. Like peanut butter and chocolate.

Now I want Ice Cream.

1)  Wait, this seems familiar!

All this talk of green, red, and yellow foods...it seems familiar. Like I've heard of this concept before.

Wait a minute...

OH. MY. GOODNESS!

Okay, yes, now I remember watching these commercials about planning your meals and moving cards from one part of the Deal a Meal folder to the other side. You had X number of cards in each color and when you were done out of cards you were done with that kind of food for the day.

Sort of like the Red, Green, Yellow in Noom. When you're done with the allotted calories in each category you're done (theoretically) with that food.

But no...it's NOOM, it's NEW!

No it's not. There's nothing new in the weight loss game. Less in. More out.  Duh.

Now, where did I put my "Sweatin' to the Oldies" tape?