Noom vs. Modern Fit

Let’s take a closer look at noom vs modern fit and what it genuinely offers.

Both programs claim a psychology-driven foundation, but only one has genuine clinical trials and a track record of positive reviews behind it. Can Modern Fit, a relative newcomer, actually compete with Noom, one of the web’s most-searched diet apps?

Noom Vs Modern Fit: What Is Noom?

Noom is a 16-week program using psychology to drive better daily choices, offering food logging, exercise tracking, recipes, personal coaching, a hand-selected support group, and bite-sized lessons that reshape how you think about food. The 16-week curriculum moves through meeting your coach and the “Noom Nerds,” weight-loss foundations, nutrition, physical activity, sleep, coping with frustration, overcoming triggers, thought distortions, advanced dietary advice, dining out, stress management, cognitive mindfulness, long-term motivation, and finally preparing for life after the program.

What Is Modern Fit?

Modern Fit presents itself partly as a diet and fitness blog covering multivitamins, fertility nutrition, weight-loss exercises, and competitor reviews, alongside an app promising personalized exercise routines, customized daily meal plans, 6,000 recipes, unlimited access to a virtual personal trainer, streaming workouts, 500 virtual fitness programs, and barcode-based diet tracking.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: History

Brief History of Noom

Founded in 2008, Noom spent eight years developing its approach with nutritionists, psychologists, and physicians before launching in 2016, backed by Sequoia Capital, Samsung, and WhatsApp’s founder. The company has since expanded across the U.S. and Asia, adding Diabetes Prevention and Prehypertension programs in 2019.

Brief History of Modern Fit

Founded December 27, 2018 in Anaheim, California, Modern Fit’s first two years were genuinely rocky — the company racked up complaints and earned an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau. New users are offered a 7-day trial requiring a $1 card verification charge, without clear disclosure of the much larger charges ($158-$316) that follow — some customers reported never receiving their diet or workout plan despite being billed. Modern Fit has attributed complaints to users not reading the fine print, though the BBB disputes that framing and no refunds have reportedly been issued. Claims of coverage in Business Insider, Women’s Health, Shape, and Wired don’t appear to check out, and the company’s social media has been inactive since February 2020.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: Who’s Behind the Plans?

Who Created Noom?

Jeong, shaped by his physician father’s belief in disease prevention, and Petakov, a self-taught chess-prodigy-turned-Princeton-computer-scientist with a genuine interest in behavioral psychology, met at a wedding in New York and built what became Noom, now serving 50 million users.

Who Created Modern Fit?

Daryl Henderson is listed as a co-founder, though no further verifiable information is available about him or other founders. The site credits Dr. Shelley Carlson (director of medical data, reportedly Harvard/Yale/Oxford/Stanford-educated), Dr. Samuel Youngjin Kim (director of psychology), and Dr. Jackie Montgomery (director of medicine) — none of whom our research could independently verify online.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: The Rules

Rules of Noom

Rule-heavy diets tend to burn out fast, which is exactly what Noom’s three-pronged approach avoids.

Red, Yellow, and Green: A 4-million-item food database sorts everything by calorie density — red (high density, needs portion control), green (low density, keeps you full longer), and yellow (in between).

Take the Stairs: Extra daily activity, even small amounts, recalculates your calorie budget upward.

Get Smart: Ten daily minutes with the “Noom Nerds” builds lasting decision-making skills around stress, triggers, and food choices.

Rules of Modern Fit

Straightforward signup: answer a questionnaire, and the app generates suggestions, with a coach (the same one, Sandra Nguyen, for all users) offering guidance and thousands of recipe options alongside streaming workouts. Users receive an emailed low-fat, low-calorie meal plan and exercise list, with flexibility in how closely to follow it.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: Eating Plans

The Noom Eating Plan

Fully self-directed — log your foods, and Noom sorts them by category while tracking remaining calorie budget per group, even suggesting recipes that fit. On a 1,200-calorie goal, that might break down to 480 calories from yellow foods, 420 from green, and 300 from red. A sample day: steel-cut oats with apples for breakfast, turkey sandwich for lunch, hummus with cucumbers as a snack, and steamed chicken with vegetables for dinner — genuinely satisfying, not restrictive.

The Modern Fit Eating Plan

Low-fat, roughly 1,200 calories daily across the 16-week program. A sample week includes rolled oats for breakfast, turkey pitas or tuna pita for lunch, and dinners like broiled flounder, grilled chicken with spinach, or vegetable stir-fry.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: Plan Duration

Noom’s core program runs 16 weeks, renewable indefinitely. Modern Fit also runs 16 weeks, renewable in the same increments.

Key Differences Between Noom and Modern Fit

Modern Fit’s questionnaire and psychology-based marketing closely echo Noom’s, right down to (falsely) claimed press coverage that actually belongs to Noom. Real differences remain, though: Noom lets users log and gradually adjust their own eating; Modern Fit sends a fixed emailed plan. Noom matches users to a personalized coach and support group; Modern Fit assigns everyone the same coach with no community feature. Noom has genuine clinical backing and a strong reputation, including CDC recognition; Modern Fit’s reviews skew heavily negative, with “scam” a recurring word among former customers. Noom’s Noom Nerds deliver real behavioral psychology education; Modern Fit’s blog doesn’t meaningfully address the psychology of weight loss. Modern Fit does offer streaming workouts and video tutorials that Noom doesn’t provide.

Can You Follow Modern Fit on Noom?

There’s no real need to run both — pick whichever program’s approach and reputation better fit your comfort level.

Possible Side Effects

Neither program carries notable health side effects, provided calorie goals stay in a healthy range.

Noom vs. Modern Fit: The Research

A trial of tens of thousands of Noom users over nine months, published in Scientific Reports, found nearly 80% reached their target weight, with nightly dinner logging tied to greater success. Research in MSRS confirmed Noom users maintained their results for two years post-program, directly countering the yo-yo dieting pattern.

Modern Fit hasn’t conducted its own research, though its underlying strategy has some independent support — the Internal Journal of Preventative Medicine found calorie shifting more effective than flat calorie restriction, while Healthcare (Basel) notes people rarely sustain rigid diets for more than a few days — a real concern for Modern Fit’s fixed meal plan structure. The Journal of Personalized Medicine confirms app-based tracking in general boosts accountability and improves outcomes.

The Bottom Line: Noom vs. Modern Fit

Modern Fit’s billing practices, unverifiable credentials, and largely negative reviews raise real red flags — some former users have gone so far as calling it a “bad Noom knockoff.” Between the two, Noom is the clear, transparent choice, backed by genuine clinical trials and a strong reputation.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Overall, noom vs modern fit remains worth understanding before you decide.

Overall, noom vs modern fit remains worth understanding before you decide.