There are a lot of ways to lose weight or change behavior. As you dive into this arena, you’ll want to compare different approaches.
You’re reading the first in a series of articles that will compare Fresh Tri to other weight loss, behavior modification, or wellness approaches. We look forward to helping you understand how these programs differ and helping you better understand yourself and what you need.
Let’s kick it off by talking about Fresh Tri vs. Noom.
Overview of Noom
Noom was founded in 2008 by Saeju Jeong and Artem Petakov. Both founders had a background in technology and Jeong’s father was a physician in South Korea.
The team launched an early version of the app in 2011 with the goal of using technology so that healthcare providers like Jeong’s father could offer “health care versus sick care.” This prevention approach was developed for people who want to lose weight but has been extended to include modules for sleep, nutrition, and stress management.
Today’s version of the platform is described by the company as a psychology-based digital weight management tool.
Noom plans are designed to last 16 weeks. Noom’s website describes the possibility of losing 1-2 pounds a week through steps like calorie deficit, step counting, drinking more water, meal planning, and more.
Overview of Fresh Tri
Fresh Tri was founded by Kyra Bobinet, MD MPH. It is a female-owned, minority-owned business and its products are built for vulnerable populations.
Through the course of Kyra’s career as an award-winning public health physician, she specialized in healthcare innovation, behavior neuroscience, and population health management, among other areas.
She became dedicated to providing an alternative to notoriously harmful and ineffective diet methods. The result was an app that would help people practice the Iterative Mindset Method™.
The app is now used by companies like Walmart to support employee wellness initiatives.
Fresh Tri is not a prescriptive, multi-step system that must be followed. Rather, it offers a natural, flexible approach to change behavior and build habits, creating space for individuals to learn what works for them and continue to try without the fear or stigma of failure. There is no set timeline or series of tasks and iterators never fail. Users set their own goals and then receive ample support to grow over time. Those that stick with it can endlessly iterate and continuously adopt new habits that will support their well-being.
For more details, read What is the Iterative Mindset Method™? here on the Fresh Tri blog.
Noom Features
Noom’s app lets users set a target — most commonly, the number of pounds they want to lose — and then sets the calorie and exercise goals for each day. Users input what they eat and the Noom food database pulls in calorie count and tracks it against the daily goal. Users can also input movement and it estimates the calorie expenditure.
There are numerous progress charts as well as a chat room, the chance to connect with a personal coach, plus additional resources that are accessible when a user upgrades to a higher-level paid account.
Here’s what the Noom app looks like:
Fresh Tri Features
Fresh Tri’s approach is centered on individuals selecting their “Tri”—their chosen area of focus—from one of four key wellness categories:
- Healthy Eating
- Reducing Stress
- Moving More
- Thinking Positively
The app provides ongoing encouragement, personalized insights, self-directed learning resources, and an engaged community, all designed to support lasting behavior change. By embracing the philosophy of “blame the brain, not yourself,” users learn to recognize what works best for them, iterating without guilt or fear of failure. This process empowers individuals to build sustainable habits that align with their well-being goals.
Here are some illustrations of the features in the Fresh Tri app:
Simple tri reminder and habit progress bar with options for engaging
A library of curated resources from highly qualified experts to support learning and growth
AI-powered, highly personalized check ins to boost tri progress
Fresh Tri vs. Noom Feature List
| Noom | Fresh Tri | |
| Approach to change | X | X |
| Research-backed practices | X | X |
| Personalization | X | X |
| Web-based resources | X | X |
| User-friendly app | X | X |
| Push notifications | X | X |
| Coaching options | X | X |
| Meal planning options | X | |
| Calorie tracking | X | |
| Fitness tracking | X | |
| Weekly reports | X | X |
| Status trackers | X | |
| Cost to consumer | Noom starts at $42.24/month and the cost decreases for annual auto-renewing memberships | Fresh Tri is available through an employer and is free to all employee users |
| Ratings | Noom’s app is rated 4.7 stars on the App Store and 4.2 stars on Google Play | Fresh Tri’s app is rated 4.6 stars on the App Store and 4.6 stars on Google Play |
Who is Noom Best For?
Noom may be best for people who are something about comfortable with performance, or have succeeded in the past with highly structured approaches and are willing to adhere to a very specific caloric intake and exercise regime. It provides a solid structure as well as thought provoking prompts to help people understand why they may be prone to overeat or engage in other unhealthy practices.
Who is Fresh Tri Best For?
Fresh Tri is for anyone ready to explore what works best for them and embrace a sustainable path to well-being. Grounded in the science-backed Iterative Mindset Method™, the app empowers users to practice simple, adaptable habits—free from pressure or perfection. With a flexible approach, anyone committed to growth can build lasting habits and achieve a state of well-being that fosters lifelong fulfillment and joy.
Employer Opportunities With Fresh Tri vs. Noom
Noom offers employer solutions for groups ranging from 50 to several hundred employees, along with wellness program consulting and health plan portfolio options.
Fresh Tri provides a science-backed, mindset-based approach to lasting behavior change, making it a powerful tool for employers to support their workforce’s well-being and drive meaningful change for employees facing a variety of health conditions. Designed for organizations of all sizes, Fresh Tri is particularly well-suited for midsize to enterprise-level companies seeking to foster sustainable, employee-driven health improvements without the pressure of rigid programs or timelines.
EXTRA — Fresh Tri was built for employers and has been testing our impact in a study through the CDC – See: Fresh Tri Wins CDC Multi-Year Contract to Build Habit Practice into the Diabetes Prevention Program.
Noom Reviews
Here are some Noom user Reviews:
I just love the information. Who would’ve thought that eating is more psychological than anything. Noom is really helping me understand that. And I love how you check in but you’re not overbearing and also how you don’t make people feel bad or feel like failures every one and all the information and the reading articles are super encouraging. Thanks so much guys for a great program.
Trustpilot – Kim, 5/1/2023
Well so far just making me accountable and aware of what and how much I’m eating each and every meal. Is helping me. Never been much of a scale watcher. But seeing it inch down by a pound every other day or so really is a game changer for me!!!! ❤️
Trustpilot – Cathay, 4/30/2023
Note — many negative online Noom reviews are related to auto renewal policies and food database limitations.
Fresh Tri Reviews
Here are some Fresh Tri user reviews:
Learning more about how our brains work explains to me why I hesitate to make any changes, even though they are changes I can see I want.
App Store – Sea Hearted, 7/22/2024
So far, from what I’ve explored, this app is limited to motivation, journaling, good-habit building, and community support. For those purposes, I give it a five. The videos are informative; the advice makes sense. I enjoy journaling. I’m not into community sharing and usually skip that. I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with it, but here at the beginning of my diabetes diagnosis, the videos are quite helpful to me. Clean, efficient app, nice graphics. No glitches yet.
Google Play – Deborah, 4/2/2023
Note — some moderately negative online Fresh Tri reviews relate to specific app features or glitchiness from time to time. Something we are always working on.
Evaluating Noom’s Approach
If the old diet industry was 1.0, Noom may have successfully ventured into 2.0, advancing important conversations that show how you think as a key component of behavior change.
At Fresh Tri, however, we believe in going even further, advancing what we think of as 3.0: built on research but tailored to the individual. We often like to say: are you fitting into a program, or is a program fitting you? You don’t want to live dependent on any specific system or program to become the person you want to be.
Cautions About Noom
There are some important cautions Noom users should pay attention to. For instance, the general marketing of the brand tends to use hyperbolic or even unsubstantiated language.
There is also a huge amount of variety in how people can and do use the app.
You can be tracking progress for running, walking, then logging calories, then working on mindset. It can be a bit overwhelming and there are hundreds of options.
Neuroscience makes it clear that we have to do the same thing repetitively over time to build enduring habits.
Is Noom Effective?
Kyra shares her perspective on Noom:
“For thirty years, as a public health and behavioral expert, physician, and scientist, I’ve obsessed over why we know what we should do, but we don’t do it.
Noom advanced the field by opening the conversation around how psychology affects health and weight. But it still uses outdated goals-and-tracking approaches that have been shown to drive up to a 97% relapse rate!
New brain science is correcting old beliefs about what it takes to create lasting habits and—even more astoundingly—how failure dictates whether you quit trying and get stuck. Our singular aim at Fresh Tri is to help people change forever.
We teach an iterative approach because it’s the only thing I’ve seen protect people from the secret kill switch of motivation that sits in everyone’s brain; the habenula.
Neutralizing this tiny brain area, which is probably the most significant controller of human behavior ever discovered, makes Fresh Tri truly novel.”
What’s Better: Noom or Fresh Tri?
Any program that works for you as an individual is worth trying but it is also worth evaluating.
We would urge you to consider what has or hasn’t worked for you in the past. What slipped you up? What helped you succeed? How do you, specifically, work best?
The goal is not to see your well-being aspirations as a destination point, but rather as another stop on your journey toward living a holistically happy life.
To learn more about Fresh Tri, download the app today.
