7 Best Weight Loss Programs Reviewed and Tested in 2024

Noom is a weight loss platform that includes food and health tracking, motivational lessons, coaching, and online communities to help you reach your weight goals. We liked the slower pace of this program compared to others, with a focus on learning more about your own weight loss journey rather than just setting a goal to reach a given size. The daily lessons emphasize setting realistic goals you can reach, celebrating small successes along the way, educating yourself on healthy habits, and getting more support when you need it.

In addition to the services offered with every Noom subscription, you can add the below extras. Prices of the add-ons varies depending on your personal plan:

• Personal behavior coaching and 1:1 weekly sessions.
• Custom meal plan.
• Custom workout plan.
• Body composition scale.

Noom coaches aren’t credentialed health professionals, so they can provide motivational support but not medical or nutrition advice. We had a hard time getting timely responses from both customer service and the coaches, and multiple testers found that the customer service chat wasn’t able to answer questions.

Nevertheless, we like that this program has a greater focus on mental health as an important part of weight loss than other programs we tested. Some of the lessons seemed elementary, but we enjoyed the upbeat tone and positivity.

• $17.50–$70 per month.
• App-based program.
• Food and activity tracking.
• Recipes.
• Daily lessons and tips for overall health and mental wellness.
• Online communities for extra support.

We found the daily lessons, which you complete in a prescribed order, to be very helpful. We especially enjoyed the short course on the psychology behind weight loss and how to establish healthy habits around eating, exercise, stress reduction, sleep, and staying motivated along the way.

We also appreciated the thoughtful approach and slower start of Noom compared to other weight loss programs. Rather than jumping into food tracking and daily weigh-ins, the app took us through lessons and questions centered on why we wanted to lose weight. On day two of the program, one tester shared the following feedback:

“I definitely sense a lot of patience coming from this program. I’ve wondered why they haven’t told me to log in meals or track water intake yet, and it’s because this program goes at a slower pace than what I’ve seen in other weight loss programs.”

An overview of the start of Noom

However, we didn’t like the rigid categorization of foods and the calorie limits placed on each one. Noom splits foods into three colors (green, yellow, and orange) based on nutrition and calorie content, and you get a certain calorie allotment for each category. Fruits and vegetables are generally listed as green, protein is in the yellow category, and high-calorie foods, like sweets and fats, are in the orange category.

This delineation of three categories is a better system than some programs like WW, for example, which lumps everything into a system of points without explaining the nutrition behind it. We did find the calorie limit that counts down with every food you eat to be anxiety-provoking, though. The Handbook Team doesn’t recommend this system for anyone with a history of eating disorders, as the laser focus on calorie intake could exacerbate disordered eating behaviors.

Noom app showing food log and categories

Strict language regarding food intake can be risky for anyone who has a history of disordered eating or a negative relationship with food, both of which are common struggles for people who are overweight or obese.

Emily Norman, a registered dietitian with Pay It Forward Fertility, warns that this type of language is one of the red flags to avoid when shopping for a weight loss program. “A program should not make you feel shameful or guilty for your past food history, dietary recalls, or eating preferences,” she says.

Noom doesn’t provide any branded foods, which lowers the cost since those sold by other weight loss programs (such as Nutrisystem) tend to be pricey. We found the app hard to use to filter recipes according to preferences and meal type, but once we found recipes to try, we appreciated the easy ingredient list and instructions and enjoyed the final result.

Overall, we like Noom as a sustainable weight loss solution but don’t recommend it for first-timers because it doesn’t create the same educational foundation around weight loss as the Mayo Clinic Diet. We also don’t recommend it for those with a history of disordered eating

The Mayo Clinic diet was developed by a team of doctors, dietitians, and psychologists as a way to teach people healthy habits with a 12-week program, enabling them to lose weight and keep it off for the long run. Clinical studies have found that this length of time is reasonable for participants to see changes in body weight and composition.

The program offers six meal plans that you can choose from based on your food preferences and health needs, including a low-carb plan and three gluten-free options. This is a huge plus for many people: Our survey of 600 weight loss program users found that 57 percent wanted a program that could help them with meal planning.

We recommend the Mayo Clinic Diet as a great weight loss option for anyone wanting to lose weight. It’s a particularly good choice for beginners but offers a wide range of solid benefits for everyone.

• $19.99–$39.99 per month.
• App and website.
• Customizable meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists.
• Educational articles and videos.
• At-home workouts.

It can be hard to know what to eat and how much when you set out to lose weight, but the Mayo Clinic program provides plenty of help with that. It gives you a calorie level for weight loss built into your meal plan and recipes to go with it. Calorie levels vary greatly from person to person, but are based on factors such as age, gender, and activity level.

Meals for each day are listed in the app, and you simply check off each meal after you’ve eaten it rather than entering every food from that meal, as you would with most other food tracking apps.

The app also gives you a workout plan to follow with exercises you can do at home using little or no equipment.

Mayo Clinic Diet app workouts

We also like the easy-to-apply nutrition content in the app, such as the picture of what our plate should look like.

Another aspect we find helpful is the Habit Optimizer, a list that lets you see which healthy habits you’re establishing and which not-so-healthy ones you can change. Some of the habits to “break” are more realistic than others—nixing TV during meals is doable, but cutting out any snack that’s not a fruit or vegetable probably isn’t sustainable for most people.

Here are the habits to “make” and those to “break” on the plan:

• Five to make: Eat a healthy breakfast, eat vegetables and fruit, eat whole grains, eat healthy fats, and move 30 minutes each day.
• Five to break: Eating while watching TV, consuming sugar or alcohol, snacking (with the exception of vegetables and fruits), eating meat and dairy frequently, and dining out (unless a restaurant meal fits into your meal plan).
• Five bonus habits: Eat ‘real food,’ keep food records, keep activity records, move 60 minutes each day, and write your daily goals.

One concern we do have is the first two weeks of the program, called Quick Start, designed to help you lose six to 10 pounds in the first two weeks. That’s more than the one to two pounds per week recommended by the USDA for sustainable weight loss.

But a person who is overweight and normally eats a high-carb standard American diet will likely lose that much weight in the first couple of weeks simply by following a healthier diet like one of the Mayo Clinic’s meal plans, which are naturally lower in carbs.

A change to a diet that’s lower in calories and carbs (even if the carbs aren’t low enough to switch your metabolism to ketosis) will result in lost water weight. After that, if you continue with the diet, you should begin to see fat loss as well.

Overall, we found the Mayo Clinic Diet to be an excellent balance of guidance from educational content, meal planning, and establishment of healthy habits, along with the flexibility to adjust your meal and exercise plan according to your preferences and goals.

Joggo is primarily geared toward runners rather than people looking to lose weight, but it offers a number of features that can be helpful for weight loss. It’s also one of the most affordable programs on the market.

• Personalized and easy-to-use running program based on your skill level and running goals.
• Meal plan with recipes and shopping lists.
• Educational content on running.
• Daily tips to help you reach your goals.
• The program is tailored to your specific health goal, whether that’s losing weight, improving your fitness, or running faster or longer distances.
• Joggo offers three different program lengths that range between $33 to $66 per month.

We would like to see some improvements with this program, though. We didn’t like how you couldn’t view shopping lists until each Sunday when the new week’s meal plan appeared in the app. It also didn’t allow us to retroactively enter food intake or running data, making our log inaccurate. Finally, we’d like more flexibility in the meal plans with the option to add extra foods or customize meals based on what’s in our pantry.

If you’re looking for a quick way to lose weight without having to count calories or cook meals, Diet-to-Go may be the option for you. It’s a very-low-calorie meal delivery service that brings meals right to your door and even includes dietitian-led coaching.

You’ll be assigned a calorie level based on your body mass index (BMI), a number that reflects your body’s ratio of weight to height. While not a perfect measure of health, BMI does give an estimate of where your body weight falls compared to the recommended weight for your height.

After receiving your calorie level, you’ll choose a meal plan from five options: Balance, Balance-Diabetes, Keto-Carb30, Mediterranean, and Vegetarian.

Meals arrive frozen and ready to reheat in the microwave or oven. Diet-to-Go meals received mixed reviews from our testers. For the most part, we weren’t impressed with the flavors or overall quality.

• Pre-cooked, frozen meals delivered based on the frequency you select.
• Coaching by dietitians.
• Facebook community.
• Weekly meal plans range from $138.99 to $225.99 per week, depending on the number of meals or plan selected.

Low calorie diets such as the ones prescribed by Diet-to-Go lead to quick weight loss by forcing the body to use up energy reserves of glycogen (stored glucose) and fat. But they aren’t sustainable because the body is very efficient at lowering its metabolism to accommodate fewer calories, as well as making hunger pangs so pronounced you can’t ignore them for more than a short time.

Nutrisystem has been around since 1975, when it introduced one of the first calorie-controlled meal delivery programs. It still works the same way, with meals, snacks, and shakes delivered to your door. Similar to Diet-to-Go, Nutrisystem is a full service weight loss program with a price tag to match.

• Food, water, weight, and activity tracking.
• Wellness articles and tips.
• Access to Nutrisystem Facebook community.
• Weight Loss Coach scheduling.
• Plans start at $12.14/day

Nutrisystem advertises an expected weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week, although the website also claims you can lose up to 7 pounds the first week by drinking two high-protein Nutrisystem shakes and eating only one meal per day. Again, this is a recipe for taking off the pounds quickly, but don’t expect them to stay off long-term unless you plan to stick to meal replacement shakes forever.

Similar to Diet-to-Go, Nutrisystem may be a good choice for someone who wants to lose some weight in the short-term. The prepared meals and snacks are healthy overall, and we could also see it working well for someone recently diagnosed with diabetes who is looking for help getting used to eating a specific calorie level with foods that will help control their blood sugar.

DoFasting is an app that guides you in following an intermittent fasting schedule. Intermittent fasting is a system of eating during a set window of time each 24-hour period and fasting for the rest of the time. Intermittent fasting has been shown to support weight loss and lower blood lipid levels and blood pressure. DoFasting allows you to set a timer for fasting and eating, track food intake, and track weight.

The program offers fasting schedules that range between 12 and 72 hours. Our testers found that fasting for 12 hours was easy, as most of the fast happened at night while they slept. But the 16- and 18-hour fast was much harder to stick with due to blood sugar drops that caused mood swings and uncomfortable hunger pangs. All of the testers opted out of trying the 20-hour fast.

• Easy to use.
• Includes workout routines.
• Tracks fasting and meals.
• Supportive online community.

While subscribed to DoFasting, our tester logged fasts, meals, hydration, and exercise. They tried the recommended recipes and interacted with the DoFasting online community and customer service representatives. Our tester reported the app to be glitchy.

Our tester chose to test the 12-hour fast, which DoFasting recommends as the best for beginners. Our tester selected 10 p.m. to start the fast so that much of the fasting would occur overnight. The app doesn’t automatically end the fast, so our tester had to open the app to stop the fast in the morning.

Once our tester finished the fast, the app asked how they felt. They reported feeling a little hungry, so they fixed breakfast right away and tracked the meal’s macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) in the app. The macro-tracking process was tedious, and inputting the data took longer than expected.

WeightWatchers is a weight loss program based on a simplified food tracking system and support offered through coaching and member groups. However, it doesn’t provide much in the way of nutrition education or tips for maintaining healthy eating habits once you end your membership.

• Daily budget of food points based on your current height and weight, gender, age, and weight goals.
• WW app for tracking food, activity, and sleep; finding recipes; and accessing coaching and communities.
• 24/7 coaching for extra support and troubleshooting.
• Workshops and other online sessions.
• Educational content and recipes.
• $23 per month plus a $20 starter fee for most basic plan.

We found the app fairly easy to use, but it’s more cumbersome than other apps like Noom and Joggo. One advantage for people who prefer to use a computer rather than their phone is that WW has a more extensive website than, say, Noom, which is completely app-based.

We dislike the fact that points don’t correspond directly to the calorie or nutritional content of foods, and WW doesn’t provide the formula to allow you to figure out your own points for foods that aren’t in the WW database.

This makes it hard to sustain healthy eating habits outside the program. It also goes against the premise of a sustainable weight loss system like the one from Mayo Clinic, which teaches you how to craft and follow a healthy diet.

We had positive experiences with the coaching, workshops, and community groups provided through WW. But the fact that it’s hard to learn about nutrition through WW, as well as their claim that you can lose weight on the program without any exercise, leaves holes that we sought to fill through other, more comprehensive programs.