Over the Noom?

Weight loss reminds me a lot of hiking in the Grand Canyon. One hour walking down the trail takes you twice as long to climb back up.

One step forward, two steps back. And that, or so it seems, is the delicate dance of dieting.

Since my mid-40s, I’ve struggled with my weight. Back then, it had a lot to do with perimenopause, that time of a woman’s life before menopause, when her ovaries gradually make less estrogen.

With perimenopause, you may experience hot flashes, irregular periods, mood swings and insomnia. Likely all before noon but not necessarily in that order.

Quite often, amid this internal combustion, a woman’s metabolism grinds to a halt, and for some of us, it never quite recovers. I recall reading that a contributing factor may be that you’re not eating enough calories, which can cause your body to lose muscle mass and your metabolism to plummet.

I suspect I may have taken this “under-fueling theory” a smidge too far in the past 20 years. Right along with the fact that “muscle weighs more than fat.” True. But not that much more, Jennifer. OK, OK.

In 1960, I entered this world at 7 pounds, 6¾ ounces with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck, according to my beloved mother. You’d think that would have quelled my appetite from the start. Instead, since then I have rarely missed a meal yet always avoided turtle necks.

As a child, I barely ate. I had teeny tiny wrists, skinny little arms and toothpick legs. I routinely moved uneaten food around my plate. Always. It drove my parents bat-shit crazy. “Don’t play with your food,” they’d say. “Eat!”

Forcing me to sit at the table until I finished eating didn’t work. My active imagination took over and transported me to some faraway place, like Ken, Midge and G.I. Joe visiting Barbie’s Dream House, which I never received from Santa, by the way.

Not. Bitter.

By not eating, Mom worried I’d suffer a similar fate as “those starving kids in China.” (Send it to them, I’d offer.) Or that if I continued to “eat like a bird,” I wouldn’t grow up with strong bones and teeth.

Didn’t I want to belong to the Clean Plate Club? Not really, unless joining got you into a Detroit Tigers home game or a new bike with a rockin’ banana seat.

Now in my 60s, maintaining weight loss has only gotten that much harder. Much.

My mother used to say, “Don’t worry, Jin. You’ll be thin when you’re 80.”

Thanks, Mom. Good to know I’ll look super fine pushing up daisies.

Our mother and her sisters were all about appearance. The oldest, Enea, or Zia Ann, as she was known to us, was tall but not overweight by today’s standards. She loved to eat and could finish off a box of Sanders chocolates in one sitting.

Mom was a “sharp shit,” as her youngest sister, Nores, used to say. “Elia was so beautiful – just like a movie star. So pretty and thin. Her dance card was always full.”

All true, of course.

Strange that Aunt Nores saw herself as just the opposite, even though she was stunning. I never understood her perception of herself. She lived to 96 but cursed mirrors to the end. “Who is that stranger in my house?” she’d say staring at herself.

Guess the apple (mmm, pie?) doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I have tried all of those crazy fad diets over the years. In my 40s, 50s and now 60s: liquid, grapefruit, cabbage soup, protein, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Dr. Atkins, intermittent fasting. You name it, I’ve tried it.

Of course, the pandemic didn’t help. Like many folks locked down at home, I packed on the “Quarantine 15” and have had trouble losing it.

So, in July, I subscribed to Noom, an app on your phone that helps track your weight, monitor what you eat and connect with like-minded people.

Noom (simply “Moon” spelled backward … duh) was co-founded in 2008 by a Korean tech entrepreneur who joined forces with a Ukraine-born former Google engineer. It’s not radical or an overly-regimented nutrition program.

The main lesson: Small changes, made daily, really add up. Mind and body, working together to create a sustainable way to improve your physical and mental health.

Or, as my father used to say, “Everything in moderation, babe.”

Since then — about 16 weeks — I have lost a total of 12 pounds. Slowly. Tediously. Incrementally. Up and down, loss and gain. A few steps forward. A couple of steps backward.

Like hiking the freakin’ Grand Canyon.

It has been a test of my patience. You gain weight quickly, but it takes so long to lose.

To meet my goal, my calorie budget was 1,200 a day. Not much, frankly. When I logged foods, the app let me know how many calories I had left for the day. Or how many I went over, which I did sometimes.

Two compulsory tasks make up the heart of Noom: daily weigh-ins and food logging. Weighing in has become a routine part of my morning. The hardest part was facing my own ego and stepping on the scale in the first place.

It’s not perfect. Some of Noom’s daily quizzes annoyed the hell out of me. So much so, that I’d roll my eyes or skip them altogether. But they’d pop up the next day, so I couldn’t ignore them forever. And I never posted anything on the group chat. (“I cleaned my house and burned 1,700 calories!” No, you didn’t.)

Noom’s strong points are its sensible approach to nutrition and straightforward logging. Green, yellow and red foods. You can guess what’s encouraged. You don’t need an app for that, but it’s easier.

The result? Honestly, this is the first “diet” I’ve tried where I haven’t felt like a raging hungry bear.

And after six months (today!), I’m 12 pounds lighter and, if I wore them, I’d be “down a dress size,” as Mom and her sisters would say. My clothes fit better, I have increased energy and I’m sleeping more soundly.

Recent results from my annual physical also add scientific proof to the pudding (yum!): Numbers are up and down in the right places.

I’ll keep being a Noom Nerd with the hope that fewer pounds on my aging knees means less agony from the bone-on-bone osteoarthritis discovered in a recent X-ray at my handsome orthopedist’s office.

Aging isn’t for sissies. Ouch. Bring on the CBD ointment, cortisone injections and (occasional) medicinal shots of Dewar’s.

Get this: I have moved up one full notch on my fitness tracker watch. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say my wrists actually look thinner, too.