Red Mountain Weight Loss App: What are people saying?
When it comes to creating an app, there is a never ending need of brain power to keep up with it. Even after you have the final product, odds are you’ll continue making small tweaks and updates the very next day. Especially for health and wellness apps, there are tons of areas for consumers to utilize during their wellness journey. Which means there are just as many chances for hiccups and setbacks within the technology. Since technology never works when you need it to, right?
What people are saying about the Red Mountain Weight Loss App
At first glance, the Red Mountain Weight Loss app looks very appealing. It seems very user-friendly, has attractive pictures and design and seems like a great way to get started on a weight loss journey. But whoever decided online reviews should become a thing, we all thank you!
After I read a bad review on a product, I think “OK, nobody can please everyone; there’s bound to be one person whose standards are not being met”. But when there are consistent negative reviews, somethings has to be up!
As user-friendly as the app seems to be, after doing some digging, it’s the basic platform that seems to be holding it back. It is implied that the food database is very small, which makes it very difficult to search for specific foods. For example, one review reads “If I type in Kirkland Chicken (to find the canned chicken), it returns everything Kirkland and everything chicken”.1 This is making it much more difficult to do an already tedious task. The small database and confusing searches would likely cause app users to lose steam on their weight loss journey very quickly.
The food logging also seems very limited in terms of what the users can see of their consumption. Many Red Mountaineers have voiced their desire to see some sort of breakdown of their foods; whether it be broken down into different food groups or be more in line with the Red Mountain meal plans they offer. The only way to do so is to log the calories from the food, to get a total calories for the day, and that’s only if the food is inside the database. If most consumers are utilizing the food plans, it would seem obvious to make sure all their meals are within the app, ready to log.
It is also suggested the fitness tracker is very limited, so customers rely on syncing up with other apps. Syncing two different apps, such as a weight loss app with a fitness app (like Fitbit) is a very daunting task. But when the original app does not supply enough fitness options as a backup strategy, it can become very frustrating and demotivating. Part of a weight loss journey that utilizes technology is being able to track everything you eat, drink and do. Without having one of these areas, the journey becomes less appealing and motivation begins to diminish. When you lack in one area, you lack in the entirety of the big picture.
How Red Mountain Compares to Noom
Just like any other piece of technology out there, an app is bound to have it’s bugs and challenges. That’s the beautiful thing about technology, it can never run smoothly when you need it to most. Reading through the Red Mountain Weight Loss app reviews, there seems to be a consistency when it comes to the app’s capabilities. The app is notorious for freezing or crashing on multiple users. Whether users are trying to log in, log their food or exercises, or simply trying to utilize any other app features. They will be stuck on the homescreen or be kicked out entirely. This makes it nearly impossible to stay focused and motivated to continue the weight loss voyage.
Now, when it comes to Noom’s healthy weight loss app, the app has had its fair share of technological bugs and glitches. The positive note, it also has an entire engineering team dedicated to fixing these hiccups as quickly as humanly possible (pause for applause for Noom’s tech team). I think that’s one thing consumers forget; there are actual humans on the other end working as diligently as possible to ensure their happiness and standards are being exceeded with their product.
Noom also takes suggestions from customers to the heart, to better their product. Now, I’m not saying Red Mountain does not listen to their customers. But the consistent feedback about app glitches makes you wonder, how reliable is the app?
The Noom app is not only constantly being updated with fixes, but also expanding as a resource. Just this past month, there have been 21,000 new items added to the food database, as well as 22,000 barcodes to the scanning feature. That is just one month’s worth of updates! The database team dedicates it’s time and energy to listening to consumers’ wants and needs for the app. The barcode scanning feature makes it much more efficient when it comes to logging. There has been a strong desire from the public to expand this feature, as it is a viable resource. Ask, and you shall receive!
The other side of logging comes the breakdown of the actual food. As you may know, Noom’s database is broken down into a color system of red, yellow and green foods. These foods are categorized based on calorie density (calories/gram). Noomers are able to see their color analysis breakdown each day in the app to see where they stand with their colors. This is where you learn what foods fill you up the most without blowing your calories for the day (thank you for that, fiber!). Their coach also has the ability to send them an even further breakdown of their calories by showing a comparison between their colors from the last 14 days and from the beginning of the program at day one. This analysis serves as a learning tool, as well as a great motivator to make big changes in eating patterns.
Along with the numerous exercises built into the app log, the Noom app also syncs with many other fitness trackers including Fitbit, Garmin and iHealth. As I’ve stated over and over, every technological device is bound to have it’s delays. Syncing apps between one another is not an easy task. While we offer many pairings between apps, there are days where one of those apps just might be a bit more stubborn than the team would like. The engineering team does not take these bugs lightly and does their best to remedy the broken pieces as quickly and efficiently as possible. Just remember, even if your steps don’t show up in an app, does not mean they did not count!
The bottom line to technology: Can’t live with it, can’t live without it
When it comes to technology, it’s never perfect. It seems at times when you need it most, it decides to hold back on you. But when it comes to your health and well being, just because your tracking app decided to take a seat on the bench, does not mean you have to. Yes, you signed up for these services to help you in your journey. When something goes wrong in the Noomiverse, know this team is working at full capacity to fix things. And until the glitches are resolved, look at this hiccup as a challenge. How will you get over this hurdle and continue to build your healthy lifestyle until the glitch is resolved? Your coaches are always ready to help you move forward when your day’s step count is not matching what you truly accomplished. The power couple of technology and an entire team of Noom Nerds will always support you to the best of their abilities in your wellness adventure!
- NBL Media LLC. Red Mountain Weight Loss. App Store. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/red-mountain-weight-loss/id952085606?mt=8. Published December 30, 2014. Accessed January 22, 2019.
