Does Noom Have Prepared Meals? What You Need to Know

January 8, 2026 •

3 min read

While many diet companies rely on pre-packaged food delivery, Noom takes a fundamentally different approach. The company explicitly states, "At Noom Weight we don't deliver prepackaged meals". The program focuses instead on behavioral and psychological changes to foster long-term, sustainable weight management.

Quick Summary

Noom does not offer or deliver prepared meals, focusing on helping users build sustainable eating habits through its psychology-based program. The app provides lessons, food tracking using a color-coded system, and access to coaches and thousands of recipes to guide food choices.

Key Points

No Prepared Meals: Noom does not deliver any prepared or packaged meals to its users.
Behavioral Focus: The program uses a psychology-based approach to teach sustainable eating habits and mindful eating for lasting change.
Color-Coded Food System: Noom uses a system of green, yellow, and orange categories to guide users toward more nutrient-dense, lower-calorie foods.
Comprehensive App Tools: Instead of food, the app provides a food logger, daily lessons, access to coaches, and a database of thousands of recipes.
Flexibility with Convenience Foods: Users can still incorporate prepared or convenience foods into their diet by tracking them mindfully within the app.

Noom's Philosophy: Empowering Mindful Eating, Not Meal Delivery

Unlike many traditional weight-loss programs that ship pre-portioned, pre-packaged meals directly to your door, Noom's core philosophy is to empower users with the knowledge and skills to make healthier decisions for themselves. The program is designed to be a temporary guide that teaches long-term habits, rather than a system that creates lifelong dependence on a specific product. This psychological approach is a key differentiator from services that focus solely on portion control through pre-packaged food.

The Noom Food Color System

Central to the Noom program is its food color system, which categorizes food items into green, yellow, and orange based on their caloric density. It's a key part of how Noom guides members toward a healthier diet without providing prepared meals.

Green Foods: These are the least calorie-dense and most nutrient-dense foods. The app encourages you to eat these freely. Examples include most vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Yellow Foods: These are more calorie-dense than green foods and should be eaten in moderation. They include lean meats, fish, legumes, and low-fat dairy.
Orange Foods: These are the most calorie-dense or have the least nutritional value. While no food is off-limits, you are encouraged to eat these sparingly and mindfully.

What Noom Offers Instead of Pre-Packaged Meals

Instead of shipping food, Noom provides a comprehensive digital platform to support healthy habits.

Extensive Food Database: The app features a robust food logger with a searchable database of thousands of items, and users can even scan barcodes to check a food's color and log it. This includes foods from meal-delivery services, allowing for flexible tracking.
Personalized Guidance: The program provides daily lessons based on behavioral psychology, a personalized calorie range, and access to trained coaches who can help you navigate challenges and find suitable meal options.
Recipe Database: Noom's app contains thousands of recipes, helping users learn to cook healthy meals that align with the program's color system.
Add-On Meal Plans: For an additional cost, users can purchase customized meal plans in a PDF format. These are guides and shopping lists, not delivered meals.

Can You Use Prepared Meals With Noom?

Yes. A key part of Noom's flexibility is that no food is off-limits. You can and should use convenience foods if they make healthy eating more sustainable for you. The key is to be mindful of your portions and log them correctly within the app to see how they fit into your overall caloric and color-coded budget. For instance, a user on a forum noted that they found frozen pizzas that are designated as "yellow" on Noom, which they pair with a salad. The app's database even includes information on dishes from other meal delivery services like Hello Fresh, enabling easy tracking.

Noom vs. Prepared Meal Services: A Comparison


Feature	Noom	Prepared Meal Services (e.g., Nutrisystem)
Meal Type	No food delivery; you source and prepare your own meals.	Delivers pre-packaged, ready-to-eat meals and snacks to your home.
Philosophy	Psychology-based; teaches mindful eating and long-term habit change.	Simplifies calorie control through pre-portioned, fixed meals.
Food Flexibility	High flexibility. No foods are off-limits, allowing you to eat out or use convenience foods.	Low flexibility. Relies on proprietary pre-packaged meals; eating out is restricted.
Cooking Requirement	You cook and prepare all your own food, using recipes provided or your own.	Minimal to no cooking required; meals are heat-and-eat.
Long-Term Goal	Empowering you to make healthy decisions for life.	Provides a structured plan, but may create dependence on the service's products.

Conclusion: Noom's Focus is on Education, Not Food

To be clear, the answer to "Does Noom have prepared meals?" is no. Noom distinguishes itself from meal delivery services by focusing on behavioral and psychological change rather than shipping pre-portioned foods. By providing educational lessons, food tracking tools, and coaching, Noom empowers users to build healthier habits and a better relationship with food for the long term. This approach prioritizes sustainability and self-sufficiency, meaning you will learn to navigate the grocery store and your own kitchen, not just rely on what arrives in a box. This flexibility also means you can still strategically incorporate convenience and prepared foods into your diet as part of the mindful tracking process. Read more about Noom's approach on their website.

Frequently Asked Questions

No, a Noom subscription does not include any food or meal delivery. The program is centered on coaching and education to help you choose and prepare your own meals.

Noom does not operate its own meal kit service. It focuses on teaching you how to select and prepare your own food, though you can use meal kits from other companies and track them in the app.

Instead of prepared meals, Noom provides a comprehensive mobile app with daily psychological lessons, food logging tools, a color-coded food system, access to coaches, and a library of recipes.

Yes, you can use prepared or frozen meals on Noom. The key is to log them in the app, be mindful of portion sizes, and understand how they fit into your daily calorie and color-coded budget.

Noom does not give you a strict, rigid meal plan. While it offers optional add-on meal plans and recipes, its main purpose is to empower you to make your own food choices based on its educational tools.

Noom's psychological and educational approach is fundamentally different from diet companies that send you pre-packaged food. Noom aims for long-term behavior change and self-sufficiency, rather than reliance on a specific product.

Yes, for an additional cost, Noom offers customized meal plans in PDF format. However, these are guides, not actual food delivery.