I joined Omada because my employer provided insura...

I joined Omada because my employer provided insurance covers it and it was marketed at our health fairs. I can only describe it as disappointing. I am writing to my insurance company and employer to ask that they reconsider promoting Omada. The only benefit for me was knowing someone saw my weigh ins. The Bluetooth scale and knowing my coach saw my weigh in was a tremendous motivator and the only reason I am giving 2 stars. That alone was initially well worth it. When I became very sick in December and went weeks without weighing in and realized my coach didn t even ask why o wasn t weighing, I lost my motivation. Here s more details on why only 2 stars.

1. The app is simplistic at best. It performs as you d expect a beta version to perform but it s not beta. It does not allow you to track calories but you re encouraged to track calories. You can enter a basic written statement of what you ate such as cereal and milk. You can get as detailed as you like with that statement but you have to renter it each time. You can enter 1 photo per meal. I stopped tracking in the app after 4 months because even on bad days I received feedback on a meal exactly one time and it was when I typed a question into my meal entry. You re encouraged to use other apps like My Fitness Pal then screenshot it then type it into Omada then add the screenshot. Are you kidding me?
2. You receive little guidance on what your weight loss goals should be. When I asked my coach she said she cannot give such advice and talk to my doctor.
3. Reponse from coaches are canned text (meaning something copy pasted into messages. If I didn t lose I d get something like wow you re amazing and if I lost 3 pounds I d get the same.
4. The weekly lessons are very very simplistic to an insulting degree. They seem to be written with the assumption that obese people are uneducated.
5. Only steps can be counted for exercise. On days I went to the gym and lifted I had lower steps and did not hit my step goal which meant my exercise ring in Omada didn t close. One day I kayaked for 2 hours which was huge for me but that darn ring still didn t close because I didn t get enough steps. That was very very discouraging when I was actually working hard. I asked my coach how to approach it and she suggested I talk to my doctor and sent a link to an article about getting started with exercise. I was exercising! I was working sooooo hard!
6. I made it clear from day 1 that I needed support from other people or the group and desperately needed that connection with people. In the first 16 weeks no one posted or responded to posts. There was no value in the group at all. I joined a Facebook group instead.
7. I asked my coach about the DASH diet or other diets recommended for hypertension. She said she couldn t advise on nutrition and talk to my doctor. Tell me again what select health is paying you for, Omada?
8. When a urologist told me to cut protein I asked about suggestions for breakfast. I was sent a link to an article.
9. When I got covid I was offline for 3 weeks. I thought when I logged in someone would have noticed I was gone. Nope. Not even a message from my coach asking if everything was going okay. After that I realized no one even notices if I m participating and I gave up. I know I need to do this for me and I actually am but for many reasons that I won t go into here I desperately need support and to know someone cares that I m working hard.
10. That brings me to insurance coverage. This program is being covered by insurance because it benefits the health of the customer but it doesn t. The same information can be found via Google. Why is insurance covering this? Maybe for someone who doesn t understand basic exercise and nutrition principles it s helpful but that s not me. I am not overweight because I don t understand nutrition. I am smart and educated and made it clear I needed support in my journey. I lost 28 pounds on 4 months and have kept off 24. I have now moved to Noom and looking forward to getting off the rest of it.