That’s very, very close to the most sensationalistic title I’ve written in a long time… but it’s also one of the most accurate titles I’ve written.
My friend at Weight Loss Journal alerted me to this Time article, which tells the story of Healthy Wage, a website that will pay you to lose weight. Go read the article… I’ll wait. Back? Awesome!
You may note that this service is fairly similar to the article I wrote about StickK nearly two years. That was my impression 30 seconds after Weight Loss Journal sent me the link. However, I’m glad that I continued to read the article. Time makes the great point that people can subvert StickK very, very easily. While StickK provides a path to accountability, it does not enforce it.
Healthy Wage enforces it. That’s half of the reason it’s a great idea. When I read that you have to call your physician to verify your weight it was a moment of clarity for me. Long ago I had the idea of a weight loss system where you report your progress in some kind of Internet forum. The Biggest Loser has something like that. However, the missing piece of the equation for me was that I couldn’t figure out the accountability.
The other half of the idea is that there is a signficant reward. You can win $100 by just losing the weight… or you can risk $300 to win $1000. That’s not exactly “chump change” for doing something that will likely save you much, much more in the long run.
If you are interested, act quickly. You need to sign up by January 20th.
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