« Fit and healthy links | Home | Move it Monday: run, walk, bike or swim? »
Dollars for pounds–will it work for you?
By workoutmommy | November 11, 2007
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my rss feed. Thanks for visiting!
Here is an interesting idea, have someone pay you to lose weight!
Michael Rosenwald, a writer for The Washington Post, writes about the bet he has made with his wife. For every pound he loses, his wife will pay him $5. He has apparently tried every diet in the book and believes that only money is going to motivate him to lose weight.
The article writes about how some companies are starting this pay-for-loss trend as well, offering financial incentives to employees who shed extra weight. This makes me wonder though, what about the employees that do not need to lose weight? Do they offer any financial bonuses to them as well?
Another suggestion for motivating weight loss is to take a picture of yourself in a bikini (or Speedo). If you fail to lose the designated weight, then you have to hang the picture in a public place, like your office. This one I might be able to get on board with. Apparently I am motivated by public humiliation and not money!
Click here to read the entire article.
Would any of these methods motivate you?
Topics: fit facts |
November 11th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Since my husband and I have no separate money stashes, this wouldn’t work for us. I agree with the article that the $5.00 just isn’t that motivational for all the work that goes into losing one pound! Now if my husband said that he would take me off on a weekend to some exotic place and he planned everything, then I would be quite motivated to speed up the weight loss journey. Hummm, I need to drop a hint.
December 21st, 2007 at 1:48 pm
As an economist this makes great sense to me. We all value that lost pound differently and subjective value matters. Just think how different your first ten pounds lost felt compared to the last five you need to lose–they have different values attached to them. I think the trick here then is, in econ speak, price discrimination. Charge different prices for different pounds lost along the wieght loss journey, the first few are exhilarating, so you may need less financial incentive than on your last ten when you are sick and tired of it. The key is to figure out what your price is and stick to it, while we are on the topic, you should be financially penalized if you put the weight back on–it’s all about incentives!
December 21st, 2007 at 5:28 pm
The bikini thing would work for me. Along with the public humiliation, there’s the danger to my co-workers’ eyesight if all my blindingly white skin were to be put on display that way.
(Always thinking of others. What can I say? I’m a giver!)