You’ve seen the celebrities who have slimmed down with the help of different weight loss programs, such as Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Nutrisystem, and it’s easy to credit their successful weight loss to their monetary gains and incentives. “Of course Mariah Carey lost her baby weight in no time – she was probably paid a fortune to do it with Jenny Craig,” you tell yourself.
So what if there was money at stake for your slim down? Would you drop the weight once and for all, or is it easier said than done?
According to CNN, there is a new study published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine that reinforces the idea that if money were on the line, you might actually get healthy.
The study offered as much as $175 for people who met their assigned goals, and also offered a 20-week followup period, which could earn them an additional $30 to $80 if they kept recording and sending their information.
The 204 participants had to have several indicators of a need to change habits: They had low physical activity and a lot of sedentary leisure time. Their intake of saturated fat was elevated, and they had a low intake of fruits and vegetables.
Each person was randomly assigned a diet/treatment: (1) increase fruits and vegetables, (2) decrease fat and leisure time that’s not active, (3) lower fat and sedentary leisure, (4) eat more fruits and veggies and lower nonactive leisure time.
The best healthy lifestyle benefits was the simultaneous increasing of fruits and vegetables and lowering of leisure time spent sedentary. All participants received the same financial offer, so the study wasn’t focused on discovering the effects of financial incentives. However, after the study ended, many participants continued getting healthier during the five-month follow-up period, even though they were not asked or encourage to stay healthy during that time but were given money.
So, researchers believe that perhaps the money is, in fact, an influence in weight loss motivation. Luckily, there are plenty of ways for you to get paid to lose weight – without being a celebrity or part of a research study!
Some companies actually award their employees for losing weight, using the company gym, etc., and there are even a few websites out there that offer the same time of deal.
Here are some of the best sites, according to CNN:
HealthyWage.com: This is a website that offers weight loss challenges. You basically bet your own money that you will make your goal. For instance, there’s a 10% challenge where you pay $100 to participate, and if you lose 10% of your body weight over six months, you win $200. People who move from an obese BMI (over 30) to a normal BMI (less than 25) in a year can earn up to $1,000. HealthyWage.com also offers more lucrative team challenges.
DietBet.com: This website lets you join with other people in betting on weight loss. You sign up with at least one other person and get 28 days to lose weight. There’s only one winner, he or she wins the entire prize pot. Multiple winners get equal shares of the pot.
GymPact: Put your money at stake to get to the gym. When you join GymPact, you create a contract with yourself to work out for a specific number of days per week. You’ll need to promise to pay up at least $5 per day of the agreed-upon total that you miss. And guess what? If you fulfill your goals, you get a reward – usually about 50 to 75 cents. It’s only available on the iPhone, but it lets you “check in” to your gym via GPS.
StickK: You can use this tool to create commitments, putting your own money on the line, for just about anything. Eat better, lose weight, quit smoking, or come up with a custom goal that you’re willing to lose money if you don’t make it. As the site’s founder Dean Karlan told CNN in 2008, “It’s a contract to make slothfulness more expensive.”
So what are you waiting for!?
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