Weight Loss - Motivational Idea from Mayo Clinic - Paying for Weight loss

Recently the Mayo Clinic published results of a year long study they conducted on weight loss. Mayo essentially paid the participants to lose 4 pounds a month and their results say it worked. Would you lose the extra pounds if you were paid to do it? Here is what they did to test their theory that money could motivate human beings to lose weight. Mayo took 100 participants that wanted to lose some weight. 50 participants were paid $20.00 per month for every month that they were successful in losing 4 pounds. The other 50 participants were charged $20.00 per month if they failed to lose 4 pounds in a month. The money these participants paid went into a pool that all 100 participants could win. Each month a participant lost 4 pounds they would get an entry to win the pool.

The results show that those participants who received the $20.00 per month for losing weight actually lost an average of 9 pounds during the course of the study. That may not seem like much in terms of pounds but when compared to the participants who were penalized $20.00 per month for not losing 4 pounds it is significant as this group lost an average of only 2 pounds during the study. Which would you prefer?

It makes sense that money would be a motivator to many people especially during times of high unemployment and rising costs of living expenses. Would money motivate you to lose weight? How can this study help obese people lose weight and become healthier? What happens to those who lost weight after the study is complete – will they be able to motivate themselves to continue? There are many unanswered questions on this study. The experts went on to discuss all of these questions and the study in a large medical conference in San Francisco – hopefully we will hear more on this.

Could we use these results to help us lose extra weight and become healthier? I think we could. Maybe an office sponsored 3 month weight loss challenge would work. Perhaps the employer would be willing to front $100.00 to help his/her staff become healthier. Healthy employees mean less drain on health insurance policies and less sick days – might help convince them. You could follow the same plan that Mayo used or create your own as long as the weight loss was reasonable i.e. 1-2 pounds per week maximum for health safety reasons. If you have a small group then you could pay the staff that met the goal $20.00 per month and charge the ones who did not meet their goal. You would have to set up monthly group weigh in sessions and have a “record keeper” to keep it all documented and up to date – maybe the skinny girl/guy in the office can take this job.

There are many variations that could be used as long as every participant agreed to the terms. If you cannot get "buy in" from the Boss then maybe everyone kicks in a certain amount of money at the beginning in order to participate. Office competition is a good motivator. The participants can get fellow office or family member sponsors to add a predetermined amount of money to the pot as a helpful way to make this work. The office could hold a weekend bake sale or yard sale if baked goods are too tempting and use the proceeds as money for the pool to pay the winners. Maybe paid days off would be a motivator for you – see if the boss will sponsor 1 paid day off a month for anyone who met the weight loss goal and those who didn’t meet the goal would have to work a little harder to cover. That would motivate me!

Additional ideas: I currently work for a large health insurance company, most of us have sit down, computer jobs, limiting our movement for 8 hours a day. Our company offered us a "FREE" apple watch with a catch. We were required to have our waist measured, BP checked, weight/height/BMI, and age documented. We then input all of that information into the "Attain" app from the app store. You also have to answer a few health questions such as "Do you have any of the following health conditions" and "do you take any prescription medications" etc. This program then calculates a "healthy" weight for someone your height and age based on your data. If you needed to lose weight then the app sets your goals to burn an extra 500 calories per day. If you needed to maintain your weight the app would set appropriately. It can also determine a healthy plan for someone who needs to gain weight. Each time an employee meets their goal 5 days out of the week they earn $2.75 toward the monthly payment of $11.00 for the watch. If you miss the weekly goal you have to pay for that week. The low payment allows all levels of employees to participate and prolongs the time until payoff thus prolonging the time you work to meet your goal. I have missed my goal twice in the last 13 months. Once due to a family health issue and the other due to a migraine attack. I can definitely afford $11.00 per month but I also have a competitive drive that says "you got this!" Look for Attain to be joining with more companies in this healthy plan.