Is Money My Motivation To Loosing Weight?

So it’s the start of another new year and we all know what that means. It’s resolution time. The most popular resolution of course, is to lose weight. Everyone I know has probably wanted to either lose some weight or get in shape at least one time in his or her life. For most of them, that has taken the form of a New Year’s resolution. I’m no exception. I decide to lose weight and get in shape seemingly every year. All across the country thousands, perhaps even millions of people have resolved to lose weight this year. Many will succeed, even more will fail, and a good number people have probably already strayed from their New Year’s diet.

I’m doing something a little different this year. While it’s true that I’ve resolved to lose weight, I’ve also added a little more incentive to the whole ordeal. Along with a fair-sized group my similarly overweight friends; I’ve entered a contest to lose weight. The plan is simple: pay the $20 entry fee and lose as much weight as you can in 8 weeks. Whoever loses the greatest percentage of their body-weight gets to reclaim their $20 along with everyone else’s. I’ve always wondered how motivating money can be and now it seems that I am about to find out.

The official weigh-in to kick off the competition will be tomorrow and we’ll have weekly updates after that for the next 2 months. Of course, the weigh-in caused a couple problems initially. There were a several people who wanted to participate, but didn’t want anyone to know how much they weigh. The solution we came up with was to add a multiplier to that person’s weight. So long as we multiply their weight and any subsequent losses by the same random mystery number, we can disguise their actual weight, but still document their percentage lost.

Well, that’s the plan for 2007. Just like many previous years, I’ve resolved to get in shape and lose some weight. Maybe this contest will make all the difference. I’ll keep you posted.