Are you ready to bet on yourself?
- lizziedunavin
- Aug 5, 2020
- 4 min read
Many times we walk into a casino knowing the odds are not in our favor. Still, we reach into our pocket and pull out a $100 bill. As humans, we are so willing to gamble on things completely out of our control: slots, blackjack, basketball, horse races, etc. But betting on ourselves takes a whole new level of confidence and commitment.
HealthyWage is an online platform that offers cash incentives for reaching your weight loss goals. They clearly state that although financial incentives do not make the weight loss journey any easier, cash based incentives help "(1) commit to a specific starting point (eliminating pre-diet procrastination), and (2) avoid quitting before you've accomplished your goals."
Right about now I bet you are wondering; how the heck does this work? How can you make money betting on yourself to lose weight? Well here is the general idea and if you are left with more questions after this post, I highly recommend going to https://www.healthywage.com/why-it-works/
Step 1: Determine how much weight you would like to lose (must be at least 10% of your body weight).
Step 2: Determine how much time you want to give yourself to lose the weight (must be at least 6 months).
Step 3: Determine how much you would like to bet each month (can be paid monthly or in one lump sum).
Step 4: HealthyWage decides how much they will pay out if you reach your weight loss goal in your designated amount of time.
Step 5: You make your payment, weigh in for the first time, and start your weight loss journey. HealthyWage provides an online community to support you through the process.
How do you weigh in?
How much money do you make?
The top prize is $10,000 but this is different for every individual. It depends on how much money you are betting, how much weight you need to lose, how much time you give yourself to lose the weight, etc. To check out how much you might make, click the link below!
How can you make even more money?
Challenges! HealthyWage offers individual and team challenges to participate in on top of your weight loss challenge. For example, I am betting $25/month for 8 months that I will lose 20 pounds. If I reach that goal in 8 months I will win $383. On top of this, I bet $250 that I will lose 6% of my body weight in 3 months. If I do this, I will split the challenge pot with all other challenge participants who lose 6% of their body weight. To put this in perspective, the pot is currently at $50,000. The challenges all vary in investments and weight loss goals.
How is HealthyWage an Applied Behavior Analysis strategy?
I see a variety of ABA strategies used in HealthyWage's online platform. Just to name a few:
Independent Group Contingencies: HealthyWage does a variety of challenges where you compete as an individual within a group. Both of the challenges I am currently doing have this contingency. If I engage in the target behaviors (lose 6% of my body weight and lose 20 pounds), I receive monetary reinforcement, no matter what success others in the challenge have.
Interdependent Group Contingencies: On top of the independent challenges, HealthyWage offers team challenges. To participate in a team challenge, you put together teams of various sizes depending on the challenge, together you all work to lose the most weight possible. The $10,000 team challenge is a group of 5 people, the winning team is the team that has the highest weight loss percentage. Another team challenge, similar to the individual challenge I am participating in, you create a team of 2-9 individuals. The team must have an average of 6% weight loss. This means if one individual does not make it to 6%, their teammates could help them by losing a higher percentage. Any team that loses the 6% will split the pot at the end of the challenge. These group contingencies require success for all participants for any participants to receive reinforcement.
Positive Reinforcement: HealthyWage uses the ultimate positive reinforcement, cash. When you give someone something reinforcing for a target behavior, you increase the probability of that target behavior happening in the future.
Maintenance: HealthyWage promotes maintenance in a few different ways. The first being, you cannot weigh in more than two weeks prior to the end of the challenge. This means those quick fix fasts, won't be effective here. They want to ensure if you lose 6% of your body weight in one month, you maintain those results for three months. They also have a rule called the no yo-yo rule. If you have won a prize greater than $200, you must start your next HealthyWager at or below the weight that you ended the last challenge in which you won a prize of $200 or more. They have this rule to prevent yo-yoing back and forth between weights and gaming the system.
Deposit Contracts: Once you create a bet with HealthyWage, you have now created a behavior contract. If you lose the amount of weight you stated you would lose (target behavior) you will receive the reinforcement that HealthyWage promised (money!). If you do not lose the weight, you will lose the money you put in.
Self-Monitoring: HealthyWage only requires verified video weigh ins twice, once when you start a challenge and once for your final weigh in. Outside of those weigh ins, it becomes a self-monitoring system. You are encouraged to report a weight weekly for the challenge dashboard to be updated. I personally have decided to enter a weigh in each morning to track my bloating, weight, and energy level based on what I ate the day before.
Hopefully this post gave you great information about HealthyWage! Honestly, I don't know if this system is for everyone. I however, know my personality type. I know that I am extremely competitive and highly motivated by monetary incentives. In one of my next posts I will talk about personality tests and preference assessments to determine weight loss programs that may be the right fit for you.
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