It is devilishly hard to lose weight.
A randomized control year-long study looked at the impact of four different diets (Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone Diets) on a group of overweight and obese subjects who were looking to lose weight. The diets produced only “modest” average weight loss of about 6.4 lbs (2.3 percent of original body weight) and found no statistically significant difference in weight loss for the four different diets.
People do a pretty good job of losing weight for about half a year, and then their weight tends to drift back toward their pre-diet number. The difficulty of sustaining weight loss can be seen in this figure taken from a 2-year randomized study of the Weight Watchers program:
Source: Stanley Heshka, et al., Weight Loss With Self-help Compared With a Structured Commercial Program: A Randomized Trial, 289 JAMA1792 (2003)
The lower line (marked “Commercial”) shows the average weight loss of the Weight Watchers Diet group, while the upper line (marked “Self-Help”) shows the average weight loss for the control group dieters. In this study, Weight Watchers does produce a statistically significant weight loss (and a loss that is greater than the control group), but it is disappointingly small – the average loss after a year is less than 6.5 lbs. Most overweight people who start a diet want to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight. But only 16 percent of the Weight Watcher’s group (and only 6 percent of control group) lost 10 percent or more of their body weight at the end of two years.
My personal experience with dieting has followed a similar pattern. Like many others, I went from being a skinny twenty-something who couldn’t gain weight to a forty-something who couldn’t keep it off. In the last decade, I’ve yoyo-ed several times. I’d take off a bunch a weight, but by the end of the year I’d put it all back on plus a little extra.
Until this last year, when I did something different. As described in this L.A. Times op-ed, I put $500 each week on safely losing and keeping off my extra weight. You can see what happened in this graph:
I originally had to lose a pound a week (or else lose money). Then I had to keep my weight below my contractual target of 185 pounds.
In contrast to Weight Watchers, which can cost about $500 a year and helps you lose on average 6 or 7 lbs (about 3 percent of your initial weight), I put $500 at risk each week. In equilibrium, I’ve lost 25 pounds (12 percent of my pre-diet body weight) and so far it has cost me nothing.
The rapid weight loss at the beginning of the graph is not remarkable; I’ve lost weight quickly several times before. What’s remarkable is that I kept it off for the second half of the year. And I’ve signed up again this year to do the same thing. You can follow my progress here.
As Levitt has written, I also helped create a Web site called StickK.com, where you can enter into your own commitment contract to do all kinds of things.
For me, it’s been surprisingly easy — five hundred bucks is a lot of money. And while the prospect of losing 25 pounds is daunting, it’s not that hard to lose a pound a week when the alternative is to lose $500. Indeed, StickK contracts invert the normal commitment problem. Usually it’s easy for people to make New Year’s Resolutions, and much harder for them to live up to them. With StickK, it’s actually relatively easy to keep your commitments – especially if you put enough at risk, or if you designate an anti-charity to get your money if you fail. The harder part is getting yourself to make the binding resolution. Some people are reluctant to enter into a contract that commits them to real change.
Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution thinks it’s so hard to get people to change that he has predicted that the site will not succeed:
I’ve long predicted this won’t work; one group of potential customers doesn’t really want to change, the other group is unwilling to give up control. It’s not exaggerating to say that human nature is on the line here, and that if I am wrong this is probably the most important idea you will ever encounter.
But the good news is that the first returns are very positive. In a little more than a month since launching, people have given us $80,000 to help stickK to their goals. What’s more, most people are keeping their commitments and getting their money back.
People who really want to change are willing to give up some of their ex-post freedom. StickK not only helps you make credible commitments for yourself, it also lets you communicate that commitment to other people. Commitment contracts aren’t just for people who have trouble keeping their commitments; they are for anyone who is concerned about hearing some promise that just sounds like so much “cheap talk.” We’ve all been in the “Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown” situation, where we’ve heard people make promises that we suspect are insincere, or we think the promisor one way or another isn’t likely to follow through. One of the coolest things about StickK is that it gives the rest of us a new way to respond to cheap talk. At last, we can demand that the promisor put some money where his or her mouth is.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Okay, fine. Losing $500.00 is a good motivator to keep losing weight, if it’s truly enforceable (making your contract public must help). But…let’s see where your weight-loss is in five years. Or ten. Or, hey, even three years from now. Will the weight still be off? Maybe. Twenty-five pounds, while a challenge, is not the same as trying to lose, say, 125 pounds. Which means: I think your “solution” is mainly a gimmick that will not succeed for serious and sustainable weight loss. Which means it’s really no different than Weight Watchers and so forth, in terms of overall results. But, at least at WW, they get those cute little ribbons, or whatever it is that is given out for being “good”.
I know why there is a significant initial weight loss and then a rise back toward the status quo. Now, doctors will come up with something or another about your metabolism obtain equilibrium. But in truth, as one who was a serious Atkins dieter, the reason is that, after a short while, a large helping of french fry drenched in Sonny’s BBQ sweet sauce seems, for all the world, to be the most most glorious cusiine one can desire–manna from heaven, even.
And so you have french fry. Just one to begin with…then, increasing efficiency, you put two in your mouth at a time…and so it goes.
I have an idea that I think would make the “betting” even better: How about instead of just losing weight to KEEP from losing money, you could actually MAKE money? How? Well, how about instead of someone giving to an anti-charity, if they put on weight, their money goes is split between those who did NOT put on weight?
For instance, say that you and I both commit to paying $500 if we fail to met our weight requirements. If I do indeed fail, then not only do you keep the $500 you had put up, but you get MY $500 (or perhaps just a portion of it).
TALK ABOUT MOTIVATION! I mean, as large as I am (350+++ lbs)this could become my new career, generating a lifetime of income. And, on the flip side, if I don’t keep the weight off, I will lose so much money that I won’t have the money to buy more M&Ms or Snickers bars…and so I will be forced to lose weight…which, of course, will put me back to winning money…which will then provide me with the wherewithal to buy more chocolate.
*Sigh* I guess it’s a rollercoaster either way for me.
Wait, I’ve got it! That money I win is escrowed for me, awaiting my retirement–or perhaps channeled to a gym membership and a heavy-duty bicycle.
I really out to be in charge of healthcare in this country.
Read the book, “Sway.”
The promise of making money is a very bad motivator. Incentives like bonuses explicitly tied to production, will only incrementally add to productivity whereas bonuses given out AFTER productivity gains increases output significantly for a longer term.
It’s why there are so few good sales-people and why so many people don’t want to go into sales.
How to lose weight:
1. Eat healthy.
2. Exercise.
It’s really not that hard. Avoid processed foods and garbage like sugar and calorie dense dressings. Drink a gallon of water a day. Eat whole grain carbs. Exercise 3 times a week. for an hour. Yes, that’s really all you have to do. It works every time.
Straight dieting tends to fail because people don’t exercise and the body’s metabolism slows down to go back to it’s old weight. That’s why you need to exercise to keep your metabolism at a higher rate. Removing sugar from your diet makes a big difference too. Assuming you haven’t just done a work out, it digests quickly and becomes fat about 20 minutes after consumption.
People fail at losing weight because they are ignorant, don’t have enough will power, or try to take a shortcut that doesn’t work. What I’ve written above works better than all those fad diets.
I’m not really suprised to hear that most bettors are winning their money back. A website can’t really show up at your house and demand that you step on the scales to prove you really lost the weight, can it?
Victor,
That is sound advice but your conclusion is very flawed. Just because it works for you does not mean it will work for everyone. I notice you do not even have in there “cut back on calories.” News flash, you will not lose weight if you do not cut down on calories, no matter how healthy you eat.
Lets see your study. Because I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests that does NOT work every time. For example, my wife eats under 1500 calories/day, uses software to verify that she is over 100% RDA in every nutrient, and works out over an hour a day 6 days/wk. While not overweight (towards the high end of normal), it has been over a year since she has lost any weight. Explain that. For some people, weight loss is hard.
She probably needs to add more saturated fat and cut out some sugar (grains, dairy, etc.). You may think I’m joking, but I’m not. Low fat/high grain diets are killing this country, spiking Type II diabetes rates and leading to lots more clogged arteries and heart problems.
Wow Victor, that’s all people have to do? It’s a revolution in dietary thought! Why hasn’t anyone ever mentioned that before? So in order to become healthy, one simply has to stop being unhealthy. You should really market that program.
I signed up for stickK account last month when the beta testing started, but forgot about it until reading this post. I want to lose about 30 pounds, and I think the prospect of forking over $500 per week to a group I oppose would be enough to make me lose a pound a week for 30 weeks.
I looked into setting up such a committment on stickK, but right now and for the forseeable future it’s a non-starter, since it would require my putting up the full risked amount, $15000, in advance.
Maybe there’s no better way to enforce the penalty than to require full payment up front, but for now there’s no way I can afford it.
Victor–you are right if you assume one extra thing that most people are afraid to admit–it’s possible to be big and healthy. I’m over 300lbs and yes, need to lose to regain my ideal BP, but overall, I’m a healthy woman. My doctors are in shock. That’s why I don’t get worked up about the pounds. I base my health on my BP, Glucose, and ability to keep up with two teenagers. So far, I’m doing great!