incentives

So after reading about some economists who decided to use economic theory to

loose weight I have decided to follow suit. They both decided to loose a

certain amount of weight by a certain time and places $5000 in a bond.

Whoever didn't make the weight lost their portion of the money to the other

person. The idea was to affect behavior through an incentive that

was significant. Well, I'm not a well paid economist, but I have decided to

follow their example.

A couple of years ago, back in 2004, my weight had leveled out at 80kg. I

kept a daily record as part of a climbing training log, and it actually

varied over the year between 77.4 and 80.6 depending on how much climbing

i'd been doing.

Then I moved to The Netherlands and within 18 months had put on 15 kg.

Welll, I'm back down to 85, but those last 5kg have been hell to get rid of,

so tonight I made a bet with my girlfriend. If I don't lose those 5kg within

5 months then I pay her 400 british pounds sterling. That gives me until the

1st of August.

I reckon I need to run/walk about 100 kms a month to hit the target. I'm

already walking 3km a day to work, and 3 back again. If I were to walk to

work every day that would already be close to 120 km, so it's within the

realm of possibility. Even more so if I can stop having those sneaky beers

in the evening.

Spurred on by this new motivation I just went for a 6.6 km run, phew.

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