HealthyWage was formed in 2009 with the idea of offering cash incentives to folks to lose weight. The idea is that people will have a double incentive to lose weight – the fact that they are putting money on the line which they lose if they don’t lose the weight and the fact that, if they lose the weight, they stand to earn additional money.

I’ve done this in the past when I was young and pinching every penny, and it worked great. I believe it was just three of us at work, with a ten week challenge and each contributing $1.00 a week. I took the challenge seriously and won the $30 pot.

I’ve been distracted from paying attention to my health, but was saddened to realize that I had moved north of 200 lbs – a bit too much on my 5’4″ frame. I can’t even remember how Healthy Wage came to my attention, but I thought it would be a great thing to do. And I can attest that there are several times when I’ve been able to say “no” in social situations where previously I would have allowed myself to be persuaded to simply join in and eat as others were doing.

Eating Less and Exercising More

The classic model is that the food you eat fuels the activity you perform. If you eat more, you should be moving more to burn off the excess fuel, or the body will store it as fat. Across a day or two, weight can vary for other reasons, and a body under stress can either retain weight despite exercise or shed weight despite inactivity. But over the course of months, the balance of activity and intake/eating will move the dial.

For my part, I have decided to use Slimfast as my diet of choice. I’ve got quite a stash of the powder from a prior attempt to diet, when I had put in a standing order to have the stuff shipped from Walgreens.

The problem was, how to best prepare the shakes? That’s where the whiskballs come in. You can get these nifty little whisk balls online for about a dollar apiece.

 

 

While people are pleased to sell you special containers, these work just fine in Mason jars. I find that the pint jars are perfect. I pop in a whisk, pour in a cup of cold milk, add the powder, cap it, swirl, then shake. This prevents clumps of moistened Slimfast sludge from remaining on the edges of the container. I find that the pint jars are large enough to get a good shake while also being small enough to fit a couple in most insulated lunch bags.

Fixing the shakes this way is inexpensive, fast, and results in a cold, creamy, thick shake. I’ve got one of the thermal lunchboxes with zippered panels for ice pouches, so I can keep the shakes cold all day long. I just toss in a couple of extra 100 calorie “snacks” as recommended in the Slimfast plan, then have a modest serving of dinner with the family.

I know some people would balk at having “the same” food for breakfast and lunch day in and day out. But it’s a little more fun when “the same” food is a cold, thick, creamy chocolate shake….

So I started at nominally 203 lbs in August. It will be interesting to see where I am in three months and nine months…