TGIF – An Irrational Way To Lose Weight

As the week winds down, we wind down with some tidbits for your information, education, health, and enjoyment.

Quote of the Week: “When people tell me they can’t afford to join a gym, I tell them to go outside; planet Earth is a gym and we’re already members. Run, climb, sweat, and enjoy all of the natural wonder that is available to you.”  Steve Maraboli

Humor Break: (Today’s humor is dedicated to all of you who have spent years dieting.)

Al: Bev, look at you.  You weight the same as you did 20 years ago.

Bev: That may be, but during that time I’ve lost 215 pounds.

Stat of the Week: 13.1 pounds if you think you will win the lottery; 14 pounds if you think you have to pay out; nada if you follow normal diet patterns.  Crazy experiments from behavioral economists trying to identify effective obesity treatments: “Can monetary incentives stimulate weight loss? In this study, participants were randomly divided into three groups: one in which they played a lottery and received earnings if they achieved or lost more than the target weight, one in which they invested their own money and lost if they failed to achieve weight goals, and one in which no intervention was made (the control group). The incentive groups lost significantly more weight. The research demonstrates that the use of economic incentives produced significant weight loss during the 16 weeks of intervention.”  The problem that still perplexes these psychological behavioral obesity economists isn’t how to trim down.  It is, as always, how to keep it off.  I expect they will tackle that expansive problem next.

Action Tip: The moral of this story is this: If you really want to lose weight, put your wallet where you stomach is.  Loss aversion is a powerful motivator.

Self-Development Corner: Speaking (well, writing) of healthy diets, there is a summer school program on healthy living along with other free on-line courses from Coursera beginning next week: Nutrition for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (June 24, 6 weeks, UC San Francisco); The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness (June 24, 6 weeks, University of Toronto).

If you are like most of us, speaking in public does not come easily: Introduction to Public Speaking (June 24, 10 weeks, University of Washington).

For those with interests in computers: Computer Networks (June 24, 12 weeks, University of Washington); Software Defined Networking (June 24, 6 weeks, Georgia Tech).

And finally, maybe summer is the right time to indulge in a little personal interest or hobby: The Camera Never Lies (June 24, 6 weeks, University of London).

Happy learning!

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.