How To Lose Weight And Make Money

Ever wondered if you can get paid to lose weight?

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You may be looking to live a healthier lifestyle or looking to fit into your old clothes; whatever your reason for losing weight, we can all agree that it's a difficult journey, and sometimes we all need a little extra push to motivate us.

Money can be a great motivator for doing something very challenging, and app creators have caught on to this, developing apps that pay participants for losing weight.

Enter Social Dieting

Exercise and diet are two weight loss words that don't inspire a lot of people.

From a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that followed more than 48,000 participants from 1999 to 2016, the percentage of people who tried to lose weight reached 42.2%, but the participants' average weight and BMI increased as well (Source).

According to Colorado State University Extension, around 50 million Americans go on a diet every year, but only 5% actually manage to keep the weight off.

Changing cultural norms are contributing to both the increase in obesity and BMI and the difficulty of losing weight and keeping it off.

Increasing restaurant portions and sedentary behavior are now more common, and crossing through to obesity causes metabolic abnormalities that make it hard to lose weight.

But what if you could turn weight loss into a game and get a chance to win a pot of gold at the finish line? Would you join to lose the pounds?

Well, guess what? There are a number of ways you could earn cash on the side from losing weight; one program even pays over $3,000.

This is why social dieting apps like DietBet and Healthy Wage are becoming increasingly popular.

What is social dieting?

It's where dieting is a group-focused activity rather than a solitary one.

You lose weight with other people, such as your family members, friends, or just random folks online.

Through a combination of community support and some peer pressure, you end up more committed to losing weight within a set period of time.

Oh, and then there's the money. You bet a certain amount of your own cash, say $100, and if you achieve a defined weight loss goal, you make back your initial investment and then some.

There are usually no stipulations about how you lose weight.

However, most of these weight-loss betting sites do host forums and other member communities where participants support each other in their weight loss goals.

Here's what Sue had to say about her weight loss bet on Healthy Wage:

I was skeptical at first, but after thoroughly researching it, there just didn't seem to be a downside. If I stayed on track, I'd win; it was that simple. The 10% weight loss over six months was both achievable and healthy. And who better to bet on than myself – right?

I had no intention of losing my initial $150 bet, so I jumped in with both feet and never looked back. On August first, I had surpassed my goal of 26.9 lbs. and lost 78 lbs. By August third, I had a $300 deposit in my PayPal account.

Since her Healthy Wage challenge, Sue has continued losing weight and, at this point in time, is down at least 124 lbs compared to when she initially started on her weight loss goal.

Erin Wright participated in two Healthy Wage challenges and said the following,

I started the 10% 6 month challenge and the 1 year BMI challenge on the same day. The 10% challenge was a $100 payout and the BMI challenge was a $300 payout. I think I lost 36 lbs the first 6 months and won $200. At the end of the year I had lost 69 lbs., with my BMI below 25, and won $1,000, for a net win of $800.

Diet Bet is another get paid to lose weight site where participants form betting pools.

The amount of money that can be made depends on the number of people in the pool; the bigger the pool, the bigger the pot of money that can be won.

However, if the challenge is an easy one and there are several winners in the pool, there's less money to be won.

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Amy Oztan of Amy Ever After tried DietBet for several weight-loss bets. Here's what she had to say about the program:

For the second and third DietBet I (and about 20 participants) put up $50. If I remember correctly, most of us on the second bet met our goals, so we each got our money back plus about twelve dollars and change. I did not win the third DietBet – I think I had to lose about 7.5 pounds, and I actually lost about five. The $50 was not enough of a risk to really matter on its own.

A better motivator was saving face with my friends. I knew everyone doing those DietBets, and I wanted to be accountable to them. However, I don't think that *just* the friend angle would have done it either. It was both the money and saving face. Putting your money where your mouth is, I guess.

How do you find a legitimate way to get paid to lose weight?

Given the testimonials I collected, it seemed to me that these weight-loss betting sites seem legitimate. To better understand how to know if a weight-loss betting site is legitimate, I talked with Anna T. of Real Ways to Earn Money Online.

She had this to say:

To determine whether or not a site is legit, you should carefully research its reputation. Most of the time when people have been ripped off, they are going to make some noise about it online. It's a good idea to type in the company name followed by the word "scam" on Google or another search engine to see what results populate.

If you discover that the site has an overall positive online presence and that it's been discussed favorably on reputable online magazine sites, blogs, or forums, that's a good indicator that it's not a scam.

I would also suggest doing a Whois search on the domain to try and find out who's behind the site and when it was created. If you can find out who is behind the site, you can research that person through Google in the same manner that you researched the site itself.

What about staying honest?

It would be easy for anyone to say that he or she weighs 300 lbs. now and then "lose" a quick 150 lbs. in the space of 6 months (it just melted right off!).

To maintain honesty, the aforementioned weight-loss betting programs do require that you are officially weighed when you start and end your program.

Official weights can be recorded in a doctor's clinic, a gym, or your own home. DietBet, for example, has members take before and after photos of themselves standing on a scale in front of a full-length mirror.

11 Sites and Apps That Pay You to Lose Weight

I've rounded up 11 different sites that all offer you the chance to get paid to lose weight.

Join one or join them all. Either way, put forth the effort to live a more healthy lifestyle and you can be rewarded while doing so!

1. Healthy Wage

Launched in 2009, HealthyWage began hosting weight loss challenges in the corporate world and government. Soon after, the program became available to everyone online.

HealthyWage follows a cool concept – you put in at least $20 per month and bet against yourself to lose weight.

Healthy Wage Bet

Once the challenge ends and you lost your goal weight, you earn over 200% of your invested bets. You can even play around with HealthyWage's calculator to check how much you could win for 10 to 200 pounds of weight loss within a span of 6 to 18 months.

Aside from individual bets, you can also participate in up to ten different challenges. You can form a team of five and compete with other teams to win higher prizes, or you can participate in individual or team step challenges, where you need to hit a certain number of steps per day to win prizes.

What's awesome about HealthyWage?

There are a lot of success stories. It's been featured in many shows, including Good Morning America, The Washington Post, Woman's Day, Today Show, and more.

2. DietBet

DietBet members also rely on financial incentives for motivation.

Consider it a massive community of "The Biggest Loser" contestants competing online. The coolest thing about DietBet is that members can create their own games and keep them private among family and friends, who can join in on the fun. DietBet will just do the tracking and data stuff for you.

On DietBet, members get to choose which games they wish to join (depending on the pot, lengsth of the challenges, number of participants, and more).

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Every participant then wages a bet, begins the competition, weighs in regularly, and completes the game.

At the end of the game, DietBet keeps 10% to 25% of the pot raised, then whoever lost 4% of their body weight from the initial weigh-in to final weigh-in gets to split the pot.

Note that if a pot reaches $25,000 and about 200 of all 250 participants lose 4% by the end of the game, everyone who wins only gets to take home $90 to $110 each (depending on how much cut DietBet gets out of the pot).

Not much of a gym person? DietBet also has its own "step challenge" to encourage walking, so if you're interested, head over to its sister site StepBet.

3. FatBet

FatBet isn't the most visually appealing website around, but it serves its purpose well.

Anyone can start a FatBet, set weight loss goals, set wager, fill out the dates, and ask people they know to join the challenge. From there, everyone who participates can track their personal progress. Once the FatBet ends, participants who reach their goals win, and those who don't pay the wager.

The platform of FatBet is straightforward.

Every FatBet only shows progress charts of participants, details of the FatBet wager, and their very own community board where bragging and smack talk among family and friends often occurs.

4. Stickk.com

Stickk isn't just about losing weight—it encourages people to take up healthy habits such as quitting smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining weight, preparing for a race, or other custom commitments.

Anyone can create their goals, set the stakes, assign a referee, and sign the contract.

If you don't meet the goal within the time period you set, the money you placed could go to a recipient of your choice. Some people even assign an enemy as their recipient as extra motivation to beat the challenge.

If you meet your goal, there are no other prizes, except for the fact that you won and you'll keep your money. The smallest wager, or what Stickk calls "the price of failure," you could set is at $5.

5. Achievement

Achievement is an app-based program that lets you connect over 40 fitness trackers and apps, such as Fitbit, Samsung Health, Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, and more.

You don't exactly get paid to lose weight on this platform, but you do get paid for doing physical activities, such as walking, exercising, or working out at a gym. Health-related activities, such as dieting and sleeping for a certain number of hours are also paid.

Members are able to earn points from completing healthy activities you're already doing.

You can also participate in studies and surveys, which gets you extra points as well. It may not be a lot, but you can exchange 10,000 points for $10.

6. FitCoin

FitCoin is unique in that instead of having you bet a certain amount to win prizes or a jackpot, FitCoin pays you in Bitcoin, according to how hard you work and how much you commit to a specific physical activity.

You'll need to download the FitCoin app, sync it to your fitness trackers or devices with a heart rate functionality.

The FitCoin app then records how long you did the activity and how fast your heart rate went up to.

Then, it will credit your Bitcoin wallet with an amount proportional to the amount of energy you spent doing that physical activity.

So of all the apps here, here's how you actually get paid to lose weight.

7. Sweatcoin

Similar to Fitcoin, Sweatcoin pays you in cryptocurrency called Sweatcoin every time you walk. You can then spend your Sweatcoins on products that encourage your overall well-being, such as athletic wear, paid fitness apps, and fitness trackers.

Sweatcoin claims to help its users become 20% more active, even months after they've enrolled.

8. Virgin Pulse

If you work for a company that has a corporate wellness program, Virgin Pulse can be a great option for you.

Virgin Pulse offers an employee wellbeing solution to help employees improve their overall wellbeing.

You can get paid to lose weight by competing and winning challenges and getting cash prizes.

9. AARP Rewards

Score points every time you do an AARP Rewards activity that's fitness-related, such as taking health quizzes, taking a certain number of steps a day, and syncing your fitness tracker with the AARP Rewards app.

You can trade in the points you earn for sweepstakes entries, gift cards, and charity donations.

If you're an AARP member, you'll earn points 50% faster.

10. SwagBucks

If you're not yet on SwagBucks, you're missing out on every reward you could've earned from searching the web, playing games online, watching videos, taking surveys, signing up to programs, shopping from big retailers like Walmart or Amazon, and more.

If you're trying to lose weight, you should check out SwagBucks fitness videos collection and earn rewards from following one of the workout videos available there.

11. myWalgreens

If you shop at Walgreens, you'd love to know that the company offers rewards whenever you complete a healthy goal.

Earn points when you weigh in, connect a gadget or app, monitor blood pressure, quit smoking, and more. Then, you can redeem points for rewards.

As you can see, the focus is on encouraging not just losing weight but also making healthy lifestyle choices.

2 Other Ways To Get Paid To Lose Weight

The above apps aren't your only options to make money from working out and leading a healthy lifestyle.

Here are a couple more ways to get paid to lose weight.

12. Start a Group Challenge with your family and friends

The simplest way to earn while losing weight is to start a group challenge with your family, friends, colleagues, or social media friends.

This is pretty straightforward: form a group of at least 5 members, throw in at least $20 each, and whoever loses the most weight within a certain number of days will win the entire pot.

It's diet betting without the app.

Of course, proof of weight, ground rules, timeline, and payment methods and terms will have to be determined by the group in consensus.

Doing this with people whom you know and trust should make it easier for you to be committed to achieving your goals, as well as motivating each other.

Also, if everyone you know is leading a healthy lifestyle, it becomes easier for all of you to lead a healthy lifestyle, even after the wagers have ended.

13. Get Paid To Walk

If dieting and exercise are big struggles for you and you'd like to start small, try going for short walks instead just to jumpstart your energy.

Then, read our list of taking a walk and choose one or a few so that even when you're inexperienced and only just starting, you can start making money.

So, can you really get paid to lose weight?

Getting paid to lose weight may sound too good to be true, but hopefully, I've convinced you otherwise with this list.

I know losing weight can be a difficult process. These financial incentives can increase your motivation to stick to your goals for a certain amount of time.

But eventually, the motivation from the financial incentive will wear off. If you truly want to keep the weight off, you'll have to constantly work at it and develop healthy eating, exercise, and lifestyle habits.

Which app/s are you likely to use to lose weight? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and let us know how your weight loss journey is going!