Story Created:
Mar 5, 2008 at 1:30 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Mar 5, 2008 at 1:36 PM EDT
(CBS) Each year Americans spend billions of dollars to battle the bulge, many of them unsuccessfully.
Now there's a new website designed to help you lose weight, and if you don't reach your goal, it will cost you.
People who have trouble taking off the pounds may not have enough to lose.
"Is eating a donut today worth $50?” asked Erin Finnegan. “Because that's what it may cost at the end of the week.”
Finnegan has tried everything to reach what she considers her ideal weight. Losing the last ten pounds has been nearly impossible.
"Every pound you lose it is like you lose a pound of motivation,” she said.
She's now trying a radical approach at StickK.com, a free website where you bet your hard-earned cash you'll meet your goal.
It can be anything from kicking a bad habit to losing weight. If you succeed you get the money back. If you fail, a charity, friend or anyone you choose cashes in.
“We think money and reputation are really, really big motivating forces in getting people to change their behavior,” explained StickK.com co-founder and CEO Jordan Goldberg.
Americans who go to gyms spend on average $55 a month on membership fees. But for many of them, that's not enough of a motivator to come in and pick up the weights. Signing up — and ponying up — creates the incentive many need.
The Yale professors behind the website believe it works because the stick is often more effective than the carrot.
"This entire approach is a way of bringing the cost more forward to kind of help people really feel the pain immediately from failing to achieve their goals,” explained StickK.com co-founder Dean Karlan.
If Erin doesn't lose those final ten pounds by April, she stands to lose $600.
"I am really looking forward to getting the $600 dollars back,” she said.
Erin says she will meet her goal, now that she's putting her money where her mouth is.
