Is a sincere desire to lose weight enough? Not for some. But what if you had to wager some real money on it? Cold hard cash to shrink your arse. Would you pass on the fries with your sandwich at lunch? How about ditch your midday latte if it cost you $100 instead of $3? Where are we going with this? Put your money where your fork goes.

Economist Ian Ayres shares, "My personal experience with dieting has followed a similar pattern. Like many others, I went from being a skinny twenty-something who couldn’t gain weight to a forty-something who couldn’t keep it off. In the last decade, I’ve yoyo-ed several times. I’d take off a bunch a weight, but by the end of the year I’d put it all back on plus a little extra."

That all changed this last year, when Ian did something different. He put $500 a week on safely losing and keeping off the extra pounds he wanted to shed. Ian committed to losing a pound a week or else he lost MONEY! Once Ian reached his goal he had to maintain his weight loss below an agreed target.

Ian says his plan may seem expensive but in contrast to many weight loss plans this way has actually cost him nothing. Ian shares, "For me, it’s been surprisingly easy — five hundred bucks is a lot of money. And while the prospect of losing 25 pounds is daunting, it’s not that hard to lose a pound a week when the alternative is to lose $500."

Ian turned to a commitment monitoring program he helped create called StickK. "With StickK, it’s actually relatively easy to keep your commitments – especially if you put enough at risk, or if you designate an anti-charity to get your money if you fail. The harder part is getting yourself to make the binding resolution. Some people are reluctant to enter into a contract that commits them to real change."

Does this intrigue you? It may be just what your wallet ordered. It's easy to say you want to lose 2 pounds a week for 2 months. But if a thousand dollars were on the table would you be more likely to StickK to it? We LOVE this!

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