HealthyWage Review: Win Money While Getting In Shape
Everybody’s trying to lose weight, but so many struggle to drop the pounds and keep them off.
This fact combined with the spread of mobile technology has revolutionized the weight loss industry by providing extra motivation to shed extra weight.
From FitBits to iPhone apps, it’s not that hard to find something that will help you reach your goals and hold you accountable.
One company in this space is HealthyWage. HealthyWage uses cash prizes to encourage fitness and weight loss.
Today, let’s look at why you should consider using HealthyWage to pocket some extra money and get in killer shape.
Two Incentives Are Better Than One
Weight loss is a huge industry. Everybody wants to have a lean, toned, good-looking body.
But of course, winning money is fun too!
HealthyWage happens to sit at the intersection of these two things. By gamifying weight loss (in other words, using gaming aspects like challenges and rewards), HealthyWage creates a huge motivation to lose weight.
The theory boils down to this: by putting your money on the line and having a shot at a huge cash prize, there’s no way you WON’T get to your goal.
And it works.
A schoolteacher and football coach tried out HealthyWage and ended up winning $1,500 for losing over 100 pounds! Read all about it here: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/15/463071516/place-a-bet-on-your-weight-loss-goal-and-you-may-win-twice
That’s some serious cash for doing nothing but improving your health!
How Healthy Wage Works
1: Check out the HealthyWage Prize Calculator
The Healthywage prize calculator will let you pick how much weight you want to lose (which must be at least 10% of your starting weight), the amount of money you are willing to bet that you lose that weight (there is a $5 per month minimum and a $995 per month maximum), and finally the time you need to hit your goal (6-18 months).
You can play around with all of the numbers in the HealthyWage calculator to see how much you can win. The max amount of money you can win is $10,000 – which is a pretty sweet deal!
2: Sign Up
Go ahead and sign up for an account. Prior to gaining access to the backend of the website you’ll be prompted to answer a few questions about your age, weight, and height.
3: Verify Your Starting Weight
Before you start working out and eating right, you will need to verify your weight. You do this before the competition and then a second time after the competition is complete. Simply follow the instructions and verify your weight by uploading the video via the HealthyWage website.
4: Win Money
If you successfully complete your weight loss goal, HealthyWage will pay you in cash! If you don’t your month payments are used to pay out the winners.
The Power Of Friendly Competition
Going it alone can be tough sometimes.
Although it’s important to be self-motivated, that isn’t always enough. Accountability and competition can really bring out the best in people.
HealthyWage knows this, and adds a sense of competition to your weight loss efforts.
Whether you want to beat others in a friendly competition or just compete with yourself, HealthyWage gives you options so that you can earns some extra cash and get in shape.
HealthyWage offers many types of challenges. Let’s take a look at each one.
$10,000 Team Challenge
On of HealthyWage’s most popular challenges is the $10,000 Team Challenge.
Sound simple?
Well it is, but I’ll explain.
How This One Works
The challenge consists of teams of five competing against each other to see who can lose the most of weight.
Can’t find four other people that want to lose weight and win money?
No worries!
This challenge gives you three options:
- You have a team of five and you’re the one registering (aka create a new team)
- You have a teammate that already registered (aka join an existing team)
- You don’t have a team (in which case the app will pair you with others)
Whether you have a team or not, the app will help you join another team so you can participate. I think HealthyWage goes above and beyond other weight loss challenge companies by putting in every effort to allow you to participate.
All it takes is a $33/month commitment and you can start competing against other teams.
The HealthyWager
Fancy yourself a lone wolf? This challenge might suit you better than the aforementioned team challenge.
When registering for the HealthyWager, you’re taken to a screen that lets you set the amount of weight you’re aiming to lose. The potential payout changes based on how much weight you choose – more weight lost means more money gained.
On this first screen you’ll be able to program how many months it’ll take to get to your goal weight as well as choose the amount of cash you’d like to wager each month.
After that, you’re taken through a series of screens and prompted to enter data about gender, height, weight, and waist size. You then give them your e-mail address and create a password so that you’re account can be finalized. Your potential earnings amount will be sent to the e-mail your provide.
If you don’t like the idea of competing against others, then this challenge might suit you better. The only competition you have in the HealthyWager is yourself.
Jackpot Challenges
In the Jackpot Challenges, everybody wins.
There are a multitude of challenges to choose from, but the goal remains the same: lose at least 6% of your weight.
Jackpot Challenges come in both Personal Jackpot and Team Jackpot forms, allowing you to choose whether you want to team up or go it solo.
Each Jackpot challenge has different date ranges and entry fees, but the goal remains the same for each one: lose 6% of your weight (either individually or on average as a team).
Step Challenges
The Step Challenge is more self-explanatory.
For Step Challenges, each participant or team has to increase their steps by a certain percentage in order to win.
It’s like a FitBit that pays you!
Win Money AND Recognition At Work
HealthyWage isn’t just for individuals and small teams; they also partner with large employers in both the public and private sectors to develop outcome-based initiatives and challenges.
They claim to have worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies and have experienced huge amounts of success.
Domino’s Pizza is one example of such a large employer.
According to this article (https://healthywage.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hwemployeebenefitsnews2.pdf), Domino’s has hired HealthyWage multiple times due to the huge success of their wellness initiatives across the entire company.
If your company works with HealthyWage, take advantage: not only will you win money and get healthy, but you could be recognized in your office for your achievements!
A Few Slight Problems…
Although it is a fantastic concept, HealthyWage isn’t without fault.
Yes, people should try to maintain a healthy weight. Staying within a healthy weight range can reduce/prevent all sorts of diseases and keep you looking young. And from a pragmatic standpoint, it’s true that gamifying weight loss can help people maintain a healthy lifestyle.
But paying people to lose weight is more akin to a bandaid than an actual solution to their problems.
Think about it: what happens when you take that money motivator away? Many people may lose the one thing that was motivating them to stay healthy. Their old habits may slowly return, eventually leading them to the same unhealthy weight from before.
A short-term plan to lose weight may work in the short-term.
But a lifestyle change is the only thing that will bring about lasting results.
But It’s Better Than Nothing
Of course, this isn’t a problem exclusive to HealthyWage. Any time external motivation is used to push people towards a goal, it’s harder to make the results last.
Motivation has to be intrinsic in order to bring about permanent results.
But we left out one thing: once you lose all that weight, your quality of life may drastically improve in ways like:
- Being able to fit into your old clothes
- Having more energy
- Increased confidence
- Better mood
- Improved health
So while gamifying weight loss comes with it’s problems, you will most likely gain the intrinsic motivation necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle for the long-term.
When we were reviewing HealthyWage, we found that HealthyWage prevents your old habits from coming back is by offering weigh-ins long after the challenge is complete. They will pay back your entry fee if you keep manage to keep the off weight you’ve lost for an extended period of time after finishing the challenge.
Again, that may just extend the “bandaid” solution of gamifying weight loss, but it could also help contestants stick to a healthy lifestyle long enough that it becomes second nature.
No One’s Forcing You To Do This
Yet another solution to the “bandaid” problem is a lack of hand-holding.
HealthyWage isn’t forcing you to do anything. It’s up to you to put your money on the line, choose your goals, stick to your plan, and even conduct your weigh-ins.
This ensures that the people doing HealthyWage challenges will make lifestyle changes: since it’s up to you to do everything, anyone who does the challenge will be force themselves into a better lifestyle.
It’s up to you to do all these things to get healthy, so you’ll adopt healthy habits.
HealthyWage doesn’t provide you with a diet or exercise regimen. There isn’t some “HealthyWage 30 Days to Lose 30 Pounds” plan that you have to follow.
HealthyWage simply exists to reward those who are willing to put in some hard work to make lasting change. If you want to get some inspiration and see what others are doing, head on over the HealthyWage Facebook Page.
Thin Out Your Body And Fatten Your Wallet
These days, there are so many easy ways to earn extra cash.
But what better way to pad your bank account than by getting in shape?
While not without faults, I think that HealthyWage provides you a great incentive to get yourself into killer shape while also helping you out financially. Plus, the friendly competition aspect makes it even more fun.
So if you want to bank some extra money while looking and feeling good, I highly recommend signing up for a HealthyWage challenge and giving it a shot!