Commitment device weight loss
But you probably also want to keep your job and stay out of divorce court. 21 2011 12:46 PM. Maybe a newfangled pedometer is called for — something like an electronic ankle bracelet (think Disturbia, if you must) that not only measures your steps but also gives a little electric shock when you spend too much time on the couch. Odysseus may have been the first practitioner of the precommitment device. The voucher can be then augmented and used to purchase travel through the travel service. Jan. The adventures of one real-life minder, however embellished, even became the basis of a TV show, The Cleaner. As his ship approached the Sirens, he was determined to hear their song without, well, going overboard. At the end of the 4 months members are again weighed. I have designed and have patent pending on a commitment device for weight loss. Most commitment techniques—including marriage—are just too easily circumvented. Slate Moneybox Commentary about business and finance. Each member purchases a share of a travel voucher and signs a contract for weight loss. The first known practitioner of such voluntary bondage was wily Odysseus, en route home from the Trojan War. And all of us prefer some of our desires to others. It turns out that if you give someone a pedometer, especially if you give them a goal for how many steps they should be taking in a day, the results are pretty wondrous. The service serves as a referee for the group. For obvious reasons these latter desires are the ones you prefer. It is a travel club that requires its members to lose a designated weight to travel.
Precommitment works by putting the wrong choice beyond reach. An article in the current Journal of the American Medical Association highlights a far less invasive commitment device: the pedometer. On Wednesday, for example, looking ahead, you order a nice healthy salad to be delivered Thursday—and then you eat it at your desk, far from any sources of gin or vermouth. No matter what you hear in there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door or you will undo everything I have worked for. We recently wrote about the use of commitment devices in weight loss, particularly the recent spike in bariatric surgery. Now the members must lose a designated weight in a set time - say 15 lbs in 4 month. The results suggest that the use of a pedometer is associated with significant increases in physical activity and significant decreases in body mass index and blood pressure. While advocates can make a strong argument in favor of the surgery, especially for the morbidly obese, it is obviously a pretty drastic resort. His actions in this instance set the standard for all who would later enlist others to compel themselves to follow their own commands. Whether these changes are durable over the long term is undetermined. But of course you could still ignore the salad on the desk and go out and drink your lunch, or you could take the radioactive sister-in-law to a concert. The voucher is divided among those members who made weight. Once you become aware of precommitment (the term was coined by economist Robert Strotz in 1956), it crops up everywhere. Following World War I, a disillusioned Ludwig Wittgenstein took great pains to give away his fortune irrevocably, just as armies in the past have burned their boats to make retreat impossible. The long term, unobserved, is another matter entirely. People have all kinds of desires, of course—even boring people like me, for whom a midlife crisis means not a red sports car but a nifty new Apple router. Which is probably why bariatric surgery, which is as close to a permanent commitment device as you can get, will continue to rise.
