I’ve been struggling lately with fitting exercise and healthier eating into my life. Add kids and a full-time job to my fondness for for sleep, TV and a daily glass of wine, and going on a run often falls by the wayside.

Just yesterday I was thinking about how the only time in my life that I’ve successfully made working out a priority is in the months leading up to my wedding. My incentive: Looking fabulous in my pricey dress in front of 150 people.

Since then, few incentives look as good as a second piece of carrot cake (man, I’d better get to the point before I sound any more like Cathy).

Enter Stikk.com — a web site created by Yale economists after they successfully lost weight and kept it off by promising each other half a year’s worth of salary if they failed. When I came across this LA Times opinon piece written in January by one of the founders, I hung on every word. Here’s the site’s philosophy:

The concept is grounded on two well-known principles of behavioral economics: (1) people don’t always do what they claim they want to do, and (2) incentives get people to do things.

Here’s the deal. I sign up and make a commitment to exercise regularly, lose a certain amount of weight, even vote. I can make up a commitment of any kind and register it with Stikk.

If I keep my commitment, then good for me. I don’t spend a penny (the site is free). If I fail, then the money I’ve pledged, whether it’s $5 or $500, is transferred to the chum or charity of my choice.

I can pick a referee to monitor my every move and can e-mail friends so they can keep tabs of my progress.

I think it’s a cool concept. So here’s what I’m thinking. Send me an e-mail (kara@startribune.com, subject line: Stikk) and I’ll invite you to watch my progress. If I fail to exercise four times a week for 30 minutes at a time for the next 12 weeks, I’ll randomly pick one of those e-mail address owners to receive my pool of cash. I’m pledging $20 a week, for $240. Call it Kara’s exercise stimulus package.

If looking good in front of 150 people was incentive enough, looking bad in front of all of you should get my feet moving.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Kara\'s finances, deal of the week, online tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.