How I successfully replaced the $130/mo Omada weight loss program with a $60 WiFi scale and and a diet bet
A tech-supported no excuses weight loss program
Last April I took a chance on the online wellness and weight loss program, Omada. It was offered to me for free by my employer because my BMI is over the threshold for overweight and my cholesterol is high. I am passionate about health, and I thought, “why not give it a chance?”
The initial program was appealing. Nicely designed educational modules that are in line with current knowledge. An online coach to check in with me and help me set goals. A group to go through the program with. And, a connected scale to upload my daily weight to the cloud.
I was excited, and fully embraced the program. I looked forward to the new lessons each week, and engaged with my coach and my peers. But, something strange happened. As someone who had been successful with weight loss in the past, I was actually gaining weight on the Omada program.
This did not sit well with me. I decided to try something different. My weight had climbed steadily from an initial 190 to a peak of 200.6. Why was this happening? Wasn’t this program supposed to help me improve my health? Wasn’t I doing all the right things?
Motivation is everything
Long story short, I decided to take control and try a new approach. I had read that research shows that weighing every day can help you lose weight, but it works best if you don’t see the actual number each day. With my connected scale, I put electrical tape over the display, and decided to look at my weight trend and numbers once a week. The other thing I did was stop doing any of the formal Omada program. I stopped reading the modules. I stopped talking to my coach. I made a $200 bet with a friend of mine that I would get to and maintain my goal weight of 188lbs in eight weeks (losing an average of 1lb a week). If I didn’t make it, I would write him a check.
Magic started to happen. I call this the “tech supported no excuses weight loss program”. I chose $200 because it was a number I didn’t want to lose. I was motivated. Out to dinner and extra indulgence had to be counterbalanced with an extra trip to the gym or a day of fasting. Any excess had to be thrown overboard. I even had to make it through Thanksgiving and our office Christmas party, where I was preparing prime rib that I love.
Not only did I reach my goal with this new approach, but I beat it by a reasonable margin. By my deadline, I had been as low as 182.5, and on the final day I was under my goal by more than 2lbs.
What did I learn? Motivation is everything. I simply didn’t have enough riding on it with the Omada program. Not enough skin in the game. I was playing, but I wasn’t playing to win. Can the program be successful for others? I’m sure it can. Maybe I’m a one-off. Yet for me, the take home message is that I didn’t need an expensive fancy program to succeed, I just needed to align my efforts with something I was truly passionate about.
Since my experiment, I’ve gradually started to gain some weight again. I thought that might happen since the bet was over. I haven’t approached my peak again from October, but the weight is creeping back on. So, what’s next? I need to make another bet and figure out how to make these results sustainable.
On a final note, something else I learned is that the program that works best for me can be done much less expensively than through Omada. The Omada course is $130/mo all in, for a total of $1,560 for a year. I just got a Nokia/Withings WiFi scale for $60 that I can use without a subscription indefinitely, and cooking up my next bet with a friend to keep me on track. Even if I lose $200 in eight weeks, I’m still under the cost of the Omada price, and the money goes to someone I know. That feels great!
