How to Lose Weight During the Holidays — And Get Paid for Doing So: Do a Healthy Wage 12-Week Challenge

Update 10/1/19: The holidays are closer, but Jackpot Challenges at Healthy Wage are always available! Read on to find out more about them!

So we have about 8 weeks to go before the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend and 12 weeks to go before Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Before last year, when I had no control over my weight and hovered around 300 pounds, I would worry about getting through the holiday season without gaining even more weight. But last year, I got things under control and actually lost weight during the final two months of the year.

In January, I looked for ways to keep my momentum going. That is when I learned of Healthy Wage.

Healthy Wage is a company that will pay you money for keeping a weight loss commitment. You have to make an investment — you can call it a wager or a bet, if you like — and if you hit your goal they will return your investment with a handsome return. They have been in business since 2009 and have a stellar rating with the Better Business Bureau. And they are very fair in their dealings with users, based on my personal experience and that of folks in social media forums I participate in.

While the HealthyWager* is the signature service of Healthy Wage — a customized, 6-to-18 month wager that can pay off hundreds or thousands of dollars — what I want to tell you about here is the 12-week jackpot challenges.

At least twice a week, Healthy Wage starts a 12-week jackpot challenge, where you need to lose 6% of your starting weight during that time to win a piece of the pot. That’s 0.5% of your starting weight lost, on average, every week — a very moderate rate of weight loss for most people.

The challenges cost between $30 and $100 each to join. If you win, you can expect to get that money back, plus another 30% to 65% in interest, depending on the cost — this was my personal experience with nearly 20 challenges that I enrolled in this year. That’s much better return than any bank will offer. At my blog I describe how you can take $250 and invest it in four challenges, staggered over a two-week period; and have it grow to around $350 three months later.

If you have a plan to stay on track during the 12 weeks, it is more reliable than any Wall Street stock investment will be. That means getting through Thanksgiving weekend without being derailed by eating too much of the stereotypical Thanksgiving fare. (My plan for this Thanksgiving involves heavy substitution of greens for starches, low-carb desserts in lieu of pecan and pumpkin pie, and moderation of everything.)

It also means navigating through office parties and potlucks in the month of December (water, protein, and tunnel vision are essential for me in dealing with these).

If you need help with diet and exercise strategies and tactics, you can find plenty of it in Facebook support groups — there are many available.

If you join one or more of these challenges now — in the final weeks of September — you can expect to get paid around New Year’s Day. Although that’s a bit after Santa comes and goes, remember that the 6% weight loss will be yours by the time you sit down to Christmas dinner (hopefully full of healthy foods), and mingle at Christmas and New Year’s parties.

It’s 12 weeks from now — and people are going to see the results. That will work out favorably for you. Especially if there’s mistletoe to hang out under.

*All links marked with an asterisk (including this one*) are my affiliate links to the HealthyWager calculator. If you sign up for a HealthyWager using one of those links, I get a commission. The 22-week challenges are fabulous, but the HealthyWager is where you go to get properly rewarded for long-term weight loss.

If you need help setting up a HealthyWager and navigating the calculator, please reach out to me or visit my blog for detailed information on the HealthyWager and the calculator. I really enjoy helping people out on that stuff.

Note: Using the links will add money to your prize if you win — the boost is $40 and is generally available year-round. If you have friends or family in Healthy Wage already, you should request a referral link from them to help them out; but if you don’t, you can get a prize boost from the link above — or this one.