Remember my fitness plan? Here are the results I’m after: Long term, I want to be safe and fit enough to enjoy cycling, hiking, and skiing. Short term, I want to complete and enjoy a half marathon in June, to weigh 180 pounds by then, and to summit two of the highest peaks in Utah this summer.

My vital behaviors include 50 pushups a day and an hour of aerobic exercise five days a week. I’ve been at it since late March, and I want to report some good news and some bad news.

• Good news: I’m sticking to the vital behaviors pretty well. I always do my pushups, and I’ve never gotten below four days of aerobic exercise in a week. And I’m feeling great!
• Bad news: My weight hasn’t budged from 198. I’m afraid I have to re-think my vital behaviors.

Analyze and Adjust. This is a normal part of the Influence process. You think you’ve got the right vital behaviors. But, to be sure, you carefully track your progress. You track whether or not you’re keeping to the vital behaviors and you track measurable results to see if the vital behaviors are really working. In my case, I’m keeping to the vital behaviors, but they aren’t producing all the results I want.

Based on my results, I’ve decided I need to add a third vital behavior: I need to eat smaller portions and avoid binging when I’m on the road.
 
My wife and I do a pretty good job of healthy eating at home. I do the cooking, and I prepare a lot of vegetable and chicken curries. They are fairly low fat but the portion sizes are probably a bit too large. We also do well at restaurants, nearly always splitting an entre and adding side salads.

The problem is when I’m on the road with people like Steve Willis. For example, we worked together in New York City last week, and cruised delis each evening. It was wonderful, but not for my diet. This weekend I’ll be back in the City, and I must do better.

This week’s post focuses on Source 5, Structural Motivation: incentives, reward systems, and punishments that can help me stick to my vital behaviors. Since my eating behaviors are a new vital behavior, I’ll apply rewards and punishments to them.

I’ve put “skin in the game” to the tune of $260. I intend to lose one pound per week until I hit my goal of 185. And any week I miss this goal, I’ll lose $20. I’ve locked myself in using a very novel Web site, www.stickk.com. I learned about this site in the new book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein. It’s a cool book and a very cool Web site.

Here’s how the Web site works. You set a weekly goal, put the money into an escrow account they hold, and identify a referee who will monitor your progress. My colleague, Joseph Grenny, has agreed to be my referee. I’ll need to check in with Joseph every week. If I fail to meet a week’s weight loss goal, or if I fail to check in, then I forfeit $20. The 20 big ones will go to a charity I’ve chosen, www.kiva.org.

Notice that my incentive is set up so that I need to avoid losing, rather than possibly win money. It turns out that most of us are three times more motivated to avoid losing than we are to win. For example, people are as unhappy over losing $100 as they are winning $300.

However, I do have a positive incentive as well. If I meet my goals, then I’ll have $260 I can spend on a new mountain bike. If I don’t meet my goals, then I don’t.

So far it’s working. I’m sitting in the airport—on my way from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City—and I’m not snacking. Sure, I had a double espresso over ice, but that’s no calories, and I passed on the peanut butter cookies. My success is beginning to feel inevitable.