I’m really trying to get a little healthier in a lot of ways. I know that “get a little healthier” isn’t very specific so I actually have a few areas that I’ve narrowed down as things that I need to work on:
- I feel I’m about 45 pounds over my goal weight – goal weight = 135 lbs
- I don’t sleep as much as I feel like I need – target sleep hours = 8 hours
- I don’t manage my stress too well – need to define this a bit
- I’m not active enough – daily steps goal = 10,000 steps
What I’m lacking in accomplishing these goals is some motivation. I’ve promised myself some rewards, I’ve tried affirmations, I’ve researched goal setting – I’m just not very healthy motivated. But I found this website achievemint.com that will pay you for health activities. I’ve researched this a bit and have found real people who’ve made some cash for their healthy activities. I’m not meaning some big, get rich cash payout but rather some small change like $25. I’ll admit, it’ll take quite a bit of healthy work to reach that $25 but if it was easy, then I’d figure out a way to get it over and done with and not really accomplish anything.
The way it works is by connecting health apps that you currently use – for me this is for my Fitbit Alta and MyFitnessPal – once your apps are connect it imports data from these apps and rewards you points for your healthy activities. For me, it imported all my activity all the way back to 2012! The first activity in my data history that it rewarded me points for was in July 2013; so it gave me points even before I even started participating in their program.
From looking at my activity which it imported it looks like I’ll be able to get point for a lot of different activities:
- Checking in to a church
- Checking in to a scenic lookout
- Checking in to a park
- Walking
- Sending out a health related tweet
- Running – (I don’t run often; I wonder what was chasing me!)
- Checking in at a campground
- Biking
- Weighing myself
- Sleeping – (finally get to earn some money for sleeping – yay!)
- Logging food – (on MyFitnessPal)
Right now I’m at about 3,000 points so I have a longs ways to go to reach the magical 25,000 points where I can earn my first $25. But I figure if I get motivated and do more of these activities that I’ll be able to reach it within the next 4 months-ish.
I’m going to connect my Twitter account and my Foursquare account to it as well and see if I can motivate myself to post more healthy tweets, and possibly check in more at some of the places where it gives me points.
I had no idea something like this even existed, I definitely would be more motivated by money to achieve my fitness goals. I’ll be looking forward to reading future posts!
Glad you found it helpful! I’m going to work towards adding more useful content here. Thanks for your comment!
Interesting, don’t know that I will try this but maybe Jim will.
At the very least you might get motivated to reach some healthy goals – but if it works well then you can get a few extra dollars too!
I’m going to check it out.. I want to get more motivated especially with the Holidays coming.. Next time am down you can help me set up Twitter and 4 square
Holidays are really hard to stay motivated!
We can do this