Posted by Not quite obese? Congratulations! Although you can’t clean out Healthy Wage, if you’re smart you can get nice bank from them. But you need to understand and conquer the BMI-Dependent Net Gain Limiter.
Most people know that Healthy Wage is the place to go when you want to make big bucks on weight loss.
Although the $10,000 maximum prize is heavily advertised, that particular prize is unavailable to the vast majority of people.
The only people who should be shooting for that in a single HealthyWager are morbidly obese women who are making a very large, very aggressive wager over the course of 18 months.
The less obese you are starting out, the less money you can make.
This may seem obvious because you will inevitably have fewer pounds to lose, and certainly the return on investment percentages are strongly dependent on the number of pounds in the pledge.
Besides ROI, the maximum amount of new money you can extract from Healthy Wage for a successful HealthyWager is strongly dependent on the pledge. You can’t fully make up for smaller weight pledges by betting more money—there’s a point at which the ROI figure that Healthy Wage gave you will cease to work on marginal increases in bet size.
What’s more, the lower your starting degree of obesity, the lower your ROIs will be for the same pledge sizes. If you pledge to lose 40 pounds, for example, and you want to gain $500, you’ll generally have to bet more money if you start from 200 pounds than if you start from 250 pounds. Evidently Healthy Wage thinks the more obese you are, the tougher it is to lose a certain number of pounds, and so they’ll offer a better return for the more obese people.
Another factor affecting ROI is sex. Women get better ROI than men, all things held equal. They also enjoy being able to put greater sums of money to work at the ROIs they are given than the men are.
This post deals with another limit on new Healthy Wage money (net gain) that applies to women who are mildly obese or merely overweight, as determined by the body mass index (BMI) metric. For a woman who wants to make as much money as possible on her HealthyWager, a BMI-dependent cap can reduce the maximum bet amount she can make to enjoy the ROI figures she is getting.
What I am going to describe is an imaginary female correspondent with BMI of approximately 31–barely into Category 1 obesity. She’s 192 pounds and 5’6” tall.
She wants to get down to about 25-22 BMI. 25 BMI is about 155, which represents a weight loss pledge of 37 pounds. 24 BMI is about 149, representing a 43-pound pledge. 23 BMI is 143, representing a 49-pound pledge. And 22 BMI is 136, representing a 56-pound pledge.
Here are the calculated payouts:
- If 25 BMI bid, 37 lb in 6 mo: ROI 110.28%. Max net gain $30 times 37 lb = $1,110 with 0 bonus, available at $168/mo or $1,008 invested (prize $2,118)
- 24 BMI bid, 43 lb in 7 mo: ROI 136.42%. Max net gain $30 times 43 lb = $1,290 with 0 bonus, available at $136/mo or $952 invested (prize $2,242)
- 23 BMI bid, 49 lb in 8 mo: ROI 169.86%. Max net gain $30 times 49 lb = $1,470 with 0 bonus, available at $109/mo or $872 invested (prize $2,342)
- 22 BMI bid, 56 lb in 8 mo
- This is a triple-bonus formula payout. You get net gain equal to 194.12% of what you bet, plus a flat bonus of $6 per pledged pound above 10% of starting weight
- The maximum net gain available is the sum of the bet-dependent portion and the flat bonus
- Normally, the bet-dependent portion of maximum net gain is $30 times the number of pounds pledged—in this case, $30 * 56 or $1,680.
- However, the woman’s starting BMI is about 31—more precisely, 703*192/(66*66) = 30.99. Therefore, the bet-dependent net gain is throttled by the BMI dependent limiting formula (BMIDL).
- The BMIDL limits the bet-dependent portion of net gain to:
- $800 for BMI 29.6 or less
- $500*BMI – $14,000, rounded to the nearest $5, for larger BMIs
- BMIDL for a 30.99 is therefore $1,495. This supersedes the $1,680 calculated earlier from $30 per pound
- The flat bonus is $6 * (56 – 0.1*192) = $220.80
- Flat bonuses are not affected by starting BMI. Therefore, total net gain opportunity for this wager is $1,495 + $220.80 = $1,715.80
- To find the bet that gets you as close as possible to capturing all of that net gain, you first divide the bet-dependent portion of net gain by 194.12%. So, $1,495 / 1.9412 = $770.14. This is the total amount of money you want to invest in this wager.
- For the corresponding monthly payment, divide 9 months into $770.14. You get an ideal monthly payment of $85.57.
- If you round up to $86/month or $774, Healthy Wage will offer a $1,708.31 gain and $2,482.31 prize. See the peak of the net gain graph to find that approximate value.
I want to focus on this last payout—depicted in yellow in the graph above—because this woman is losing out on some net gain due to her starting BMI being relatively low. If that limit were not in place, she could bet $96/month or $864 over 9 months, and get $1,677.20 in bet-dependent net gain ($864 multiplied by 194.12%) plus the $220.80 bonus gain, for a total of $1,898.00 in fresh money from Healthy Wage. That graph would be shifted upward and rightward from where it is now.
In other words, she has to hold back $10 per month or $90 from her wager and not have it earn 194.12%. She misses out on $174.71 in net gain opportunity. If she bets $96/month instead of $86/month, it actually DECREASES her net gain and also her prize! Instead of betting at the peak of the net gain graph, she would be betting on the downslope.
So she needs to find an alternate way to put that $90 to work. One option is invest it in 12-week jackpot challenges concurrent with the 9-month bet. To wit, she could do the following:
- Invest in a $60 and a $30 challenge in the first 3 months of the bet. At the end of the 3 months, she can expect to get paid back $85 and $50 on these, respectively. She’d then have $135.
- Using the $135, invest in a $100 and a $30, holding $5 back. These can be expected to return $131 and $50, respectively. Now she’s up to $186.
- Using the $186, invest in three $60 challenges, holding $6 back. Each will likely return $85. At the end of the 9 months she would therefore have $261. The $171 profit represents a 190% return on the $90 invested.
It’s actually a good option. And it will keep the woman honest over the 9 months. But now there are a lot more weigh-ins to do.
The thing about this BMIDL formula, though, is how sensitive it is to a woman’s situation when it comes to setting up an aggressive HealthyWager. And that depends very strongly on the woman’s starting BMI. Let’s consider the cases:
- When your BMI is, say, 33 or greater (obesity of at least a moderate degree), it is going to be practically impossible to construct a wager that will make the BMIDL relevant. The $30 per pound calculation is almost certainly going to be less than the BMIDL calculation. That means you enjoy the full complement of benefits to enhancing your weight pledge:
- If you are in the regular payout formula with ROI under 194.12%, adding pounds will boost this ROI, deceasing the amount you have to bet to get the same net gain—a good thing if you can handle it. But you also get to put more money to work at the enhanced ROI—also a good thing if you are a high-roller.
- If you are in the triple-bonus formula, adding pounds will enhance the bonus by $6 per pound added—a good thing if you can handle it. But you also get to put more money to work at 194.12%—also a good thing if you are a high-roller.
- When your BMI is under 33 to start with, your bet-dependent net gain may be capped by the BMIDL. The possibility of this dramatically increases as BMI edges downward to 32, 31, 30, etc. That means the following:
- If you are in the regular payout formula with ROI under 194.12%, adding pounds will boost this ROI, deceasing the amount you have to bet to get the BMIDL-controlled net gain. This is the first good thing mentioned above, and you retain it. But you lose the ability to push in more money and earn on it at the enhanced ROI.
- If you are in the triple-bonus formula, adding pounds will enhance the bonus by $6 per pound added. This good thing you retain. But you cannot plow in more money and earn 194.12% on it anymore.
Another possibility is to take advantage of the fact that weight varies by several pounds over the course of a day.
Also, it is a physical fact that 1 liter of water weighs 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds by definition).
Submitted for your approval, four other bets—all of which are in the triple-bonus payout formula. Remember that with a 192 lb starting point, losing 56 lb in 9 months meant that the woman could bet $86/month and pick up $1,708.31 in total net gain from Healthy Wage.
- Starting weight 193, 57 pounds in 9 months:
- BMIDL-controlled bet-dependent net gain of $1,575 trumps $30/pound bet-dependent net gain calculation of $1,710
- Bonus $226.20
- Total ideal net gain opportunity $1,801.20
- $1,798.57 practical net gain is available at $90/month, $810 total investment ($2,608.57 prize).
- Thus, gaining 1 pound from the 192 lb baseline and pledging to re-lose it along with the other 56 pounds means you can make another $90.26 from Healthy Wage
- Starting weight 194, 58 pounds in 9 months:
- BMIDL-controlled bet-dependent net gain of $1,655 trumps $30/pound bet-dependent net gain calculation of $1,710
- Bonus $231.60
- Total ideal net gain opportunity $1,886.60
- $1,881.87 practical net gain is available at $95/month, $855 total investment ($2,736.87 prize).
- Thus, gaining 2 pounds from the 192 lb baseline and pledging to re-lose it along with the other 56 pounds means you can make another $173.56 from Healthy Wage
- Starting weight 195, 59 pounds in 9 months
- BMIDL-controlled bet-dependent net gain of $1,735 trumps $30/pound bet-dependent net gain calculation of $1,770
- Bonus $237.00
- Total ideal net gain opportunity $1,972.00
- $1,966.61 practical net gain is available at $99/month, $891 total investment ($2,857.61 prize).
- Thus, gaining 3 pounds from the 192 lb baseline and pledging to re-lose it along with the other 56 pounds means you can make another $258.30 from Healthy Wage
- Starting weight 196, 60 pounds in 9 months
- $30/pound bet-dependent net gain calculation of $1,800 is less than BMIDL calculation of $1,810
- Bonus $242.20
- Total ideal net gain opportunity $2,042.20
- $2,024.42 practical net gain is available at $102/month, $918 total investment ($2,942.42 prize).
- Thus, gaining 4 pounds from the 192 lb baseline and pledging to re-lose it along with the other 56 pounds means you can make another $316.11 from Healthy Wage
Some other facts:
- If you drink a 1.5-liter bottle of water, you can gain about 3 lb of weight immediately
- Two 750-ml bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne contain 1.5 L of liquid
- Two bottles of 2009 vintage Dom can be had for about $145 each
Final thoughts
If you are a man, most likely you will not be affected by this BMI damper on your net gain opportunity. This is because Healthy Wage is only offering you $16 per pound pledged anyway, plus the bonus you get if you are operating in the triple-bonus formula. It’s usually not enough to get you over the BMIDL limit.
If you are a woman under 29.6 BMI, our BMIDL limit is a flat $800. Raising your BMI artificially isn’t going to boost the BMIDL until you get over 29.6. So instead of doin what I just described, consider yourself blessed to have a BMI that low, and look for some jackpots to put your extra money into.
Weight Betting Odds 