YLS Professor Ian Ayres: Put Your Money Where Your New Year’s Diet Resolution Is

Help is on the way for the multitudes who, every January 1, resolve to lose weight in the new year, cough up good money to learn how, then inevitably fail.

The problem, says Yale Law School Professor Ian Ayres ’86, isn’t that people don’t know how to lose weight. They do. They’ve read all the books, listened to all the motivational talks. It’s not rocket science. Eat less. Exercise more.

No, says Ayres, the problem isn’t lack of information; it’s lack of motivation. Enter “The $500 Diet,” Ayres’ downloadable companion to his recent book, Carrots and Sticks, which provides ample motivation—lose the weight or be out 500 bucks.

Like Carrots and Sticks, “The $500 Diet” shows you how to use incentives and commitment contracts to achieve your goals. Ayres knows whereof he speaks. After creeping up to 205 pounds, he managed to lose more than 20 and since then, has kept his weight below 185, all by putting money at risk through his Stikk.com website, an eBay auction, and a Twitter feed.

So if you’d like to take that money you’ve been throwing away on diet books and put it back in your pocket—while losing pounds in the process—check out “The $500 Diet,” available for download on amazon.com beginning January 19, 2011.