My friend Tom Hanover just started a blog and his first post is about his ongoing success with a slow carb diet. To help him achieve his weight loss goals, he publicly committed to reaching a certain weight by the end of January and even offered to pay me $100 if he doesn’t.

As you might have gathered from my Drink Well December Challenge, I’m a big fan of public commitments especially when coupled with monetary incentives.

December’s challenge went really well by the way. With the exception of the occasional sweet tea and beer, I managed to avoid sugary drinks for all of December and I felt great because of it. One thing I could have done better though is with the self-imposed penalty for failing. I offered $20 to anyone who liked the post or commented, but the logistics of actually paying out to those 12 people – some of whom are strangers – would be a pain. Which brings me to January’s challenge…

I’m about 193 pounds at 20% body fat at the moment. I’d like to get down to 15% body fat this year. To move towards that goal, I’m going to start by trying to drop 5 pounds in January.

Tom, if I’m not at 188 pounds or less on February 1st, you’ll have $300 coming your way.

PS: If anyone else would like to commit to a goal by the end of January, I would be more than happy to be named the recipient of your cash if you don’t succeed :).