Lose It or Lose It

Jan 25

[video]

Jan 20

[video]

Jan 04

How To Re-enable Your Facebook Connection

Randy just finished the arduous process of migrating Lose It or Lose It from Rails 2 to Rails 3. It took a lot longer than he thought, because the hard part turned out to be re-writing all his automated tests (moral of this story: don’t write tests?)

One of the things that Randy updated was the way that Facebook connects to LIOLI. This means that even if you were connected to Facebook, as of right now you’re not any more.

Here’s how to re-connect your LIOLI account to Facebook:

  1. Log in to Lose It or Lose it
  2. Under Settings, click “Facebook.”
    If you’re logged in, this link should Just Work:
    loseitorloseit.com/facebook/edit
  3. Click the “Switch On” button:

…click on “Allow”, and that should do it! You should then see the success page.

Thanks very much, and please let us know if you have any questions!

—John and Randy

Jan 03

LIOLI user Grant Slater (Firefishy) just made all ten of his two-pound weigh-ins over ten weeks, which means that he’s a FLAWLESS VICTOR.
That means:
Randy gives Grant back EVERY SINGLE PENNY of the two hundred dollars he risked, and
Grant earns the can’t-be-purchased-only-earned Flawless Victory Nerd Merit Badge .
Congratulations, Grant! YOU WIN! You broke Randy!

LIOLI user Grant Slater (Firefishy) just made all ten of his two-pound weigh-ins over ten weeks, which means that he’s a FLAWLESS VICTOR.

That means:

  1. Randy gives Grant back EVERY SINGLE PENNY of the two hundred dollars he risked, and
  2. Grant earns the can’t-be-purchased-only-earned Flawless Victory Nerd Merit Badge .

Congratulations, Grant! YOU WIN! You broke Randy!

Dec 13

We just got some AWEsome custom stickers made by the AWEsome Sticker Mule! If you would like one, just fill out this form and we’ll send you one!
BTW, Sticker Mule has been truly awesome. I’m sure I was the most high-maintenance customer they have ever had and they were kind the entire time. They even gave me a coupon code to replace the way out-of-date one I was trying to use. You should really check them out. Really.

We just got some AWEsome custom stickers made by the AWEsome Sticker Mule! If you would like one, just fill out this form and we’ll send you one!

BTW, Sticker Mule has been truly awesome. I’m sure I was the most high-maintenance customer they have ever had and they were kind the entire time. They even gave me a coupon code to replace the way out-of-date one I was trying to use. You should really check them out. Really.

Oct 29

Lock It or Lose It — Browse Our Site Securely If You Want!

Ever since Lose It or Lose It was launched, you would sign up, log in, and edit your account using a secure connection to our servers. This prevented people from eavesdropping when you would submit your sensitive information. 

However, until just now, we would not allow people to use a secure connection on the rest of the site. Now you can! You can browse all of Lose It or Lose It with an encrypted connection and know prying eyes won’t be able to see what you are doing!

To use it, simply change http:// to https:// in the address bar in your browser. If you use Google Chrome, you can install the KB SSL Enforcer extension or if you use Firefox, the https Everywhere extension, and your browser will automatically use a secure connection when it is available. 

Happy (secure) browsing!

PS: If you want to know why we’re doing this, check out Firesheep.

Aug 26

View Charts for Old Plans

Hi there! We have had some requests to be able to see the detailed charts for past plans, so we added it! We hope it will be an encouraging thing to see how well you have done so far.

You can get to them by clicking on the “Detailed Chart” link in your profile:

Link to detailed charts

You will then see the past plans (if you have them) listed below your current plan. Clicking on the date will show you the detailed chart for that plan. Check out mine!

List of past charts

Apr 21

Starting Today, We’re Using “Delta-Based” Goals

Pretty soon after we launched Lose It or Lose It, we realized that if you miss a goal, it’s easy to start getting deeper in trouble. Let’s say you’re trying to lose two pounds a week, and your starting weight is 200 pounds. Your first weigh-ins go great: you start the plan at 200 pounds, then weigh in at 198, 196, and 194 pounds. But the next week, instead of making your goal by weighing in at your goal of 192 pounds, you weigh in at 194 pounds again, two pounds over your goal. You miss the goal, and pay your penalty.

Now, the way things were, next weeks’ goal is the same no matter what — you’d have to weigh in at 190, two pounds less than you were supposed to weigh this week. You’re left with four pounds to lose. Miss that goal, and you’re left chasing a moving target, with the goal getting steadily farther away. Like Rerun chasing the pickup truck at 0:53 in the What’s Happening intro:

We think that this is a bad situation for everybody. If you start to get seriously behind, the program isn’t motivational any more, it’s just a drag. What’s the incentive to make good choices if you’re gonna lose no matter what you do? Since we want a site that works, not just a site that extracts money from unhappy people, we’re changing the way the system handles goals after a missed weigh-in.

Starting today, here’s what’s changed:

Here are some examples to make things clearer:

We think this is the right way of handling it, and we hope you agree. Please let us know if this seems unclear, or if you really hate the way it works. Of course, if you LIKE this way of doing things, then please let us know that too! :)

Apr 20

Congratulations Tinta on your FLAWLESS VICTORY

User Tinta just completed his Lose It or Lose It plan and made his goal on all ten of his weigh-ins. We’ve started calling a FLAWLESS VICTORY. Not only that, but he made it look easy, with nothing but a laconic smiley-face on each post.

Great work, Tinta! Your official, can’t-be-purchased Lose It or Lose It FLAWLESS VICTORY Nerd Merit Badge is on the way!

We love it when folks make their goals and keep their money, because then we don’t just have a weight-loss-motivation site with a funny premise. We have a weight-loss-motivation site with a funny premise that actually works, which is a much, much more important thing to be involved with. We love it when people lose lots of weight with LIOLI. It’s working for us, and it’s working for these folks! Hurrah!

Mar 25

Get Your LIOLI Feet on Facebook!

If you’re like us, you have one group of friends that you talk to on Twitter, and a whole other group of friends, family members and old school chums that you talk to on Facebook. Those Facebook folks are just itching for an opportunity to cheer you on. And now it’s easy to do that!

We’ve added the ability to add your weigh-ins to your Facebook news feed. Get your friends and co-workers to “like” your effort, and to give you all sorts of encouragement! Here’s John’s last weigh-in from this week, as it appeared in his FB feed:

To turn on Facebook integration, sign in to your account and click “Settings” at the top of the screen. You’ll find a “Facebook” link on the left. Click that, then grant Facebook access, and you’re ready to get lots of help and encouragement from your extended Facebook network!