You’d have to be very vocal about the diet, and make sure you tell people who will hold you to it. Not a bad idea.

Akash Jayaprakash had been looking for the motivation to lose weight and get fit when an Internet forum he belonged to, SomethingAwful.com, suggested a way. Pick a specific goal, the forum suggested, and if you don’t meet it, punish yourself with something awful. Some forum users chose the punishment of posting embarrassing photos.

Jayaprakash, who works at a progressive tech company called SalsaLabs in D.C., chose the punishment of donating to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“I thought, ‘What would really turn my stomach?’ Something I really disagree with,” he says. “My bet is to lose 10 pounds within two months, and also run a 5k in October. If not, I have to donate $250 to Romney.”

Jayaprakash is a registered Democrat who follows politics closely and says he has long been unhappy with the Romney campaign. He is also a Mormon who doesn’t like when people assume he’ll support Romney.