It seems that everyone thinks they have a few pounds to lose.  Kaiser Permanente, a leading health care provider, performed a controlled study of nearly 800 individuals and found that an email a week can help you shed the pounds!

ALIVE (A Lifestyle Intervention Via Email) sent weekly emails were sent 351 individuals.  The short  messages sent over 16 weeks suggested
small, practical, individually tailored goals, such as eating fruit for
a snack three times a week, walking for 10 minutes a day at lunch time,
or walking to the store instead of driving.  The messages were tailored for each recipient's needs and life situation (for
example, whether they had small children at home or busy schedules that
posed barriers to exercise and diet improvement.)

"By the trial's end, participants were more physically active, eating
more fruits and vegetables, and reducing their intake of saturated fats
and transfats; the changes continued at least four months after the
intervention ended," Kaiser Permanente reported.

“The beauty of this kind of email system is
it’s like email house calls once a week, in other words a message goes
out in a very tailored specific message for you on how you can become
physically more active,“ noted researcher Dr. David Sobel.

Who knew that an email a week could keep the doctor away.