Let the Games Begin

Now that everyone has weighed in and been told about the blog, all the communications about the competition are going to be centered here.

Everyone should now have been invited to be an author on the blog so feel free to post whatever you like. You can look back at the posts from the last competition to see how supportive we all were of each other.

So before all the "encouragement" begins, here is some of the information you probably want to know about how this all is going to work.

We have two divisions this time around: the Men and the Women. There are 5 men and 10 women competing and the prize for the winner of each division will be the buy in from the rest of their competitors. That means there's $250 up for grabs for the Men and $500 for the women.

So how does one win all this money? Well, the short answer is by losing the most fat of anyone in your division.

The long answer goes like this:
We've taken down everyone's weight and body fat % from a collection of different scales: two weight/body fat foot scales and one hand-held fat scale.

In order to get the participants official weight, we average the weight reading from the two foot scales.

To get the official fat %, we average the two foot scale numbers to get a lower body reading and then average that with the upper body reading (from the hand scale) to get the final body fat %.

Math types might like to see it like this: (((foot1 + foot2) / 2) + hand1) / 2

Everybody with me so far? It gets just a little more complicated...

What we're going to be comparing is actual fat weight, i.e. pounds of fat. Fat weight is just weight times fat %. Basically someone who weighs 200 pounds and is 10% fat is carrying 20 pounds of fat. That 20 pounds is what we're interested in losing.

We've already done all this work once and we'll do it all again at the end to come up with two numbers: initial fat weight and final fat weight.

To determine improvement, we get the percent difference between the two: (((initial - final) / initial) * 100%).

This last number, the percent difference, is used to determine the winner. Whoever loses the most fat wins, just like I said.

We'd like to post everyone's initial numbers up here on the site but if you aren't comfortable with that, just let me know either by email or by commenting on this post.

I think that's it (if you've even gotten this far) so, finally, good luck to all the losers!

Here is a body fat % chart...

Not sure if you'll be able to see this chart but apparently I fall into the OVERFAT category. How encouraging!

Weigh-in Weekend

It's time to get started!

All participants should weigh in this weekend either at the cottage on Saturday/Sunday or at the funeral home on Sunday/Monday.

We're going to to record weight, body fat using a foot scale, and body fat using a hand-held scale. How the final calculation is made is still up in the air but, similar to last year, it will be based on who loses the most body fat. We'll likely average the readings from the two fat scales to try and get a more accurate picture.

We'd also like to get everyone's entry fee ($50) when they weigh in, so have your money on hand.

Good luck!

Round 2

The challenge is gearing up for 2007... Watch this page for all the details!