What is Glen's Fat Burn Challenge?

The Fat Burn Challenge is an informal, friendly pseudo-competition to encourage its members to burn 6,600 calories in one month. We started on 1-July, 2007 and, as of 29-April, 2009, we have burned 2,295,425 calories together. That's 30,000 oatmeal cookies or enough energy to keep a 25 watt light bulb burning for 106 hours.

Many members of the challenge ue the Nike+iPod kit to track calories and progress. However, neither the Nike+iPod kit, an iPod, or Nike shoes are necessary to participate.

How do I participate?

1. Sign up
2. Walk or Run during the month
3. For each, track
   • Date run/walk began
   • Time run/walk began
   • Duration of run/walk
   Some devices, like the Nike+iPod, track your pace and calories for you too. If not, we'll help you calculate them.
4. Enter that data into the Scoreboard

What if I'm not a very good runner?

Then Walk. You are spending the same amount of energy (calories), it just takes you longer. Although you do more work (calories/sec = watts) if you run, who cares. Don't work harder, work smarter. Many of our participants start off walking the first few challenges. Eventually, they start jogging. One or two of them are doing mini-marathons now. Who knows, this may be you.

How do I track my progress?

The Scoreboard shows everyone's progress. As soon as you manually enter your run/walk data, the scoreboard will be automatically updated.

Those who use the iPod accessories can additionally enroll in the Nike+ challenge and see their results in the Nike+iPod widget. However, this data still needs to be manually entered into the scoreboard. We can't, unfortunately, read the data directly from Nike+.

Do I need an iPod?

You only need to be able to track your daily activity. This can be done with a calendar, a watch, and the distance of your favorite walking trail. You do not need an iPod. However, some people find the Nike+iPod kit is an easy way to track all of these metrics automatically.

Do I need new shoes?

No. If you decide to use the Nike+iPod kit, you can get a very cheap adaptor to go on a regular running shoe. Some people like the convenience of having the transmitter directly in their Nike shoes. If you don't want the expense, get the cheap adaptor and run/walk with what you have.