Want to lose weight and make some money in the process? Fat Chance, a weight-loss contest modeled after The Biggest Loser, will hold a campus-wide competition with a chance to win $500 for UTSA students.

Fat  Chance was created by students Chance Lunsford, Mikael Cantu and Joe Salmon as a part of a project for their Social Entrepreneurship course.

 “We have to use our managerial and entrepreneurial  skills creatively and appropriately to help solve social problems,” Salmon said.

“The social problem we wanted to answer was the obesity issue that we currently have in the U.S. and San Antonio. 

“We decided to start at UTSA, because we thought our fellow classmates would be very supportive of our cause and would like to win a little bit of spending money as well.”
 Contestants can sign up for Fat Chance from Monday March 8 to Friday March 12 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. between the HSS and Business building. A $10 fee is required to join. The competition begins March 22 and lasts until April 28.

Information such as height, weight and age will be collected to determine participants Body Mass Index (BMI). For shy participants, Fat Chance will be offering private weigh-ins.
Students will then implement some type of workout routine as well as monitor their eating habits.

Fat Chance provides a beginner’s weight loss routine on their blog and will be adding diet plans, health tips, a schedule for campus rec activities and more as the contest progresses.   

 
“Of course we want all our participants to compete in the healthiest manner possible,” Salmon said. “Fat Chance is promoting a healthier lifestyle, not just a competition where you lose weight any way you can.”

  At the end of the competition, contestants will then weigh-in for the last time, where the results will be calculated. If contestants fail to weigh-in, they will be disqualified. To ensure privacy, all information from the competition will be destroyed as soon as the winner is announced.

  “We feel that even those who did not win money can actually still have won something even greater,” Salmon said. “Those people probably still lost 5-10 pounds, fell into the habit of working out, loved how their clothes started to fit, began receiving compliments from family and friends and saw the boost in energy and confidence that would ultimately cause them to continue working out because of their own intrinsic reasons.”

To encourage contestants to continue with the program, co-creator Cantu, who is considered obese according to his BMI, will also be following the program throughout the contest and will provide updates of his progress on the Fat Chance blog.

“Students can see how he is doing and know they are not alone on this,” Salmon said.
So what do students think about this program?
 Junior Samantha Burns said she would participate in a program like this.

 “I think it is a great idea,” she said. “Everyone could use an extra workout and to lose weight.”

Senior Toby Ramirez thinks the program is a great way to motivate healthier lifestyles for students. 

“Even if the student doesn't win the competition, he at least gets into a workout regime that will hopefully lead to healthier choices later in time such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator or snacking on an apple instead of cookies,” Ramirez said.