Working Off Christmas Calories with I Form

Readers of Danish health and fitness title  I Form who go online will find a special Christmas treat. Or rather a weapon in the fight against Christmas treats. The I Form site has launched two new applications that help readers keep track of calories - one calculates how much you need to work out to burn off the extra cookies, candy, turkey and other Christmas goodies you've eaten. The other calculates how many calories you burn off from various Christmas activities such as cutting down your tree or taking a spin on the ice. "So far, about 5,000 people have used them in just a couple of days," says Bo Mikael, online manager for I Form and Bonnier Publication's other health and fitness titles.

The apps are just the latest of some 50 tests that I Form has online for its readers. "The most popular is our route planner," says Mikael. "We were first with this kind of app in Denmark and we're still the Formula One of route planners." The route planner has a whopping 200,000 users with more than 1.3 million different routes - this in a country of only 5.5 million people.

Other popular apps include a workout tracker that provides help with specific workouts as well as the possibility for users to create their own.

While the website helps pull in subscribers to the printed magazine, it also has a life of its own. "The tests are just part of our making sure we have quality sites for our readers," says Mikael. "And sites are the most likely place for people to subscribe to the magazine, which is what we are aiming for. But it's a two-way street really. We're also working on making sure that the magazine points readers to the online tests as well."

Check out the Burning Christmas Calories test here and the Christmas Activity Test here (in Danish).