Weight-loss smackdown: Houston vs. NYC

Seriously, how did we miss the news that Houston and New York City are competing in the America Takes it Off weight-loss contest? This is huge! (No pun intended.) ATIO is a joint venture of AOL, Good Morning America and eDiets, and it's being billed as the largest online fitness program ever — though we don't know how much of a distinction that really is.

Details are sort of hard to come by, but New York and Houston apparently vowed to lose the most and the third-most collective pounds, respectively, in the year-long contest. That doesn't seem to have much to do with the Men's Fitness list of America's fattest cities, on which Houston came in fifth and New York 25th. (Chicago, which is this year's fattest city, pledged to lose the second-most pounds in ATIO.) It looks like there are five contestants from Houston and four from New York, plus Gregory Joujon-Roche, who used to be Brad Pitt's personal trainer and is now helping all America shed unwanted pounds.

Both cities' contestants (joined by Mayor Bill White!) did a live workout this morning on GMA. It's not clear exactly what will happen when one city or the other loses more pounds, but frankly, as long as we get to see Mayor Bill doing Jazzercise, the details really don't matter.