The Argus Group has announced the results for the first year of its online wellness programme Get Up and Thrive.

Introduced in March 2015, the programme introduced three series of eight weeklong team challenges throughout the year offering team and individual challenges, activity tracking and other physical and mental wellbeing activities.

The challenges focused on weight loss and increasing the number of steps participants take each day. Throughout the challenges, the average steps per day were more than 8,400. During the year, cumulatively, participants exercised over 20,000 hours. In total, over 3.5 million steps were walked as part of the team challenges and a total of 718 pounds were lost.

More than 80 per cent of participants reported feeling satisfied with the challenges when asked by Argus.

Michelle Jackson, executive vice-president, Group Insurance of the Argus Group, said: “We are encouraged by the level of participation and the positive feedback we’ve received. We look forward to reaching even more Argus Health members this year. Our goal is to motivate the community to be more active and live healthier lives and we will continue to offer activities in 2016 that are designed to help people do just that.”

Argus also announced that Ms Zenja Jones from Bermuda Aviation Services is the 2015 Grand Prize Raffle Winner. Ms Jones won the $2,500 raffle for consistently participating in the challenges throughout the year and placing in the highest performance bracket. Over 100 participants were rewarded prizes in 2015 including a BELCO voucher of $1,000, travel vouchers worth up to $750, grocery vouchers worth up to $500 and NutriBullets.

Ms Jones added: “I worked hard all year long in the Argus wellness challenges and really pushed myself to invest the time and energy into improving my health. Tracking your daily activities is very important if you want to see overall change. It also makes you accountable for what you do. Participating in the team challenges was a key part of my success. Whenever I felt like stopping I would think of my team-mates at Bermuda Aviation Services and that would motivate me to keep going. I encourage people to join the Get Up and Thrive online programme.”

The first team challenge of 2016 starts on January 25 and Argus health members can register at www.Thrive.Argus.bm until January 31. While working with a team of co-workers, family or friends, participants in this challenge set weekly goals and help each other reach new levels of fitness.

For more information visit the Argus website at www.Thrive.Argus.bm.