The Bank of Bermuda operation may no longer be home to fat cats.

About 300 employees shed 1,676 pounds of weight in an internally-run three-month wellness challenge.

And now the bank’s Chief Executive Officer is challenging other local employers to do the same thing at their companies.

Philip Butterfield said: “We hope there are other companies that will embrace this kind of endeavour because we think it’s a great thing... health is in everybody’s interest.”

The challenge at the Bank of Bermuda called “The Biggest Winner” is perhaps better described as a competition — brought to the company by Chief Financial Officer Nigel Crow.

He not only ran the contest, but participated himself — as did the CEO. In all 395 people signed up for the start on January 12, 292 were still standing for the final weigh-in on April 9. The bank has 1,100 employees.

The participating employees were separated into teams of three and those teams competed against each other for the largest percentage of body weight lost. In the end, according to Mr. Crow, the team dynamic became the most critical part of the entire venture.

He said: “This was very important. The team element I cannot understate the importance of it because weight loss is not easy, and to have some team pressure was unbelievably helpful. I think the success would not have been as great if it hadn’t been for the teams.”

Having about 100 teams throughout the company competing against one another set the stage for some spirited gamesmanship. In fact the winning team, a group of three women who called themselves “Living Large”, confessed to covert manoeuvring during the competition.

“Yes we did do it,” said team leader Carleen Place with a sly laugh.