A few months ago, I wrote a post about my participation in one of the Fujitsu teams taking part in the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC).

My team came fourth (out of 15) in the UK and Ireland, which is not bad at all, although I suspect I was the weakest link in the team.  Even so, I was glad to post a new personal best on the penultimate day of the challenge and we almost made it around the world (virtually) reaching location 126/132.

For me, the GCC was supporting my bigger challenge to be Fit at 40 and I’m pleased to say that I’m still making good progress, adding swimming, cycling and spinning activities to the running.  Over the period of the GCC a clocked up an average of 10,715 steps (1,189,435 in total) with an average daily distance of 6.86km (761.24km in total), burning 47,958 calories in the process.

The good news is that I didn’t really change my behaviour for the GCC – I had already made the lifestyle changes and the GCC re-afirmed my choices. Whilst the muscle gain is making it harder to lose weight it shows just how fat I was and I’m now making good progress towards shedding that second stone – soon I’ll be dropping below the 100kg in weight for the first time in many years…

And I’ve now got so used to wearing my GCC pedometer, it feels strange not to have it there any more!

Today marks the start of the 2011 Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) and I’m really pleased to be a member of one the Fujitsu UK and Ireland teams that are taking part. The GCC is the world’s largest and most exciting corporate health initiative, in the form of a pedometer based walking challenge where employees engage in a virtual walk around the world for 16 weeks. I already walk from London Euston station to Baker Street (and back) on the days that I’m in the office but the GCC should help me get a little more active and shed some more pounds (which will help my Fit at 40 challenge), whilst competing against other teams (and hoping to beat our colleagues down under).

Based on an average of 12,000 steps per day, Fujistu UK and Ireland’s 15 teams should be able to acheive a total of 139,860,000 steps (89,510 km/55,619 miles) and:

• Avoid 241.4 days of absenteeism.
• Lose 525kg/1,157lbs in weight.
• Increase our ability to handle stress by 40%.
• Increase our quality of sleep by 40%.
• Achieve an increase in overall health and wellbeing of 40%.
• Including a 42% increase in energy.
• Increasing productivity by 40%.

We’ll also avoid carbon emissions of 3.36 tonnes and the corporate sponsorship means that we’ll support some worthy causes too.

The Global Corporate Challenge runs until 6 September.