My gym puts up flyers of happenings during the month, an inspirational quote and even a recipe or two in each bathroom stall to give you something to read while you’re on the john. This month’s flyer had the following quote by Unknown: “It’s not what we eat between Christmas and New Year’s that we should worry about. It’s what we eat between New Year’s and Christmas.” The norm is the former and the extreme is the latter.

So one point is that yes, I do read those flyers while I’m evacuating the systems, as my running buddy likes to call it!

The other point is that because of the unhealthy eating done between New Year’s and Christmas people flock to the gym on January 2nd to start their new workout regimen. Surely, exercise is the cure. Exercise alone is going to undo the all the damage they’ve done to themselves by eating crappy, unhealthy food. Adding a behavior instead of fixing the one that’s wrong is surely the answer. There’s a name for these people. My fellow gym goers and I like to call them New Year’s Resolution People.

New Year’s Resolution People race to the gym on January 2nd, sign up for a gym membership with a 2 year contract, go for about 2 months and then come back January 2nd of the following year…assuming they come back at all. New Year’s Resolution People have no clue how to use the machines, and they don’t ask anyone either. They come to the gym at peak times wearing jeans (seriously??? who works out in jeans) and a plaid shirt (no comment…plaid is bad) and hog the treadmills, elliptical machines, weight machines, pool lanes, etc. They are a nuisance for two months, make regular gym goers slightly miffed and then drop off the face of the earth. They give up on the gym and stop exercising, still continue eating badly, do more damage and then come back to repeat the cycle the following year.

Really, if this is the lifestyle that you choose, then please just stay home. Save the sanity of the people that do workout regularly. We’ll appreciate you more for it in the long run.

On the plus side, New Year’s Resolution People are good for one thing: they help keep the gym open. Think about all of those unused memberships. People are contracted for 2 years paying XX dollars per month, and they never go except for maybe two months out of the year. That’s less wear and tear on the machines, less towels used, less cost to run the gym overall. It’s ironic that the gym earns more money off of people that don’t go to the gym than the people that do go.

So thank you New Year’s Resolution People for helping keep our gyms open.

Exercise and good eating go hand in hand. If you put healthy food in your body, you’ll feel better, have a better work out and will lose weight on that end. In addition to healthy eating, if you decide to join a gym, going regularly and doing some basic weight training and cardio in actual workout clothes (cotton is rotten..remember that) will help you lose weight as well. Doing just one or the other doesn’t always produce the best results. That’s the reason New Year’s Resolution People quit. They usually do one or the other, diet or exercise, and when they don’t see results, they quit. They never change their behavior. They just add another behavior thinking it will solve the one that’s really troubling them.

I’m a big believer in eating healthy and exercising. It has so many benefits and it’s so simple that you don’t even need a gym to do it. Go for a walk outside 5 days a week and eat healthy meals every day and you’ll see a change. You’ve got to change your behaviors to see results. Be open to change. Change is a good thing. If you’re not open to change, then please just stay home.

Sara