Regardless of how crazy people are about the holiday season, there’s one thing that the diehards and casual fans can agree on: Visiting family means eating well.
And eating well often means packing on the pounds. And packing on the pounds often leads to one of America’s most popular New Year’s resolutions: hitting the gym and getting into shape. Gym membership registrations often peak at this time, but there’s still a caveat.
How many people will actually stick around after a couple of months?
“A lot of people don’t realize that it’s a process,” personal trainer Brandon Volden says. “Once you hit your goal, you can’t just stop.”
Local trainers and gyms are doing what they can to keep people from calling it quits once they meet their goal, and that means getting the word out about what really works.
ONE-ON-ONE TIME
Volden, who spent much of the last five years as a Plant City-based personal trainer, has seen his fair share of people walk in and out of a fitness regimen when they probably should have stuck to it. And the majority of those clients signed up around this time of year.
“The bulk of my money came in around the beginning of the year,” Volden says. “People usually start planning (to hire a trainer) around December — they know they’ll gain weight.”
With that in mind, Volden says that most people often came to him with a goal of wanting to lose 10 to 15 pounds. He often worked with his clients at Anytime Fitness, but stressed the importance of staying consistent at home, sticking to the right diet and getting the proper support.
“I think the key is, you need help at home,” he says. “Let’s say that a woman wants to lose weight, but her husband doesn’t. It’s easy for her to get caught back up in her old ways because she doesn’t have that support.”
Of course, there are certainly men and women out there who are strong-willed enough to stick with whatever plan they’re given. Volden says though it’s difficult for many people to take in five or six meals per day, simply being conscious about food choices will help anyone win the battle when they’re not in the gym.
“I promoted healthier eating overall,” he says. “Chicken, tuna, whole wheat bread, brown rice, things that are good for you. I made suggestions to quit snacking, give up the late-night sweets and sodas.”
Although Volden is no longer training, he still promotes that good habits, combined with a good trainer, willhelp those short-term goals stick around for the long-term.
MAKING IT EASY
Of course, some people will just want to join a gym and go it alone.
Gym enrollment often peaks around January and February, and especially when there are special offers attached to signing a new contract — $1 enrollment fees, free stuff or anything that gets people in the door.
Keeping their interest is a different story. Although gyms do still make money off of members who work out infrequently, they would prefer to keep people coming through the door.
“A lot of them, they just don’t know what to do,” Anytime Fitness manager Jeff Noble says. “They know they want to lose weight, or get buff, but they just don’t know how to do it.”
Noble says that the biggest uptick in client registration usually happens in February. Last January, he says that the gym signed up 70 new members; the very next month, there were around 100 new members.
“January, you would think,” Noble says. “But, people are recovering from Christmas, they just spent a boatload of money on Christmas gifts, or they want the resolution, but just start shopping around in January.”
With seven gyms to choose from in the area, including the new Planet Fitness location at the Strawberry Plaza, Plant City residents have no shortage of options to choose from. All have attractive qualities for people with varying goals, but the goal for the beginning of 2015 is to help all of these new members keep coming back.
Anytime Fitness, for example, offers a computer-based training log that monitors progress and helps clients stay on track with their New Year’s fitness resolutions. The program, called Anytime Health, provides a profile for all members.
“Anyone gets a login, and they can track their diet, their workout routine, everything,” Noble says. “It’s like their own personal trainer.”
The program is available online, on a mobile app and at a computer station just behind the manager’s office. When members swipe a key fob to get into the building, the program automatically detects it and gets ready to run for the client’s session.
Not everyone is good with technology, and Noble realizes that the best way to keep some clients interested is still some good, old-fashioned person-to-person contact.
“If we see that somebody’s falling off, we’ll call them and set them up with a trainer,” he says. “The first session is always free.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
GYM HUNTING
Looking for the right place to start work on that New Year’s resolution? There are seven gyms in town to choose from:
Fitness for $10 – 1418 S. Evers St. (813) 717-7773
Anytime Fitness – 2402 James L. Redman Parkway (813) 567-1057
Planet Fitness – 1808 James L. Redman Parkway (813) 704-6955
Power Shop Fitness – 114 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (813) 757-6038
Curves – 1822 James L. Redman Parkway (800) 704-5908
CrossFit Plant City – 1402 Mercantile Court (813) 650-9125
Plant City Family YMCA – 1507 YMCA Place, (813) 757-6677