Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

But will they still show up in March?

Gyms see memberships skyrocket after the holidays, as many decide the new year is the time for a new body .

By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published January 3, 2007

PALM HARBOR - On Monday, Andrea Weiler joined the Palm Harbor YMCA. On Tuesday, she said she found her abs.

"I found my abs in ab class," Weiler, 34, joked after taking a fitness class called Abs and Core II.

The Palm Harbor mother of two girls waited until her youngest daughter, Ashley, turned a year old, and then waited for the December "holiday hoo-ha" to end before signing up for the gym.

She's definitely not the only one.

November and December are slow months for the YMCA, said Claire Wuertz, membership and marketing director for the Palm Harbor branch.

"People are really busy with the holidays, eating whatever they want," Wuertz said. "So when the first rolls around, we get hit pretty hard."

New membership triples from December to January, she said.

"In January it's always a little busier because of New Year's resolutions," said Nikki Lavallee, general manager of Bally Total Fitness in Countryside.

The gym's employees work to make sure members stay motivated by providing a lot of one-on-one time, Lavallee said.

Jan. 1 is the highest-volume day of the year, said Todd Bright, president of Lifestyle Family Fitness.

Membership picks up after Christmas, Bright said. He said he has also noticed that people are becoming more health conscious every year.

One of them is Christina Duvall, a 35-year-old hairdresser from Clearwater. She joined the Lifestyle Family Fitness gym in Largo on Tuesday with her sister-in-law.

The two have tackled 2007 by throwing out cigarettes and joining the gym.

"I'm only trying to substitute it with something healthy," said Duvall, a smoker of 10 years.

Her last cigarette was at 2 a.m. Monday. Her first workout with a personal trainer was scheduled for Tuesday night. She promises to stick with it and her sister-in-law will too, she said.

"She needs to come because she has terrible mood swings from not smoking, so she needs to relieve a lot of stress or she'll kill her husband," Duvall joked.

Tamara El-Khoury can be reached at 727 445-4181 or tel-khoury@sptimes.com.

[Last modified January 2, 2007, 23:26:37]