Celebrating the New Year means shaking off the negative events, emotions, and people of the previous year and embracing the opportunity to create positive change in your life. These changes, these attempts to become better, these resolutions, have gotten a bad reputation over the last few years, with many openly mocking people who make them. However, claims of “new year, new me” should not be laughed off; instead, these resolutions should be evaluated and appreciated for what they really are.

“I think a New Year’s Resolution, in its essence, is a goal, and I think any goal is a good thing,” said Cyndi Spell, general manager of Winnersville Fitness.

When you create a goal, you’re often encouraged to share that goal with other people. When others know of your goals, they can encourage you and hold you accountable to taking the steps to achieve them. But many people who announce their New Year’s resolutions are met with eye rolls and scoffs of disbelief or doubt. And, can you blame them? Many people give up on or forget about their New Year’s resolutions with the first four to six weeks of making them.
“I think a resolution is a big deal to people,” Spell said. “They put so much emphasis on, ‘I’m gonna do this, this, and this,” and then when they haven’t done it by that first month, they lose that desire, they lose that gumption, that they started with to get going. Either A) it slows them down, or B) it makes them quit altogether. I think they just put a little too much emphasis on the fact of a resolution and just maybe need to break it down and say, ‘Hey, this is my new goal, not my New Year’s resolution.’”
Not seeing results is the No. 1 thing that discourages people who embark on fulfilling their resolutions. However, the reason many don’t see those results is that they don’t take the time to fully plan out how they’re going to achieve those goals.
“I think a lot of people forget when they set a goal that they actually have to have the tools that are backing it,” Spell said. “It’s kind of like when you go to buy a house. You have to have your real estate agent, you have to have your loan in place, you have to have all these things, and it’s a checklist. It’s the same thing for a fitness or nutrition goal or a weight loss goal. You have to have things in place.”
For those with fitness goals, Spell recommends planning which days you’ll work out and for how long you’ll work out each day. For those with nutritional goals, she recommends planning when and what you’ll eat each day.
Another aspect of your journey that should be planned? Where you’ll work out. It’s a commonly held observation that gym memberships across the country spike in January, many thanks to New Year’s resolutions. Winnersville Fitness is no different.
“It’s when we get our influx of people who decide that they want to make a change, people who just haven’t been to the gym, and then you’ve got people who were going and stopped through Thanksgiving and Christmas and are just starting back,” Spell said.
Some gyms are marketed toward a specific clientele. There are gyms for beginners, gyms for parents with young children, gyms for serious weight lifters. Winnersville Fitness, however, is a gym for everybody.
“I have worked at nearly every gym in this town; I have worked out at every gym in this town,” Spell said. “We literally have a little bit of everybody. …We’ve got your hardcore guy that comes in here… We’ve also got the moms who come in and take our group fitness classes. We’ve got the older people … who are pushing 60, 70 years old, and they’re just doing rehab training. Literally, our gym is for everybody. I haven’t seen any demographic in here that we don’t have.”
And for anyone who’s intimidated by joining a gym, Spell said to just take the plunge and come talk to them.
“I would say it’s like buying a car,” Spell said. “You don’t know what every car has. You don’t know what every feature in every car is. So, go there. Talk to somebody there. Come into the gym. We are more than happy to show you how a piece of equipment works, just like your car salesman is more than happy to show you how to turn it on to get you in there. We are more than happy to help you. This is what we love to do.”
If you have any doubts that Winnersville Fitness is the gym for you, Spell’s absolute confidence in the facility and the staff will convince you.

“We’re ‘The Best Gym in Town,’” she said. “Not only that, but we have the best trainers in town as well.”

Celebrate the New Year, celebrate the good to come, and celebrate the resolutions you make.

Written by: Anna Limoges