We've had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve in rapid succession. You've been partaking of the fruits of your labor and enjoying the festivities with loved ones--at least until January 1. Then you immedately become a disgusting pig who should get some of that blubber off.
(Fowl Language Comics/Brian Gordon)
You want to join a gym? Good idea! Go ahead and visit a commercial gym. Pay your membership fee. Workout once. Then repeat this process next January.
The winning marketing strategy, according to Recreation Management Magazine, a health club–industry trade rag, focuses strictly on luring in the "out-of-shape public," meaning all of those people whose doctors have told them, "About 20 minutes three times a week," who won't come often if ever, and who definitely won't join unless everything looks easy, available, and safe. The entire gym, from soup to nuts, has been designed around getting suckers to sign up, and then getting them mildly, vaguely exercised every once in a long while, and then getting them out the door.