January gym joining

I’m crap at going to the gym. I’ve signed up a few times in my life but I just haven’t found a way to enjoy it yet. That means I wind up spending hundreds of [your favorite currency unit] every time I get tempted and get very little out of it.

Right now I don’t have a membership and I’m pretty anti-gym, I’d rather get my exercise out in the world… but the weather is nasty this time of year and a new Hackney Council run gym has opened down the street, my friends have joined and I’m tempted once again.

Must… resist…

More people join a gym in January than during any other month. But still only one in eight of us uses a club – and every year more than half of us quit. Faced with an obesity epidemic and a looming recession, what can the fitness industry do to keep us – and itself – in shape?

Aida Edemariam writes a monster piece in the Guardian looking at the fitness industry.

Even for those who can afford to go to gyms regularly, the whole enterprise is riven with contradictions. Personal trainers may make you more motivated and fit, but they can’t make you too motivated or too fit or you’d stop needing them. It isn’t in a gym’s interest to encourage you to build exercise into your daily life, because that would cut into gym hours. It is true that they are often the only option in cities, if there are few parks, no bike lanes, bad weather, but it is also true that gyms have a vested interest in keeping you indoors.

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