Lose Weight Now - Ask Me How.

Nothing is so important that it cannot be put off until tomorrow. For some, January 1 marks their personal tomorrow. It's the procrastinator's favorite day. New Year's resolutions are made then, and presumably broken shortly afterward.

I've been a member of one gym or another for the past 25 years, and every one of those years I've seen new members wander in right after the first of the year. Generally, they wander out sometime around Easter, after making a minor effort at a life-altering decision.

I can see them now, sitting around the Christmas tree, bloated from Christmas ham, wine and candy; telling their spouse, "Honey, this year, I swear to God, I'm gonna get in shape!" Off the waddle to the local fitness facility to plunk down hundreds of dollars on something from which they may not get ten cents worth of value.

But, it's a noble gesture, albeit a hollow one. Fitness facilities around the country see their accounts fattened by the fattest of Americans, Hell bent on changing their lives, merely because they bought a new calendar. Never mind that they have been getting increasingly out of shape during the last 10 years or so, their lives will be inexorably changed by joining a fitness center. Hell, the word "fitness" is in the name, so it must be good for them.

When two or three months pass and they have made little or no progress, they abandon the project, figuring that they are either "big boned" or "big and beautiful". Either or neither of those may be the case. Their frustration comes in not being able to change ten years of lousy behavior in three months. Exercise is too much trouble.

One of my many fitness facilities had 3,200 members, yet I would only see forty or fifty of them at times. I asked the manager, "What if everybody decided to come in at once?" His reply, "Then, we'd be in a lot of trouble!" he knew they would never come, and in fact, he was counting on it.

In a few weeks, the usual jump in membership will take place once again. People, it seems, are slow to learn and even slower to act. They have put off getting themselves squared-away for so long that it has now become a personal mandate. But not so much that they are willing to work very hard at it. It's a shame, because the rewards are so great that the hard work is justified. But, don't pity them, rather, appreciate them. They are the very people keeping your local fitness facility in business, strange as it may seem.

How many other businesses can depend on people not coming to them and expect to earn a profit?