Fitness centres are feeling the benefit as people full of good intentions sign up to battle the post-festive bulge.
Laura Bruce, duty manager at Saltire Leisure Centre in Arbroath, told The Courier this week that locals had been queuing out the door to take part in the year’s first fitness sessions.
“Everything is going really well and, like any fitness centre, this is one of our busiest times,” she said. “We sold a lot of 10-day passes over the Christmas period, so people have been coming in to use them.
“There have been three new memberships in to sign up this morning and we only opened at 10am.”
It was a similar picture at the Lochside Leisure Centre in Forfar, where duty manager Neil Lackvenby was greeting a number of new faces at the start of the week.
“This is the first day we have been open since the break and we have already had three new memberships,” he said. “We usually see quite a large uptake at this time of year and the number of people using the facilities in January always increases.
“Fitness seems to be just as big as ever despite the economic problems and we are seeing year-on-year growth every year.”
Douglas Symington, general manager at David Lloyd fitness centre near Monifieth, said the large increase in users over this month and next would typically drop to a more steady level as the year progresses.
“We have had a lot of members coming back in and a lot of new people wanting to sign up, so we can’t complain at all. We were very busy yesterday and it is busy again today so it has really been all hands on deck.
“People’s good intentions don’t always last but obviously we hope people see it through and continue to come.”