Gym Challenges People To Swap Resolutions For Commitments

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Making a resolution is one the first things we do in the new year. Many make them, most don't keep them.

So rather than resolving to do something in 2015, Life Time Fitness is observing "Commitment Day," hoping to help people commit to something.

In 2013, Amy Wallace wouldn't have even considered doing a 5K run. That was a year and a half and 80 pounds ago.

"I was at my heaviest. I was ready and had accepted my weight. I was cool with it," Wallace said.

Only she wasn't. Instead, she took the leap, joined a gym and committed to change.

"Two years ago, I wouldn't have done this interview with you," Wallace said. "The weight put me in a shell, and I came out of that shell after some of the weight came off."

Amy's trainer Tina Sommer saw her evolution.

"Like a butterfly out of a cocoon, she has completely opened up and become the social butterfly in the gym," Sommer said.

Today, all 23 Minnesota Life Time Fitness locations have opened their doors to people like the 2013 version of Wallace.

"It's to help people get a boost on what they are going to do for the year and for their life," Life Time Fitness Lakeville's general manager Dan Blustin said. "You have resolutions, and you have Commitment Day. Resolutions are for people want to have an excuse to fail. If you commit to something, you actually have to do it. You have to put some time, energy and effort into it."

"On January 1, if people are making those resolutions, I challenge you to make a commitment and find a 5K, a half marathon, a CrossFit event, a cycling event. Sign up for it now, you have an emotional tie-in to that," Sommer said.

Today, that's Wallace.

"I wouldn't have even thought last year that at this time that I'd be running, let alone running a 5K," she said.

All Life Time clubs are open to the public through Sunday for the Commitment Day festival. You can pre-register or just show up to learn more about the club, nutrition and fitness. After all, the price is right: it's free.