Highballs down, kettlebells up: Return of the ‘Resolutionaries’

How the ‘new-year, new-you’ crowd impacts local business

Friday, January 6, 2023, Vol. 47, No. 2
By Lucas Hendrickson

Opening the pages of a new calendar often inspires a desire for change.

“I’m gonna wake up an hour earlier and write in my journal,” you tell yourself in the days post-Christmas and pre-New Year’s Eve. “I’m gonna completely overhaul the way I eat.” Or “I’m gonna get back in the gym every day before work/during my lunch break/on the way home.”

Individual goals are great, and frequently needed checks on the behavioral ruts we get into seem easiest to accomplish when the calendar reads “January.”

Problem is, our best intentions can get operationally thwarted when the post-holiday work schedule gets back into full swing or the cabinets are full of ingredients and not instantaneous meals, or you have to scramble for a spot on that treadmill than when the gym was just a little more empty just three weeks ago.

The ebb and flow of our collective pursuit to improve ourselves – all of us, and all at once – can have an impact on the businesses here to aid us in those goals. More bodies in the buildings, more beginning-of-the-year activity that then trails off as people lose their motivation, affects not only the efficacy of the resolutions but the operations of those businesses.

The reverse also is true of those places we frequent in more celebratory times, as the recent trends toward “Dry January” takes a seasonal bite out of our favorite watering holes during our self-improvement time frames.

The Music City Shopping Center parking lot is noticeably more full than it would be on a regular Monday morning.

That’s because there’s a Planet Fitness location in the corner of this strip mall on Conference Drive in Goodlettsville, and it’s the second day of January.

Two nights earlier, revelers in Times Square were festooned in comically oversized top hats bearing the Planet Fitness logo and color scheme. No such comedy/sponsorship was found on the treadmills, stair climbers and weight machines this morning; only people working off what they felt the holidays had added on.

By 8:30 a.m., the woman working the front desk says, the morning rush had passed, and even the earliest birds working out didn’t usually have to wait long to get to their intended station. Even so, foot traffic had picked up in the previous days, and the demeanor of even the regulars had changed a bit.

“Sometimes they’re not even really saying ‘hi,’” she says. “They’re just getting in, working out and getting out.”

While the folks committed to getting back on their fitness journeys might be fully focused on the task at hand in these early days of 2023, frustration and burnout can easily set in, regardless if you’re a newcomer to the fitness game or a seasoned professional whose work is working out.

“I’ve always been athletic, I’ve always loved how it feels to work out, I’ve always loved how it feels to eat right,” says Danielle McGlynn, a longtime personal trainer who offers individualized training as well as on-site training at Lifetime Fitness in Franklin.

“I feel like we get inundated so much that we don’t know: Is it good? Is it bad? Which protein shake? Do I go vegan? How do I count macros?

“And I started to realize over time if I’m getting overwhelmed, and this is what I’ve studied and do for a living, then my clients are getting overwhelmed.”

McGlynn says there’s a definite chronological pattern to how people who take up renewed fitness as a resolution goal can fizzle out over time.

“They start off January a certain type of way and, and I can tell you the pattern based on how long I’ve been doing it, they start to lose momentum right before Valentine’s Day,” she says.

Then they pick it back up again and then they start to lose momentum,” she continues. “Part way through spring, they get a little setback back, but then they’re like, ‘wait, it’s already summer,’ and then forget it. There are times summer is actually worse than the holidays because beer drinking and chips is, like, all over the place.

“It’s something that myself and other fitness professionals joke a little bit about,” McGlynn. “Literally, the day after Christmas, there starts this intense rush. I have noticed some people who are regulars, two weeks ago you were not wearing that many clothes in the gym and now you’re trying to get that extra sweat going.”

It’s through the presence of those fitness professionals working at Planet Fitness or Lifetime Fitness or the Texas-based TruFit Athletic Clubs currently building out locations in Middle Tennessee where people can find avenues of additional support and motivation, McGlynn says. You just have to know to ask, and also to trust, and also to have both parties realize some limitations.

“One of the biggest phrases I use is: I’m not trying to make you feel bad and call you old, but you know when you are up against age,” McGlynn says. “Every day you’re getting older, your hormones and your metabolism, it goes in the other direction. So gone are the days that you can sweat off five pounds in two days. And that’s not even healthy.

“I would love to see more fitness professionals help people understand, ‘Hey, let’s simplify your routine.’ Let’s not aggressively beat your system up initially for three to four weeks, where then you get frustrated because all you’ve lost is three pounds,” she continues. “At the end of the day, it’s about finding what works long term. It’s about simplifying all your goals. Don’t sign up for anything that’s 12 weeks. I don’t even know what I’m doing 12 days from now, let alone 12 weeks.”

McGlynn also says not to discount ongoing virtual training sessions, even though big-box fitness centers have reopened successfully in the wake of the pandemic. She offers longtime clients and newcomers online training via FaceTime, and finds her clients remain far more focused when they’re able to tailor their workout times, rather than having to fit to a club’s schedule.

“I have clients that live 4 miles away from me, and they’ve stayed more on top of doing it virtually three times a week than an in-person session where they gotta find the kids somewhere to sit, deal with rush hour traffic and the like,” she says. “Everyone has stayed way more consistent. And usually what I do with clients is try to now redirect a little bit more fitness skills related, like, let’s hold a longer plank, or let’s sign you up for 5k. Let’s get something else where it’s not aesthetics anymore. It’s your actual skills and what more you can do.”

The flip side to the increase in foot traffic in area fitness centers can be the lack of presence found in bars and restaurants, stemming from the desire to change consumption habits after holiday overindulgence.

Cutting back when the new year begins is an age-old tradition, but as far as the specific idea of “Dry January,” that can really be traced back merely a decade. It emerged, at least from a trademark perspective, from a UK temperance group called Alcohol Change UK in 2013, but the simple appeal has spread worldwide: give up alcohol for the month of January.

Which is great … unless you’re in the business of serving alcohol to interested (and legal-aged) customers.

One of the things Dry January has brought about is an increased presence and quality for nonalcoholic beverages, specifically beers. For decades, your N/A beer options were incredibly limited and, honestly, didn’t taste much like beer.

These days, as the American craft beer palate has changed and the technology for creating flavorful nonalcoholic analogues for popular styles like IPAs, stouts and Pilseners has become more viable, dedicated N/A companies like Connecticut’s Athletic Brewing have seeded the market with great new product.

“I think the nonalcoholic movement, in terms of variety and what’s available in the market, is extremely helpful for a beer shop in January and February,” says Brandi Soda, co-owner of The Filling Station taproom and package shops. “You basically had a s---show for nonalcoholic beer. It just didn’t taste good, and people didn’t really like it.

“But now I’d definitely say people are more interested in non-alcos. People coming in asking, ‘do you have anything nonalcoholic?’” Soda says. “So we added an entire selection of canned nonalcoholic options when Athletic came into the market. We keep a six-pack cold so when people come in looking for that, we could pour it into a glass and make it happen.”

But Soda admits that once January rolls around, and there’s less visitor foot traffic in the 12 South location she often manages, or college football to watch at the East Nashville location usually helmed by her husband/business partner Brian, the days can get a little slow.

“For this shop,” she says, gesturing around the 12 South location, “we’re pretty fortunate that with football season we tend to have good weekends. But weekdays are dismal during January. There’s just not much to do.

“We don’t change our hours, our days open stay the same, but we try to let all our crew know, ‘Hey, you’re rolling in money now, but just remember that after we hit December 31st, what you’re making now is not gonna be what you make in January and February.’

Soda says the big hit to their bottom line comes not by people not stopping by for a pint, but more not taking something home with them after they do.

“We notice a big hit with Dry January in terms of people not stocking their beer fridges,” she says. “Even if they don’t call it Dry January, their resolutionary mind, as you called it, is, ‘I’m not gonna drink as much, or I need to not drink every day of the week or two beers a day.’

“Our draft sales in January, we still do OK, but the package sales in January and February look so much lower because your ticket items are $6 pints instead of a $15 four-pack,” she continues. “Weekends, especially with football games, we’ll do good with package sales. During the week, we don’t sell anything.”

Other beer slingers, such as Katherine Schermerhorn, general manager of Jackalope Brewing’s taproom The Ranch, note they don’t see a slowing of guests coming through the door specifically because of Dry January, but more from a practical, financial standpoint.

“I think what we actually see, and I feel like this has been true in my full experience in hospitality, the dropoff has been when people get their credit card bills,” Schermerhorn says. “It’s usually more mid-to-late January, and then it’s painful. There’s usually an immediate turnaround as soon as Valentine’s hits.

“I think it might happen more in traditional bars, but I don’t feel like in craft beer we see as much of that,” she says of Dry January. “We’ll see the people who think about it in different terms like, I’m going to work out more or I’m going to try to eat healthier or maybe I’m not going to imbibe as frequently.”

But even as a professional who makes her living, as well as managing others making theirs, in the beer space, Schermerhorn sees the validity of the Dry January efforts. “I certainly do think the alcohol world has changed drastically, a little bit in part due to social media,” she says. “I think there’s been a lot more younger people who seem to be a little bit more in tune with sobriety, so I think even in my time in the beer business, there’s been a shift in people trying to imbibe less, plus there’s a lot more N/A options out there.

“There’s not as much of a stigma to be sober; there’s not as much of a stigma to take breaks as well,” she continues. “It’s not as stigmatized to have a dry month, and what better way, what better time to do it than January? There’s also this camaraderie with it as well.”

That said, her experience tells her what’s coming for her and her co-workers. “We’ll feel it in two weeks, very specifically in two weeks. And that month till Valentine’s Day is just painful.”