Why your New Year’s resolution will fail this week
Feb 3, 2017, 6:40 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 9:53 am
(Photo by Damian Gadal, CC Images)
(Photo by Damian Gadal, CC Images)
When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, many people have a New Year’s resolution in mind. And often they involve eating healthier and working out more. Once the hangover of Jan. 1 fades away, you stick your fork into that first salad and step onto the treadmill.
But unfortunately, for most people, resolutions tend to crash and burn. And according to Foursquare, a location intelligence company, the first Thursday in February is the day each New Year’s resolution goes to pot.
New Year’s resolution vs. Fall Off the Wagon Day
They call it “Fall Off the Wagon Day.” According to Foursquare’s stats, the first Thursday in February is when people stop going to the gym and start eating fast food again — Feb. 2 in 2017. Foursquare Editor-at-Large Sarah Spagnolo said people tend to start new habits the first or second Monday in January.
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“In the first part of the new year we see a 36 percent uptick in gym visits and a 13 percent decrease in visits to fast food restaurants,” Spagnolo said.
But it levels off on the first Thursday in February.
“That makes sense,” Spagnolo said. “If you’ve ever read any of the wellness, mindfulness books about habits, it’s just really hard to start new habits and to train your body to do something different.”
Even though the resolutions start to topple on that fateful Thursday, the lines at the drive-throughs will be longer next week.
“Friday, Feb, 10, this year, is what we anticipate will be what we call, sort of a little tongue and cheek, the ‘Fatty Solstice,'” Spagnolo said. “This is the biggest day for fast food visits in all of (quarter 1). We expect that Feb. 10 will be the day that people will hit the fast food lines more than they will at any other point this quarter.”
So where are people going?
“The big national chains like McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Wendy’s — I also did a little bit of digging into the most popular fast food places Seattle,” Spagnolo said. “Perhaps these are familiar to you, I’m based in New York, so they’re not my spots, but Taco Time, Jimmy John’s and Pagliacci Pizza. Are those places that you know and love?”
If you’re reading this report before you are about to take a jog through your neighborhood, still holding strong with your new year’s resolution in cold February, Foursquare simply can’t include you in their analysis.
“Things that were not captured here are people that are hiking more, that are walking more, that have started other healthy eating habits,” Spagnolo said. “We just look specifically at visits to gyms and fast food restaurants. But there could be smaller or different ways that people are integrating more healthy living styles into their day-to-day and that wouldn’t be captured in this study.”
The study is used for several purposes. For example, a gym can use them to create an ad campaign to keep people motivated longer. And just knowing that your resolution could peter out today might personally motivate you to buck the trend and keep on going.
