AMHERST, N.S. — Each year people make the New Year’s resolutions only to see them fail within days, or even hours.
The Cumberland YMCA wants to help those people keep their Jan. 1 pledges while becoming physically and spiritually healthier. Y Well You
“The goal is for people to fall in love with taking care of themselves,” YMCA fitness and aquatics manager Laura Farrow said. “We really want to focus on wellness instead of focusing on just fitness, or nutrition. We want to motivate the participants to feel better about themselves.”
The program will run for eight weeks and will include access to the building and its group fitness classes, nutrition counselling, personal training and progress measurement.
“It’s a new decade and we’re hoping people will have a new focus,” she said. “We want people to focus on themselves. People in this day and age are so busy, doing this and that for other people. They never take time for themselves. To feel better, you need to make small changes and keep at them every day.”
Farrow said the program will try to promote healthy habits.
The YMCA has a strong team of staff and volunteers to keep participants motivated and engaged.
Last year, just as in other years, the program has had a lot of interest. While the program was 12 weeks in previous years, she said, people get busy with their lives and careers and sometimes found it difficult to make the commitment. This year, the program is shorter and will be more disciplined so people will develop new habits and stay with it.
“For us, the success is knowing the people have the information available,” she said. “The focus is about the participants and hopefully they will gain something from it, even if it’s socializing with others and meeting new people. There’s so much more to wellness than fitness. It’s about creating an environment that will help them grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually.”
Farrow said mental health is an important topic and being physically active has been shown to improve people’s mental wellness.
“One of the good things about the Y is it’s so inclusive of everybody and everybody’s background,” she said. “We have young people and older people and it also reaches out to targeted populations like the underserved. The overall goal is to make people feel better.”
Registration is Thursday, Jan. 2 at 6:30 p.m. with an information session.
The cost is $120 for non-members and $40 for members.
For further information, contact Farrow at 902-667-9112 or [email protected] .
