Image Credit: CFJC Today
WELCOME TO 2024!

New Year’s resolutions: cut back and get active

Jan 3, 2024 | 4:14 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the excess of holiday celebrations in the rearview mirror, many folks want to change their habits in the new year. If you, like many others, imbibed too much of the Christmas spirit, Mocktail Mixery is a place you might want to visit in 2024.

“We carry alcohol-free beverages,” owner Lindsay Brochu explains. “So wine, beer, spirits, ready-to-drink cocktails, and also a bunch of barware. So ingredients, garnishes, you’ve got your bitters, cocktail shakers, that kind of thing.”

Alcohol-free beverages have increased in popularity over the past few years, with a wide variety of products now available for consumers to try.

“It’s also a healthier choice,” Brochu says. “A lot of the wine, a lot of the options we carry, have low sugar. A lot of the spirits have only one gram of sugar [per serving],.It’s been really, really well received.”

Alongside cutting back on some of the indulgences of the holiday season, January is also a time when gyms and fitness facilities see a spike in attendance.

“The difference we’ve seen year over year is about approximately 15,000 more visits in January, compared to December of the previous year,” Linda Stride, Recreation, Health, and Wellness Manager with the City of Kamloops tells CFJC Today.

While those numbers often decline by the time March rolls around, that spike in attendance shows that people enter the year with the best of intentions.

“I do think it suggests that there are people, as we know, that have New Year’s resolutions,” Stride says. “But it doesn’t have to be that formal. I think it’s a new time of year, people feel refreshed. They’ve come off a busy December, they come off Christmas, where we tend to indulge a little more, and I think people are just ready to get back to being active.”

With new fitness classes starting up soon and drop-in sports options throughout the week, Stride says there’s something for everyone at the TCC.

“Coming in in January, it really does feel like a new year,” Stride says. “People are incredibly energized, they are positive. It’s just a really good energy in our facility at this time of year.”

If there’s a change you’ve been planning to make in your life, there’s no time like right now to do so.

“We’ve definitely seen people in here, even at the end of December stocking up to get prepared for dry January because they’ve had a lot of celebrations and a lot of alcohol during the holidays,” Brochu says. “January is a perfect time to take a break.”