Chicago.com
I hate New Year’s Eve. To me, it seems to be a holiday created to make people feel bad about themselves. Not only is there the pressure to find the year’s best party, at which you will wear the year’s best dress and shoes and kiss the year’s cutest guy/girl, but then there are resolutions, or as I call them, “Statments We Never Live Up To.” All in all, the night is designed to make you feel like next year will be your year, but inevitably it leaves people feeling sub-par.
This year, however, Chicago is taking a step to help turn those blanket statements into actualities. Chicago Park Districts Fitness Centers are offering a week of free gym sessions. From Jan. 2 to Jan 9, all of the nearly 70 locations are allowing anyone to come and work out for free. With locations all around the city and at no cost, there is little room for excuses to put off the weight loss resolution.
According to the Chicago Tribune, weight loss is the number one New Year’s resolution, and one that many people never follow through on. Often it is a matter of cost, time or overly ambitious weight loss goals, but the free fitness week offers solutions for all of those.
The first step is getting to the gym. As the Chicago Park Distric Fitness Centers are only offering this deal for a week, it leaves limited time to try out different locations and to set a schedule for yourself. Once gym time has been scheduled into daily activities it becomes less of a dreaded event and more of a routine. Also, there are mutliple fitness locations all over the city so it becomes easier to find one that fits into your schedule already (i.e. by the house, on the way to the office or by the grocery store).
The second obsticle is cost. Gym memberships tend to be pricey, and working out outside can be hard when you’re dealing with Chicago winter weather, but CPD Fitness Centers have memberships starting out at only $30 for three months. One of their missions is to offer great facilities at an economical price. In addition to all the eqpuipment, classes and facilities, each gym is located near a park that offer their own classes and activities throughout the year.
The third is setting realistic goals. First, set a reasonable amount of time to go to the gym each week. During this free week try out a schedule that works for you, one hour per day, two days a week or a half and hour each day for three days a week. Next, create a work out that is doable and gradualing increases in difficulty. Too often people who haven’t worked out in months and want to lose weight start regiments that are too difficult or don’t show results in the way they want. CPD fitness centers offer personalized work out plans, as well as havng classes and trainers that can helps you craft the perfect work out.
If your looking for me, I’ll be at the Broadway Armory Park location working out my own resolutions. Tell me where you will be and what else you are looking to work on this new year. While New Year’s Eve may not always live up to all it promises to be, we can live up to all we promise to ourselves.
Here’s a couple of quick facts, that you probably don’t know, that all point to a career in health care being a smart place to stake your future for the coming decade:
Already one of the largest industries in 2008 and 2009, the healthcare industry provides over 14 million jobs. If you want to know why healthcare reform was such a big deal in congress this past summer, this is why.
Find a list of the 20 fastest growing jobs and you’ll see that ten or more are likely health care related. More specifically, the healthcare industry is going to generate over 3 million new jobs in the next ten years. This is more than any other industry and it’s mostly due to the baby boomers growing old and entering the elderly population.
Despite what you may think about the healthcare industry, most of the jobs in this field only require 4 years of college education. Most of the people working in the healthcare industry aren’t doctors. Most are technicians, assistants, administrators, and nurses.
Depending on the specialty, a physician needs an average of 4.5 staff to support him or her and there are more physicians entering the healthcare industry than ever before. There is an endless amount of opportunities in this ever-expanding field.
Where to Start?
The first step to entering this industry is to determine your specialty and find a school or university that trains in that specialty. Online or for-profit schools typically offer a wide array of healthcare related specialties like training as a pharmacy technician, but you’ll need to ensure that you attend a reputable institution that will help you find a job when you get out of school. Sanford Brown is a good example of a school like this, but there are others that have good reputations with employers and provide assistance to students in need.