Is your New Year’s resolution working out more? Here’s advice from a local gym owner

If your New Year's resolution is to hit the gym, ABC-7 spoke to a local gym owner who's not going to let you fail in 2026.

"Your New Year's resolution is none of this, jumping back and forth, 'Oh, I'm going to eat this month, but I'm going to go to the gym and work it off.' No, that doesn't exist anymore," said Mary Ellen Jerumbo, owner of Backstreet Gym in West El Paso. "Your existence should should be consistently taking care of yourself your entire life."

Jerumbo is a 7-time world powerlifting champion and first person ever — man or woman — to 4-time body weight squat, which was 529 lbs.

She said a lot of people end up being "quitters," but she was raised better than that.

"You're tired? Let's get it done. Let's be successful. Let's keep it going," said Jerumbo. "Well, you going to quit? You a quitter? My mom told me not to use four letter words. Quit is a four-letter word. We don't go there."

But when it comes to New Year's resolutions for fitness, she begs people to stick with it.

Going to the gym is something she said everyone puts off for tomorrow.

Not only that, but Jerumbo emphasizes the importance of being consistent with eating clean and working out 365 days a year.

She says eating sweets and "running them off" doesn't work ¸— It'll take days to burn off calories and it affects the brain and muscle recovery.

It could change your mindset and energy quicker than you think. 

"The ideal thought is you go to the gym to become healthy and you become not only physical, healthy, but mentally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually healthy," said the gym owner. "You dig deep into your body and you come out with a different person within 3 to 4 months. And you were originally 

She says resistance activity helps create a feeling of strength, power, confidence, and existence to live a great quality of life. 

"We're winners. Let's find that best champion from deep inside of yourself and pull it out. Because you know what? We're so much better than we are right now, 10 more seconds, we're going to be better, 20 more seconds," said Jerumbo. "We're going to be better next month, we're going to be better than what we are right now."

Working out doesn't have to be at the gym, but it starts with moving your body and Jerumbo challenges you to stick to it every day.