New Data Challenges the February Gym Dropout Myth

Three years of Google search data reveals what Americans actually quit in February

The annual February obituary for New Year’s resolutions is a tradition at this point, right up there with unreliable groundhog forecasts and Super Bowl ad recaps. But a new three-year study of search behavior suggests the biggest cliché — the empty February gym — is more fiction than fact.

Searches for “gym near me” hit roughly 2.24 million each January across all three years tracked, and only 18.3% of that volume dropped off between January and February, a number that held steady year after year.

That’s according to “The New Year’s Lie,” a new report from tutoring marketplace Wiingy that tracked three years of January-to-February search behavior across 55 resolution categories, including fitness, nutrition and quitting habits.

The search behavior lines up with what fitness operators have been reporting. The Health & Fitness Association’s most recent consumer report found U.S. gym memberships hit an all-time high of 81 million in 2025, with a record 7 billion facility visits.

Searches for “yoga for beginners” dropped just 17% by February, making it one of the most resilient terms in the dataset, while “how to lose weight” held up reasonably well with a mere 12.1% drop off.

While the gym and yoga may be safe, there is one casualty: meal prep.

According to Wiingy, searches for “healthy meal prep” dropped 37.3% from January to February. Intermittent fasting, the category’s search-volume heavyweight with 447,333 January queries, lost 28.2% of search volume.

Other findings from the report show that searches for “get fit” dropped 28.1% by February, “quit vaping” fell 23.3% and “stop smoking” held firm at 6.1%, which Wiingy attributes to the fact that smoking cessation is a year-round behavior.

Wiingy’s takeaway is that vague resolutions outlast concrete ones because making a plan is not the same as sticking to one. Consumers who search for tactical terms like “healthy meal prep” appear more likely to abandon them, and the difference may come down to support.

While the fitness industry is all about selling a concrete plan — the booked class, the personal training session and the pre-portioned meal to hit all the right macros — the data suggests the supportive aspect may be what makes it stick, and makes a solid case for human coaching and accountability in the age of AI.