MADE some New Year resolutions?

If the answer is yes then make the most of them, as they are likely to be short-lived affairs.

Chances are your diet, your exercise plan, your efforts to get to bed earlier and drink less alcohol, won’t last out the month.

Research has revealed that Sunday January 19 is the day you’re most likely to break those New Year pledges.

It has been dubbed Quitters’ Day by social media fitness app Strava. It analysed more than 822 million online global activities from 2019 to determine the day when New Year health and fitness goals - by far the most common resolutions - are dropped.

Last year’s was even worse, with Quitters’ Day falling on Saturday January 12.

Why do we give up so quickly? For many of us it will be due to lack of time. We lead such busy lives: it’s easy to say ‘I’ll spend 30 minutes a day exercising’, but when you take account of work and domestic duties, few of us can spare even that.

Get up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, there’s not much time left. Weekends are often taken up doing all the essential stuff we could not do during the week - shopping, cleaning, washing…

For others it is a case of ‘can’t be bothered’. We simply can’t muster up the enthusiasm needed to add another activity to our already hectic routine. Even changing your diet can be a pain when you are set in your ways.

It’s not at all easy to stick at things, even if you get pleasure from them.

A few years ago I went back to playing tennis after a gap of more than two decades, and loved it, but, after a couple of years I gave up.

Three years ago, as a result of a New Year resolution, I joined a gym and was a regular on the treadmills and cross trainers. Then, after about nine months, I left and didn’t go back.

I liked both tennis and the gym, so why did I abandon them? I can’t give a definitive answer, although, I hate to confess, it probably veers more towards the ‘can’t be bothered’ than the ‘haven’t got time’.

So many of us are guilty of this. No matter how much we like a certain activity, it takes real determination to make it a permanent part of your life in the long term. Take going to the gym. I’d have to find my kit and my water bottle and set a time to go. Simple, you’d think. But even that was hassle, demanding some sort of organisation. And, often, I’d convince myself that I was too tired.

I’m nowhere near alone in leaving the gym behind. A survey last year revealed that Britons waste more than £4 billion a year on unused gym memberships. Although 23 per cent - almost a quarter - of us are gym members, only 12 per cent use the facilities regularly.

Unlike many quitters, at least I gave both tennis and gym a good go and lasted longer than a fortnight.

Sadly I can’t say the same about my pledge made on January 1 last year to have a brisk walk every day, even if only round the block. My quitting day was, I am ashamed to reveal, around January 4.

And a pledge to tidy the house didn’t even make it to January 2.

This year, the vow I made to eat smaller portions and lose weight was going swimmingly, until last Friday (January 3) when my husband stuck a sizeable curry, a plate of samosas and a pile of naan breads in front of me.

Of course I could have said no, and part of me was screaming ‘Don’t be a quitter!’ But another part was yelling ‘Life’s too short, dig in, enjoy!’ It’s easy to guess which part won.