Sideline Cut: They say there is a sucker born every minute and in Ireland, most of us sign up for gym membership every January.

Not so long ago, Ben Dunne - a man whose girth and storied lifestyle make him the perfect candidate to front Ireland's most popular health and leisure facilities - was talking on the radio about that very subject. As ever, Ben was likeable and candid.

He cheerfully declared that all of his health and leisure clubs were considerably over subscribed and that if every member was to turn up at the same time, it would certainly get pretty cosy in the jacuzzi. Ben also scoffed at the notion that belting away on the cross-country skier for half an hour a week would fashion you a torso straight out of Troy and plainly declared that the best way to shed the pounds was to diet.

Ben was honest because he is inveterately so and also because experience has demonstrated that when it comes to this time of year and grand resolutions, we Irish just can't help ourselves.

Binned is the half pack of smokes left over from New Year's Eve. The vodka is locked away, nights out declared a thing of the past and it is straight into Foot Locker for brand new pair of gutties. Trainers. Leisure shoes. Branded, with air-cushioned soles, cross training grips (because you never know, Sonia might drop out) and with a nice sky blue trim to match your shorts. Then, the grand gesture: the signing up for a year's membership. You are trembling with good intentions and excitement as you clutch that pen. Hold me back. The 6am yoga class hosted by Aaron? Why not? The power spinning class. Count me in, count me in. More bang for your buck.

There are few examples of the human species so gripped with optimism as the Irish man or woman signing up for a year at the gym. If we all stuck it out, the pubs would go out of business, we would clean up at the Olympics and Mary Harney would be out of a job.

Although few official surveys have been carried out, it is widely held that some new fitness devotees turn up at their state-of-the-art leisure facility for their first session, complete it and then never return. These casualties are almost certainly caused by the trauma of the fitness assessment.

There are few more terrifying and humiliating exercises in life than discussing your hopes and aspirations vis-à-vis the shape of your belly/butt/arms/back/ shoulders with a young clipboard carrying type called Angelo or Tia or Drew.

Pleasant, lightly tanned sons-of-bitches all, with smiles that just wither you. It is a weird thing, the old fitness assessment, as you are led through a maze of intimidating machinery candidly discussing the many shortcomings of your own body with a complete stranger.

Upon request, you execute a few dismal stretches and jog dizzily on the revolving mat of the treadmill for a few moments while Angelo/Tia assesses your pulse. Their smile will falter a little at this point and you will feel your blood pressure rising as they begin scribbling busily in their folder.

Quietly but firmly, they will suggest that you have a lie down and guide you over to the row of mats where all around you other enthusiasts are enjoying a few hundred sit-ups, faces purple, eyeballs rolling, muttering to themselves in tongues.

You lie back, staring at the ceiling, feeling a bit faint and increasingly alarmed as Angelo/Tia is still taking notes and shooting sympathetic glances down at you, like a priest on deathbed duty. And you begin to fret that maybe you overdid it on the treadmill and then you feel even more anxious. So it seems like a relief - a kindness even - when Angelo/Tia points towards your rump to enquire about your ambitions for your glutes?

There are couples locked in intimate relationships for decades who would not dare to pose such a question but in the health and leisure industry, it is the same as a friendly hello. And so you embark on an earnest conversation about the state of your ass, reminding yourself that you are paying direct debit for the pleasure of doing so.

After a further 40 harrowing minutes, a fitness programme is drawn up especially for you. You thank Angelo/Tia profusely and they vanish towards the Pilates class, never to be seen again. You stare at your card, with its clear instructions over six weeks. It looks fantastic, like it has faith in you. It looks like art. You know you haven't a hope. Carefully, you replace it among the hundreds of other cards. Sometimes you know you are never going to touch it again, never going to come within 10 miles of it.

Or perhaps you come back a few days later, already defeated in your heart of hearts but not yet willing to quit. And so you join the other mortals, puffing your way through the hill section of the stationary bicycle, perspiration destroying the copy of Hello! that you figured you would browse through. You start off on a brief 10-minute stationary row, staring into the screen and imagining yourself on the Thames river and six minutes in, your heart is screaming and you have no clue where the brakes are. You find yourself making vocal sounds that you only ever thought on possible on David Attenborough documentaries.

And sometimes you will see them, the health and leisure buffs, gloriously fit and tanned and swanning through the spinning class and taekwondo before free-lifting for an hour and hitting the 'mill for a swift 10k.

They spot each other for bench presses, never seem to be in a rush anywhere and wear their baseball caps backwards. And no matter what hour of the day you turn up, they are always there. Just to make you feel low. Don't believe them: these aren't real people. They are imported by the health and leisure industry as ideal types. Most of them competed for the Eastern Bloc in the Olympics in the old days.

Heavy-hearted if not depressed, you shuffle off for the consolation of the steam room. There is something about steam rooms that tease out the confessional bent in the Irish male. Marriages, finances, housing extensions . . . everything is up for grabs.

If Samuel Beckett was starting out today, he might well set Godot in the steam room of a health and leisure club on the edge of a city. If the steam room doesn't break you, there is a fair chance then perhaps, just perhaps, the H/L lifestyle is for you.

But most of us are born recidivists. The graph of everyone's health and fitness card is pretty much the same and mirrors our resolutions towards life in general. By May, attendance is slack, come August it is minimal and by the following December, it simply does not exist.

But that is okay. Health and fitness clubs thrive on the promise that there is always next year. And that we will come bounding through their turnstiles one more time, vowing this time to murder that stepper. Happy New Year.