Fitness clubs aren’t the only wellness centers seeing a jump in attendance early in 2007.

“There’s always a big push in January, but this feels bigger than normal,” said Scott “Q” Marcus, instructor for Weight Watchers. “My Tuesday class almost tripled the day after New Year’s, then it went up another 20 percent last week.”

Same thing with a Thursday class that had 19 at the end of December. Marcus said it ballooned to 38 and then 59.

“We had standing room only,” he said.

Who will stick with the Weight Watchers format remains to be seen. Cal Courts fitness coordinator Tracy Stone is happy to see some of them giving it a try.

“I have every diet book. Everyone’s always asking what I think about this diet or that,” Stone said. “In all the diets, most everyone is successful when they’re on it and they give it all back plus some when they’re off.”

“It blows my mind how many diet books there are,” said Wendy Yellin, public relations manager for the West Region of Weight Watchers North America. “There’s a diet for everything and a diet for every premise. What do you do? Where do you go?”

Stone is adamant. Searching for the perfect diet has become billion dollar business based on “everyone wanting the magic pill, the quick fix. But if you look at all the studies on health, fitness and diet, they all talk about moderate eating — small meals, three of them, and two snacks timed throughout the day — and regular exercise.”

Stone said learning to make good food choices is integral to long-term success at maintaining a specified body weight.

“Everyone’s good for the short time they follow the rules,” Stone said. “But as soon as the rules aren’t in front of them, they fail. They never learn how to integrate regular food back into life.”

One exception, Stone said, is Weight Watchers.

“They teach you how to look at and evaluate food,” Stone said. “It’s a long-term program that encourages exercise.”

Attendees at Weight Watchers meetings lose three times as much weight as those that go it alone, said Marcus, in references to research by S. Heshka and others that appeared in the Journal of American Medical Association in 2003.

Participants pay, attend and weigh in at weekly meetings. Group support, and the accountability it produces, is a pillar of the Weight Watchers program, but it doesn’t appeal to everyone. Men, particularly, seem less inclined to embrace the Weight Watchers format.

“Tuesday, maybe 5 percent were men,” Marcus said. “But it’s a changing trend. There’s a concerted push to get more men involved.”

In 1998, the National Weight Control Registry surveyed 629 women and 155 men who had maintained a required minimum weight loss of 30 pounds for five years. A little more than half lost weight through formal programs; the rest did it on their own.

Both groups reported using diet and exercise to lose weight. In fact, the group reported expending more than 2,825 calories a week through physical activity.

Seventy-seven percent reported a triggering event preceded the loss. Marcus knows all about triggering events. He remembers his 39th birthday, when he weighed 250 pounds with a 44-inch waistline and was sneaking out of the house to eat the remains of his pink-boxed birthday cake out of the garbage.

“It was depressing and embarrassing, but I’m a believer that all change comes from fear, force or pain,” Marcus said. “Until the pain of where you’re at is worse than the fear of making a change, you won’t do what you know you have to do.”

Marcus embraces the theory that weight gain may be fueled more by the thoughts, feelings and beliefs of an individual than anything else. Focus on those and the behaviors they generate — eating rather than exercising, for example — and the chances of change improve.

“A million books, a million columns say the same thing: eat less, move more. I’m not stupid, neither are others,” Marcus said. “When I was bored, angry or depressed, I ate. I got to 250 pounds. I had to work at that.”

He also had to work to get it off. He hit his target weight 12 years, eight months and 20 days ago.

“Let’s face it: You either lose weight or you gain,” Marcus said. “Weight is a progressive thing. If you could maintain it on your own, you wouldn’t need Weight Watchers.”

In addition to group support, Weight Watchers focuses on three other fundamental principles for healthy and sustained weight loss: healthful eating, physical activity and behavior.

All instructors have lived the experience firsthand and swear by the experience. Their reward, other than the healthy lifestyle they achieve, is a lifetime membership for free.

“Once they reach their target weight, they weigh in monthly,” Yellin said. “As long as they stay within two pounds of that weight, they can attend weekly meetings for free for life. People going to gyms who reach their goal don’t see the gyms giving back the membership fees.”

Quite the contrary. Fitness clubs usually entice with discounted full-year memberships meant to discourage drop-in or monthly visitors who may stop coming as commitment wanes. For many customers, a full-year membership is an incentive to stay with it; for others, it’s a security blanket.

“I talked with one woman about working out and she said she was a member,” Stone said. “I didn’t know she was a member. I’ve never seen her. But she said she feels better knowing she has a membership.”

She might feel even better using it, but Stone and Marcus can do nothing about that. They provide an opportunity, a resource and a supportive environment; it’s up to the individual to do the hard work of sticking with it.

The Fifth Street Eureka class costs $12 per session with a 10-week savings plan priced at $109 and a 17-week pass for $159. Phone 800-651-6000 for more information and class locations or to register for the free online newsletter with weight-loss tips and recipes.