I've had great success in saying I'm cancelling/leaving because I'm moving away. I picked a random area I knew wasn't close to any of their chains and said I loved everything but unfortunately needed to move on. I've had 3 different chains immediately end the contract for me over the phone or in person doing this with no hassle.
The time I tried to quit one to swap to another gym, I had to make 3 calls, email multi-paragraph statements of why I was leaving and wait multiple months before they finally stopped charging me.
Mine was noticed because I have a multinodular goider. I asked about potential issues with it a couple times over the years and was always told I just needed to lose weight till the doctor finally noticed it in my early 20s. Who knew it was a lot easier to be active and control your appetite when your metabolism is actually working and you don't feel like you always wanna crawl into bed?
You normally will get it after puberty, pregnancy, or menopause(at least with what I have, which is hashimotos thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease. Not sure about others) so, if it's similar you likely developed it during puberty like myself and didn't realize it or notice the changes because you assumed it was normal.