New Year's Resolution? No, Thanks, I've Got My New Year's Diet to Attend To

Every year, I find myself sitting in my kitchen in early January surrounded by the leftover spoils of the holidays. It varies slightly from year to year, but thankfully not all that much. It is from this pool my diet plan begins.

My New Year's Diet (NYD) plan is an easy one. How does it work? Let me tell ya:

1. Eat at least one piece of leftover holiday candy each meal. Quietly work your way through the remaining chocolates first, stale truffles aren't good for anyone.

2. Candy canes are especially good in lattes and hot chocolates. Have at least one of each a day. An added benefit to sugar and coffee is an extra surge of energy to put the Christmas decorations away or face opening bills.

3. Cookies can make a meal. A special shout out to my friend Wendy for sending my the Cherry Republic Boomchunkas. These cookies are packaged in twos. If you eat just one, the other goes a bit crunchy. These cookies are so good that they are even good crunchy, but why would you do that to yourself? Go ahead, eat two. I just did. These also pair excellently with the candy cane hot cocoa mentioned in step 2.

4. Fudge. If you can, hide this early on in the season--that leaves more for you to enjoy in your NYD plan. If the fudge pieces are cut smallish, eat about four. This can be repeated throughout the day. It is especially comforting when you need a pick me up after the bills are opened and spread before you in a sea of hopelessness.

5. Order pizza. After the holidays, pizza is the perfect food. I usually don't get to have it for a couple of weeks. After your complete sugar crash at the end of the day, you don't feel much like cooking anyway. Go ahead. Also, forget trying to provide a vegetable with the pizza. Come on, there is at least tomatoes in the tomato sauce. Baby carrots aren't going to save anyone at this point.

6. Repeat any of the steps several times daily. If you order enough pizza, it could last you for many meals and many days.

7. Also, drink all of the gift wine and champagne that you have left over. Not all at once. Spread it out over the course of your diet with the evening meal.

Good luck. I'm off to have my second candy cane latte, or, oops, make that my third. Happy New Year!

Do These Friends Make My Butt Look Big?

Even at the age of 12, I was never a slim and tiny kind of girl. Once, I read that a pioneer man going west wanted to marry a woman that could “pull the plow if the mule died.” I am definitely one of those kind of girls. Heck, I could probably fix the plow and invent a better model.

Visions of mules aside, I was on a mission to find the woman’s holy grail: the perfect pair of jeans. I only needed one pair that looked halfway decent to replace the three or four pairs that I am retiring to the never gonna happen pile. That new exercise plan? That new diet? Never gonna happen.

In a cute, little boutique, where the saleswomen treat you like a long, lost girlfriend, I admitted that I needed professional retail advice...er... help. It was kind of like an episode of Friends, but these gals rallying around me in my moment of low self-esteem weren’t really my friends, were they? They seemed more like slim, fun loving vultures.

Together, we inspected my butt and muffin top from every angle in at least 20 pairs of jeans. I’m pretty sure that this is the most staring my butt has ever experienced. The best, most comfy jeans were on sale, but, made me look 10 pounds heavier—according to the serious looks and the sad, downcast eyes of the sales-friends. They even pulled a mom guilt quote, "They don't look the best, but if you really don't mind the bagging and sagging in the butt..."

This is when one my newest friends said “You need Yummie Tummies!” She disappeared at high speed, bounding into the back room. She came back breathless and excited as she handed me a spandex tank top. She must of misunderstood my mission. What I really needed was to buy a pair of pants that don’t come with a girdle as an accessory.

My friend assured me that every woman in low rise jeans gets a muffin top and that is why Yummie Tummies are the lastest, greatest invention. So great, that she only had one left and it was size small. I am no size small, if I have to remind you, especially not on top.

Closing the curtain on my new friends, I emerged with visa in hand to buy a pair of jeans that made my “figure look terrific.” I managed to spend a catrillion dollars—yes, I squeezed into the size small girdle and bought it—only to find at home that these new jeans were the same brand and size I had on my discard pile! I had made the same jean mistake twice!

At that moment, I wondered if I should have gone jean shopping with some of my REAL friends. I did forget to say, though, that it was REAL friends that sent my on my quest in the first place. If they would just stop exercising and start eating sugar and bread again, I’d be able to relax a little more and enjoy my muffin top.