'Twas the day after New Year's and all through the land,

The people were waking with trashbags in hand,

Nothing was safe, not a crumb nor a nut,

For now it was time to get rid of the gut,

They threw out the cheesecake, they threw out the pastry,

The liquor was stored in a cabinet ... for safety,

The chocolates from Granny, the buns from Aunt Anna,

And even the cookies they left out for Santa,

The leftover eggnog was down-the-drain spilled,

With protein and fiber the fridge was now filled,

Then they pulled out the treadmill, they pulled out the weights,

They pulled out their new yoga videotapes,

A chin-strap they swore would reduce that throat-wattle,

And taped on the fridge: a bikini-clad model,

"This year," they cried, "we will look just like Barbies,

and conquer our cravings for sugar and carbies,

We'll wear those old pants, the ones in the drawer,

that we haven't fit into since '74."

Many of us begin the new year with a slew of good intentions that result in massive purges of delicious holiday leftovers, encouraging gifts of sweatpants and chin-up bars and a newly revitalized sense of how sexy we will look by Valentine's Day. I anticipate my yoga class will be filled with one-time dilettantes in their freshly creased outfits, many of whom will disappear after two weeks (or whenever sweating stops being fun). Hopefully, I will not be one of these people. In an effort to prevent this, I will replace my usual "resolutions" with ironclad "commandments" that, should I attempt to break them, will result in me going to Hell:

1. Thou shalt not eat the same thing every day for a week, even if it's macaroni and cheese. We all get busy, but the effort it takes to vary one's diet is worth it. I have a theory that if you eat the same food too often, your body starts to replace vital parts with it, and I don't want them to cut me open one day and find that my liver has turned into gooey cheese sauce.

2. Thou shalt not replace breakfast with pastry. There is an entire industry dedicated to propagating the myth that pastry is a reasonable alternative to oatmeal. Croissants are so light and fluffy; how could they be bad for you? Unfortunately, a typical croissant contains about 300 calories. That's a lot for something that will keep you energized for about five minutes (and will also make your butt big).

3. Thou shalt eat thine vitamins. I love vitamins. I collect them the way some women collect shoes. Every time I read about a new nutrient that will fix some imagined imbalance in my system, I go out and buy it. Unfortunately, I have trouble remembering to actually eat them, mainly because they don't taste good.

4. Thou shalt not consider smoked salmon to be a food group. It should not therefore represent a significant percentage of my diet. Despite the fact that smoked salmon is nature's perfect food and is good in practically everything, I must occasionally replace it with other things. Vegetables, maybe.

5. Thou shalt actually eat the lettuce one buys in a timely fashion. Every time I go to the grocery store I buy lettuce. I always intend to make a salad and, by eating it, lose an instant 15 pounds. But something always gets in the way (usually macaroni and cheese or smoked salmon), and the lettuce sits in the fridge, wilting and turning wet and floppy. By the time I get to it, I have to throw it out, which is always a good excuse to eat smoked salmon again.

6. Thou shalt realize that cookies and baby carrots are not interchangeable. Yes, they are roughly the same size and take the same amount of time and effort to eat, but I'm told they have slightly different effects on the body.

7. Thou shalt not eat beef "instead" of broccoli. Especially when "beef" is "frozen pizza."

8. Thou shalt not eat after 8 p.m. — especially not dinner, which is typically heavy. Anything a person eats after 8 p.m. usually just gets stored as fat and has no fighting chance of being burned off between going to bed and waking up for more pastries.

9. Thou shalt not eat lunch at 4 p.m. It always results in eating dinner at 9 p.m., forcing me to break Commandment No. 8.

10. Thou shalt not eat something simply because thou see an ad for it. Pictures on billboards and SuperBowl ads have more of an effect on my dietary habits than all the rearing I got from my parents. I am equally susceptible to things being prepared on the Food Network. I have, as a result, consumed the following items in the last month: Tater Tots, a Drumstick cone, a burger with bacon and bleu cheese, a corn dog, cherry Coca-Cola Zero and half an apple pie. I estimate that if I stopped interacting with advertisements, I would be 15 pounds lighter. Happy New Year, and good luck!

Contact Tantri Wija at thetwija@gmail.com.