PORCINE, WISCONSIN- According to recent studies, the average New Year's resolution lasts less than a week. Than means that right about now, you're reaching back into your secret bag of batter-dipped jelly beans and feeling really bad about it. This was to be your year, the time when you finally got off your compendious ass and did something to get to a healthier weight, but as you wrap your lips around another chocolate-covered pork rind you realize that this was not to be.

Your friends have foolishly convinced you that you need to cut carbohydrates and sugar from your diet, and so-called "experts" in lab coats and funny nominal prefixes have told you that you need to stop consuming so much lard and being such a fatass. No, that sort of crazy, hairbrained approach will never work for you. That's why we at Ridiculopathy-Dot-Com have come up with a variety of helpful hints to keep your weight-loss effort on track without having to actually do much of anything.

For the politically-minded, one of the best weight-loss techniques is to pick an ongoing injustice in the world, calling up some journalists, then and begin hunger-striking about it. Puppies being mistreated in Portugal? Residents of famine-stricken countries abusing fatasses like yourself? Hold yourself a press conference and say you'll never eat again until the meanies cut it out. It's a great way to shed a pounds fast while garnering some well-earned face time on TV.

Besides, the rules for hunger strikes have changed in recent years to include things like soup and very small doughnuts [no filling or sprinkles, of course]. Hell, if Al Sharpton can do it, you certainly can, too.

So you say your family bullied you into quitting smoking and now that you have, you gotten so large that Herman Melville's great-great-great-great-grandson wants to write a book about you. You've probably figured out the answer by now: start up again. If you haven't, start smoking now.

The advantages are unmistakable: you'll have something to do with your hands again; you'll spend lots of time outside in the elements; annoyances like personal contact and time with the family will be kept to a minimum; and best of all food will taste bland and unpleasant, allowing you to lose weight and keep it off.

Sure, the risk of cancer is high, and smokers are usually a pariah wherever they go. At the same time, people hate smokers a lot less than they already secretly hate you, fatty, and cancer sympathy can only help your situation.

With increases in so-called "sin taxes" in most states, the cost of the habit has grown substantially in recent years, but it still pales in comparison to the price tag on most gym memberships, so pack up your stuff and stuff the family in the CR-V, we're moving to Flavor Country.

Other personal habits can also be beneficial when seeking to lose weight. Consider taking up a controlled substance in the new year. Heroin, for example, is an ideal drug for those seeking to drop a few lb's. You won't have any money for food, and even if you managed to find some you would not remember how to eat it. You'll lead a more exciting life, too, putting just about anything into your veins, mouth, and rectum that you and your new friends can scrounge up. The next time you say to yourself "I want to look like Iggy Pop," it's time to head down to the abandoned Burger King on 16th street and ride the snake.

You might also want to consider "dropping some ballast" the way the ballooners do it. That's right, consider dropping a limb, an organ or two. The old adage that "the best way to lose ten pounds is to cut off your head" may sound silly, but there is truth in there. Remember, the average colon weighs four pounds, and a left arm assembly could run as much as 25. Your body is covered in all sorts of non-mission-critical parts doing little more than weighing you down every day. Again, this technique engenders a great deal of sympathy and, besides, you can park wherever the hell you want.

Sure, most "ethical" doctors won't perform a procedure like that in the States and it is reportedly quit difficult to fake Gangrene, but just a few hours South you can have all the amputations you want for $16.95 a hack. Two weeks as a treadmill rat or one trip to Mexico, the choice is yours.

And if you have access to some ice and a few underworld connections, you could even make a few grand in the process, enough to buy a year's supply of Hagen Das.

Now that you've tried the other approaches [or at least read them and rejected them out of hand], you might want to think about dying in order to lose weight. According to the medical pathologists, the human body loses as much as %10 in the first 24 hours of death, weight positively guaranteed never to come back. And it only gets better from there, after the first year, you'll be nothing but skin and bones, even Lara Flynn Boyle will see you and shout "Damn, somebody buy that person a sandwich."

If you're flinching at this idea, you need to look at your hideous gelatinous mass in the mirror and ask yourself: how hardcore am I? Remember: nobody likes a fatty, even a dead one. Just ask Karen Carpenter.

Finally there is always the option of killing all the skinny people in your area, but that isn't really advisable. First of all, you'll have to murder a great number of people who happen to be in better shape than you and can probably outrun you for long distances. Also, any random witnesses that might be just as heavy as you will also have to be snuffed, leaving an enormous amount of cleanup and paperwork.

On the other hand, you can always try turning all the skinny people into lard-butts like yourself, but this again would be quite difficult. It might at first seem simple to inject chicken fat into the water supply or run through the grocery store, slapping "Fat Free" stickers on all the high-calorie foods, but the logistics of the plan are a great deal more complicated. Besides, a secret cabala of corporations has been doing just that for over thirty years and have only succeeded in fattening up people like yourself.

We hope this piece has helped you meet your New Year's goal. We look forward to seeing your drug-addled, foot-missing, smoking, dead, fat ass here next year when we post this again. Good day.