IT IS customary at this time to commit to self-improvement. Well, feel free to join me in not bothering. And the same goes for resolutions. I shall resolve not to resolve anything, if that’s all right. As for the diet, that can wait.

The arrival of a year sees us worrying that we should change something.

A whole publishing industry is devoted to tickling this self-doubt spot. According to one figure I read the other day, the self-improvement industry in the US is worth $11 billion.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this industry a giant deception second only to the dieting industry?

If any diet worked, no one would need to go on a diet ever again. Much the same rule should surely apply to self-help books endlessly promising improvement. If any of these books had a beneficial effect, they would cancel out all other self-improvement books.

Diets, like self-help manuals, are based on the idea that there is a magic formula to improvement. In their way they are like secular religions seeking converts, although “converting” is likely to cost you.

Now it is true that I have only been on two diets, although they weren’t diets so much as dietary tinkering.

The mild torture in question was known as the “carb curfew”. This limits you to eating carbohydrates once a day for ten days: not much fun for someone who probably could live on bread alone.

The results were encouraging, with almost half a stone lost on the first occasion. A week or so later, the weight found its way back, leaving me half a stone or so overweight again. And this is where you will normally find me.

The diet of the moment is the 5/2 diet. On this one you fast for two days a week, eating only 600 calories for men or 500 for women. On non-fasting days you can eat what you like.

This method is said to work, but I have never felt strong enough to give it a go. Here, though, is a contrary suggestion: it’s known as the Five-to Diet. The rules for this one are that if it’s five-to any given hour, it must be time for a snack or at least a cup of tea. Please note: this diet is not scientifically proven. Then again, not many of them are.

Some people feel miserable about their weight and would dearly love to lose a lot more than that extra half-stone encircled by my belt. Sadly, these people are perfect subjects for the dieting industry. They feel unhappy and reach for whatever happens to be the diet of the moment.

Diets don’t generally work, but thinking about diet can do. That’s my theory anyway. Eat a bit less and do a bit more. Eat proper food and force yourself to eat some of these vegetable things. Marry a vegetarian then you will have to eat some of those vegetable things (believe me on this one). Be active, walk a bit, cycle. Oh, and eat apples because apples are good.

As for self-help manuals, I have read about such publications, without troubling myself to actually read one. It seems to me that a book setting out to provide answers to life’s problems is almost bound to fail by definition, because nothing is ever that straightforward.

So here we go. I resolve to carry on pretty much the same.

This is not to suggest that I am a person who needs no modification or improvement; heavens, no. But it is to realistically accept that what was good or less good about me one year will probably stay being good or less good the next. And by the time you get to 57 there are only so many varieties of self available to improve.

So you might as well stick with the one you’ve got and hope for the best.

So let’s raise a glass to 2014. And, no, I will not be giving up alcohol for January, but I might cut down a bit. Then again…