After a year like 2013, you’d expect Nigella Lawson to have a long list of resolutions for 2014.

First on her list? Hitting the gym to make up for being ‘incredibly lazy’ in recent months — and presumably to burn off the chocolate she confessed to eating after her court ordeal.

The year is already getting off to a promising start for Lawson, after she impressed US viewers during the premiere of the second series of her cooking show, The Taste.

Enthusiastic fans praised her on Twitter, calling her a ‘flawless human being’ who had ‘seduced’ them with her humour and British accent.

Lawson, dressed all in black, returned to Heathrow on Friday following a trip to America to promote the show.

The celebrity cook is hoping to turn the page after a miserable 2013 in which she divorced Charles Saatchi, 70, and gave evidence during the trial of her two former personal assistants.

Among the uncomfortable admissions she made to the jury were that she had smoked marijuana in front of her two children, and had taken cocaine in the past.

In an interview with ABC to promote the show, Lawson said her new year’s resolution was to get in shape. She said: “I’ve been incredibly lazy. So it’s back to the treadmill.

“But with loud disco music and thinking about what I’ll eat for supper, it’s fine.”

It seems her fitness drive hasn’t quite started yet, however. Asked about the trashiest thing she had eaten, Lawson said she liked the fries from In-N-Out Burger, a US fast food chain.

She also revealed that her fellow judges on the show, chefs Anthony Bourdain, Ludo Lefebvre and Marcus Samuelsson, were like brothers to her, and they had helped her through the “rough times”.

Lawson charmed American viewers with her self-deprecating humour during the two-hour series premiere of The Taste.

She also seems to have charmed her fellow judges. Bourdain said that his favourite moment from the series was “when Nigella got very stern with her team”.

He explained: “I call it the Scarlett O’Hara speech at the end of Gone With the Wind. It was eloquent, riveting and inspiring.” Asked if the judges had been supportive, Lawson said: “They’re lovely. But like brothers, they tease me a lot.

“If they all started being terribly nice, I would worry.”

Last month Lawson gave evidence at the trial of her former assistants, Elisabetta Grillo, 41, and her sister Francesca, 35.

They were cleared of unlawfully spending £685,000 (Dh4.2 million) on luxury items on their work credit cards.

In her first comments on the case since it finished, Lawson said she found the ordeal “mortifying”.

She added: “Since then I’ve eaten a lot of chocolate, had a very good Christmas and I’m into the New Year.”