I HAVE a belt of adipose tissue lodged around my middle. I’m a bumper car, protected from unwarranted bumping. Need a gently sloping shelf on which to display historical thimbles or wee porcelain Scotties? Call me. The Alford steaks, they are marbled.

My self-imposed limit is 165, the last station. Admittedly, at 5 feet 10 inches, I’m what any right-thinking nutritionist would call average size.

But note that the number 165 is rendered in heterosexual pounds. In gay pounds, I’m Precious. So when I hit 170 this winter, I knew it was time to test-drive a Carnegie Mellon study I’d read about. Scientists there discovered that when you repeatedly imagine eating a certain food, your craving for that food (but not others) is reduced.

In one test, 51 people were divided into three groups. One group imagined eating 30 M&M’s; another, three M&M’s; the third, none. When a bowl of M&M’s was then presented to the group, those who had imagined eating the most ate the fewest.