Treated myself to a physical earlier this week, to celebrate my upcoming birthday. On Friday, I turn 54.

My doctor, good old George, gave me some other numbers. He wasn’t all that crazy about them — like the chronological digits, my blood pressure and total weight numbers are on the rise.

The blood pressure numbers will hopefully dip during the next 30 days, thanks to a bottle for Lisinopril that is now on a bathroom shelf. One a day, just like the vitamins. The total weight number will be a little trickier to knock down — I’m crowding 240, and George would prefer to see me around 195.

Now there’s a challenge. I used to gripe about my lanky physique in high school; my 1973 identification card from the Rochester Police Department lists me as 6-feet-1 and 169 pounds. I’m still 6-feet-1, but 36 years of early snacks, late snacks, ketchup, potatoes, M&Ms and a couple milk tanker trucks’ worth of beer have added the extra weight.

But 240! George must think I’m going home at night and raiding the refrigerator for a pound of butter. I’m peeling the quarters one by one, eating all four, then killing a pound of chili, a plate of Tater Tots, a quart of ice cream and a quart of chocolate milk. “Hey, hey, hey,” as Fat Albert used to say.

I do have weakness for all those foods, but have never eaten a whole stick of butter.

Actually saw this coming. While I have spent many winter days at the YMCA on the new space bikes, I have spent many winter nights by the fireplace, digging into a mashed potato, vegetable and cheeseburger dinner at 9:30 or 10 p.m. The doc and his assistant said this is the cardinal sin; an investment in food after dark is a solid down payment on solid lard around the middle.

But 40 pounds! I do have the full Irish face, and believe my head weighs 30 pounds all by itself; and perhaps all that biking has made my legs more muscular, heavier. Maybe they’re 40 or 50 pounds each!

While the medical community knows best, some weight experts around the office have different opinions.

“Maybe you can lose 10 pounds,” said dance writer Wendy Liberatore.

“WHERE are you going to lose it FROM!” exclaimed editor Elaine Cape.

“Want a cheeseburger and fries for lunch?” offered managing editor Judith Patrick.

Ha. Ha. The best advice I got came from Doug Hopkins in the composing room. Hop-Sing is one of these weight-lifting zealots; he’s 235, can lift a car, and wants to put on even more weight. We bat him clean-up on the company softball team not because he can kill the ball — he can’t — but because we figure he’s going to scare the opposing pitcher to death.

“Don’t lose any weight,” he advised. “If you do, you’re going to look old, frail. It’s true, that’s the way I look at it. People will look at you and think you’re a push-over. Now, you look tough.”

Maybe he’s got a point. Hop-Sing says a 195-pound Wilkin is too thin. “Now 6-foot-1, 210 is fine,” he said. “You don’t want your arms getting skinny, your chest drawing in. Go to the gym — go hard or go home.”

So Dr. Hopkins says I should only lose 30 pounds. Some doctor.

I am determined to make some changes. The YMCA biking has ended, and I hope to make my first 40-mile bike commute from Albany to Schenectady tomorrow. I used to worry about cars hitting me; I guess cars will now to worry about me hitting them.

I also guess I’ve got to start doing more weights — sorry Doug, they bore me — and no more meals after 6 or 7 p.m.

That might be the toughest part. Late nights at work occasionally equal late nights at home. But if I feel hungry around 10 or 11, I’ll chug a quart of water. Maybe two. The two-pound tubs of prepared mashed potatoes, the ketchup-on-everything routine, the six-egg omelets are now persona non grata at my dining room table.

“Eat some carrot sticks,” said my brother Tim, who observes his 53rd birthday today.

Everybody’s an expert.