Body by Rover? : Forget the diet books and the gym. If you want a new body, just get yourself a dog.

Can’t lose weight?

Get a dog.

Don’t aerobicize. Don’t Jazzercize. Doggercize.

Any hound worth its Alpo is only too happy to help with diet and exercise.

A hungry dog--all dogs are hungry or dead--is a better diet aid than anything you can get over or under the counter. If you can’t afford to have one of those Body by Jake types come over to your house and yell at you every day, dogs are great personal trainers.

No matter how much junk you usually eat while watching TV, you will eat less if a dog is by your Barcalounger, staring intently at your hand as it goes from the bag of Cool Ranch Doritos to your fat mouth. Every fifth bite or so will be given up to that pooch whose big eyes and sad expression would have you believe that the poor waif has been in Somalia since sometime last year.

You may buy a two-pound bag of Mesquite Bar-B-Q Ruffles, but you’ll be lucky to eat half--especially if you leave the bag within doggie reach when you go to check the plumbing during a commercial.

And a face full of dog breath tends to curb the appetite.

If you decide to get off your duff and get some actual exercise, a canine companion will be only too happy to take you for a drag as often as you can handle it.

Just loop a leash around the neck of some big, happy drooler, hold on tightly, open the door and feel that fat melt away as you zip around the neighborhood.

In addition to the long walks, you also get the benefit of short sprints to catch your beast when it takes off after a squirrel, a flyer-delivery guy or the mail carrier. You learn to apologize better than a Corvette owner in traffic court.

Don’t buy a set of weights. You’ll get enough heavy lifting--and possibly a hernia--schlepping those 50-pound bags of Purina home from Vons.

Plus, you get to stretch those flabby muscles and unlimber--or snap--that cramped back bending over to clean up after your personal trainer. It’s the law, you know, and it’s the good-neighbor thing to do. And developing the grace to carry on a conversation with a neighbor while holding a sack of poop can give you the savoir-faire of a French diplomat.

Of course, it is hard to be suave if you are stuck at home, fat and barefoot because Sputnik ate your Adidas.

Another thing about having a dog underfoot is that you can trip over it and fall, as my wife did a while back, snapping her arm in three places. Her other arm got lots of exercise as she filled out medical insurance claim forms.

Come to think of it, what’s that Jake guy’s number?