No doughnuts for Ariel Sharon over the Jewish festival of Hanukkah this year. The Israeli prime minister is counting his calories as closely as the days until a March 28 election.
With polls predicting an overwhelming victory for Sharon and his new Kadima party, the only spanner in the works could be the 77-year-old's health after he was hospitalised for a mild stroke last week.
His doctors say the stroke was caused by a heart murmur that will be corrected in a procedure next month.
But the illness has pushed Sharon's health -- and his estimated 115kg weight (250 pounds) -- to the centre of Israel's election campaign.
"It's an issue because of the stroke," said political commentator Hannan Crystal. "These elections are very personal. It's about Sharon. Either you vote for or against him".
Sharon's Kadima party is so much in its infancy that it is seen as more of a vehicle for the prime minister after he quit the right-wing Likud party than an established political movement.
There are no natural successors to Sharon in Kadima and this could affect support for the party if Sharon has a relapse.
Hence the extensive efforts Sharon's staff have made to portray the stroke as no more than a minor hiccup.
Sharon was back at work a week after the health scare and is on a very public diet following doctors' advice to lose weight and exercise more to reduce the risk of a recurrence.
Making light of his battle of the bulge, Sharon warned his cabinet ministers against overeating the traditional holiday fare of doughnuts during a cabinet meeting this week. "Since the main issue that everybody is talking about these days is my weight ... I will leave you now so I don't have to get on the scales after this," Sharon told guests at a Hanukkah party before skipping out as platters of doughnuts were served.
But the prime minister's love of food -- one newspaper reported he polished off platters of grilled meat and chocolate cake the day before the stroke -- has caused consternation.
US President George W. Bush gave him diet tips on the telephone after he was released from hospital last week, telling the Israeli prime minister to diet and exercise more and saying that he hoped to see a healthier Sharon when they next meet.
Sharon will be an octogenarian half way into his four year term if he is re-elected.
Many voters believe that Sharon would use what might well be his last term in office to push efforts to end conflict with the Palestinians, begun in September when he withdrew Israel from the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.
Israeli political wisdom has long held that only a hawk -- Sharon was for decades the champion of the right and the settlement movement -- could steer Israel through a tumultuous period of peacemaking and dismantling more Jewish settlements.
From the founding generation of Israeli leaders, Sharon won a reputation for crushing all obstacles to achieve whatever he sets his mind on. His nickname is "the Bulldozer".
The Palestinians fear that he intends to carve the West Bank into cantons to block them from establishing a state.
Sharon's aides are keen to quell suggestions that the stroke has or could impair his ability to run the country. One pointed out that the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was overweight and a smoker when he led Britain during World War Two.
"The main issue is whether he is fit to be in office," said Eyal Arad, an advisor to Sharon.
"Better to have a fatter candidate who is more equipped to deal with the problems Israel faces than a candidate who is thin but not suited to deal with such problems".
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