Imagine that you are talking to a person who is obese (for example, me last year). It doesn’t seem to matter if the person is 50 pounds overweight or 250 pounds overweight. The person proclaims that he or she would like to lose weight. So you say to the person, “well, if you would cut way back on carbs, chances are you would lose weight. You might even try eliminating carbs completely and see what happens.” Depending on where the person is on the dieting spectrum, the next question might be, “what are carbs?” And the answer is, anything with sugar, flour or starch in it: Cookies, cakes, ice cream, soda, breakfast cereal, pizza, pasta, rice, potatoes, milk, fruit juice, etc.

The reaction almost inevitably is, “Are you kidding? I can’t live without ___.” Pizza might fill the blank, or Oreo cookies, or whatever. You might even hear, “I would commit suicide if I had to give up ____. There would be no reason to go on living…” or something similarly hyperbolic….