In 2014, a little-known nutritionist in Milwaukee, one of the more portly cities in America, developed an ingenious system to get his clients to lose weight and keep it off for good. He told his morbidly obese clients to pair each pound with a descriptive adjective, noun, or euphemism they hated, so that each time they lost a pound they could strike it off the list forever. Provided they did not regain the weight, they need never hear the mortifying term again. For example,