When he was fourteen, he told his mother that he was ashamed of being fat and short and so she took him with her to a Weight Watchers meeting, where he listened to a room full of sad women talk about how unlovable they were and how temporary they felt in their bodies.

“Your life is now,” said Sandy, the leader. She wore denim skirts and brightly colored shirts with matching tights and big, costumey earrings. “You have to live as if your life is already in progress.”

Young Toby didn’t understand what this was about. Of course life was now—at least it was for the grown-ups. He didn’t understand why they had emotional barriers to the diet beyond the major one, which was that food was comforting and delicious and good. It all made perfect sense to him now: Food is comforting and delicious, but it is not good, and one shouldn’t be seduced into thinking it might be.

Fine. He followed the plan, and he lost five pounds the first week. Then more, then more. The women would grumble at his weight loss: He was a boy and he was a teenager—his metabolism was ideal. His mother would drive him home and say, “See? They’re jealous because you’re successful.” She loved that. She loved him, more than she had before. He never went off the plan until he was twenty-four and stopped eating carbohydrates completely. He was never going to end up like one of those women.