I’m sure you know that the two items in an analogy are never exactly the same, but that a correctly conceived one can create a better understanding of a difficult idea. That’s why we use analogy so frequently.

And I’m sure regular readers know that I believe you have the ability to control your body weight (unless you’re part of the approximately 3 percent of the population that’s genetically cursed).

But it’s more than my experience that causes me to state that or that I have helped dozens upon dozens do the same. The average member of the more than 10,000 in the National Weight Control Registry has lost 66 pounds and stayed at that weight for more than five years.

But some of the science behind weight loss can be complicated, so instead of explaining BMR, RMR, and the thermogenic property of foods including NEAT, I’ll resort to a form of analogy, the simile, to do so. Like a new-found love of a bad-for-you food, your body weight is not predetermined by fate.

Habits determine body weight.

Over time, those habits create a body weight that your body wants to maintain.

Those same habits alter your taste buds.

Consider the story I read in a bodybuilding magazine years ago about a highly motivated, female bodybuilder about to enter her first competition. Halfway through her final workout before it, she felt flushed, lightheaded, and had to sit down.

A seasoned bodybuilder in the weight room recognized what was happening and offered the woman half of the apple he was eating. She took a few bites, but couldn’t eat it all.

After four months of cutting out all carbs but broccoli, cauliflower, oatmeal, and an occasional baked potato, the apple tasted so sweet that she couldn’t eat any more.

The female bodybuilder’s case is an unusual one, but the opposite isn’t. That occurs when you eat a bit more and a bit more of your favorite sugary food over the course of a few weeks, so that the same old amount of sugar isn’t satisfying enough.

As a child, my brother did this with ketchup.

He went from dipping his French fries in it to drowning virtually anything else that was put on his plate, too. Green beans. Pot pie. Sirloin steak.

Once my mom caught him eating a bowl of nearly equal amounts of ketchup and macaroni and cheese, she forced him to cut back, but his taste buds had already been reprogrammed — and he was already scheduled to go on a week-long beach vacation with the family of his best friend, Raymie.

He came back from that vacation 10 pounds heavier.

Raymie’s parents went out to eat every single night, but allowed the boys to stay in the efficiency hotel room, order pizza, and play the sports simulation game they were hooked on at the time, Strat-O-Matic Baseball. My brother ate his half of the pie along with a side order of — what else? — French fries.

To which he added — you guessed it! — a ton of ketchup.

Those gut-busting suppers, along with the Boardwalk fudge the boys would snack on while playing the board game, increased my brother’s bodyweight a bit more than 10 percent in a bit more than a week. To say my mother was a bit more than miffed with Raymie’s parents would be accurate.

About my own diet, I have repeatedly written two things. Number one: Because I have the two-fold goal of optimal athletic performance and optimal health (which don’t always go hand-in-hand), others perceive what I eat to be highly restricted and extremely bland. Number two: I genuinely look forward to eating what I eat.

Honestly.

You probably love to eat, too, so it shouldn’t be hard to believe that as I near the end of many before-work workouts, I’ll anticipate the breakfast I’ll eat in school while I double check the day’s lessons and get a pleasing sense of anticipation.

And this occurs even though every single time I eat breakfast in school the breakfast is the same: 16 ounces of plain, non-fat Greek yogurt and three-quarters of a cup of Fiber One cereal.

How can this seemingly bland combination taste so good to me? I add to it two heaping tablespoons of the calorie-free sugar substitute erythritol and three ounces of a Walden Farms calorie free syrup.

To my altered taste buds, this breakfast tastes really good and just sweet enough to seem like a treat.

So after three stories proving the power of your taste buds, what are you supposed to do? Consciously choose foods to positively reprogram yours.

If you do so, you’ll also reprogram your body’s set point, the weight that it fights to maintain.

Read more about your body’s set point and how you, far more than fate, are in charge of it.