Discover the root of why you overeat and the solution will become apparent.

It is not uncommon for someone to go off a diet and eat excessively without really knowing and even caring why. The problem is that until the overeater understands why the diet has been abandoned, every future diet will also be abandoned. Sharon is an example. Her weight loss was going nowhere. Her careful adherence to the food plan Sunday through Friday was undone by her excess calorie intake on Saturdays. "I just want to eat," was all that she would say.

Actually the why she just wanted to eat was easy to discover. She worked from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in a gift shop owned by her sister-in-law. One of them would leave to buy pizza or submarine sandwiches for lunch when the store was quiet, usually until 1 or 2. Because she was used to eating lunch earlier, Sharon munched away her hunger on the gourmet candies and miniature cookies the shop sold.

Driving home was stressful because of heavy traffic but instead of relaxing when she got home, she immediately started cleaning the mess in the kitchen left by her husband. She also started to snack, usually on potato chips.

Dinner was always eaten out but late as her husband refused to make reservations at a restaurant. "We always have to wait for a table and by the time we sit down, I am so hungry and angry that I order the most fattening food on the menu," she told me.

The reasons for her overeating were obvious and so were the solutions. She brought her diet lunch to work and nibbled on rice cakes instead of gourmet chocolate if lunchtime was late. Instead of doing housework when she came home, she relaxed or took a nap. And by eating cereal and milk or yogurt and a muffin before going out to dinner, her hunger was under control by the time she could order dinner.

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