Number one, we need to essentially get into your head. We need to assess your mindset. We need to think about your psychology. How obsessed are you with food? When it's 8 p.m., and the only thing between you and midnight is the refrigerator, what is your life about? If it's about eating lots of cookies, if it's about another bowl of cereal, if it's about whatever's in there, and then something else, and then something else, you've got a problem.

The second part of the three dimensions is appetite, and appetite is different from hunger. Hunger is normal. Appetite is that vague yearning for more -- even if your stomach is not especially crying out for more. The question is, most of the time when you're eating, is it because you are physically hungry, or is it because of the romance of what that next bite is going to taste like because you love Fig Newtons so much?

This is pretty darn simple. It's just what Grandma thought dieting was. Cutting back. The problem is that the food junkie inside you doesn't want to cut back. The food junkie inside you, in fact, just wants more food. Cutting back? It's anathema to the food junkie inside. It's very difficult to change your behavior without external reinforcers, and that's what we provide.