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ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, I talk to women who are strug- gling with their weight. Most want to lose weight; occasionally I run across ones who want to gain it. But I would guess that weight issues dominate the lives of more women than not.

And often, I find myself at a loss. Dealing with weight issues is tough. Approximately one-third of all U.S. women are obese, and statistics tell us that the chances of losing weight and keeping it off permanently are small.

I don't believe in fad diets or a miracle pill to lose weight, so all I've been able to offer to them, and myself, is a vague "eat less and better, and exercise."

No, you didn't read wrong. I did say myself. I've lost and gained weight more times than I want to think about. I've tried eating only half of what I usually eat. I've tried Weight Watchers (which of all the commercial programs out there I think is the best, but you have to stick to it, and the group setting isn't for everybody), and I've lost weight from extreme exercise (training for a marathon). But, in all of these circumstances, I gained it back.

Like a lot of women, I eat when I'm not hungry. I eat when I'm sad, when I'm stressed, and when I'm bored. Telling someone who eats for emotional reasons to just stop eating so much and to exercise is unrealistic. There's more than just the physical going on, and unless you get to the bottom of it, nothing will work for long.

While watching TV over the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw something on the news that caught my interest, and now I'm going to share with you what I've learned about this interesting eating approach. And what I'll do in subsequent columns is give you an update on how I'm doing and what I'm learning from it with the hope that it will help someone else.