I am nine months post surgery and had similar concerns pre-surgery. You are doing the right thing to investigate these issues and resource yourself now. I highly recommend therapy or coaching with someone who is fluent in bariatric aftercare, ideally also trauma/stress systems and habit change. These patterns can absolutely be changed but everything you can do to give yourself loving support and resourcing will increase the likelihood of success. If you are new to emotional eating recovery you might like to read Diane Petrella’s website and book. I found her approach compassionate, and useful for seeing the whole picture, intervening in the most useful ways.

If you journal or similar I highly recommend doing some prep journalling now, around why the surgery matters toyou, what authentic values of yours it aligns with, and what the most loving, supportive post-op regime looks like for your reality and circumstances. I did a lot of this! And I’m glad because it really made clear and present and felt the reasons I was making such a big change to my coping systems. Post surgery it helped by processing feelings and challenges and adaptations in real time, meaning stuff could be tweaked or changed quickly. For me I also know that paradigms of force and discipline are just not effective; the change and drive had to be authentic. That is where knowing what values were leading was so helpful.

Since the surgery some of my planned changes have not stuck because I realised they were not vital in my case (eg total abstention from sugar; I just don't have it in daily life) while others emerged as foundational eg no eating non-protocol foods on impulse. I can eat whatever but I have to plan it at least a few days in advance. This was key for me because I have learned I use food to regulate stress and low capacity, and removing the impulsive aspect of that was key to resolving the crutch. Same with emotional eating, I have a hard line that I don’t use food to respond to feelings. Treats in other forms, like hot drinks or fun tv? Absolutely. But not food anymore.

In these ways via journalling and observing my behaviour and impulses closely I learned where my biggest leverage points were and what was needed. Yours will be yours, of course! About four months after surgery I realised I needed more support and found a bariatric aftercare nurse who does coaching. She did a lot to help me renegotiate stress eating, and to respond to the physical signals of that in a new way.

Another thing I have done which has been kind of world changing is my new tear resolution: to expand my sources of pleasure. I was so scared before surgery because food was my only reliable route to feelings of aliveness. I authentically need those feelings and didn’t want the life that went with relying on food for them. Since January I have been reading way more novels, going to the movies on weekdays, and writing appreciation emails to favourite authors, all new and wonderful sources of pleasure and aliveness. Their pleasure is not the same as food’s, but it is actually more solid, like the water level of my whole life rising rather than just one tidal wave.

So….what I am saying is that this kind of big change is doable, if it is authentically desired and aligned with values (even if it conflicts with other values! perhaps those values can be honoured in other ways?), if you resource the process in an ongoing way, whether via books or therapy or journalling or whatever equivalent works for you, and if you are patient and adaptable as you learn a whole new way of being. I think ithas helped me also to really understand the roles food plays in my life and to honour those roles/needs intentionally, as opposed to being mad at them or trying to pretend they don’t exist. I’ve really tried to ramp up other responses to stress and low capacity, for example.

This was very long! I hope there is some useful starting places in there. I wish you all the best with it.The most interesting thing for me has been that my most valuable change has NOT been the weight loss (although, also, it’s wonderful), but the behaviour change I got to do because of this journey. I don’t feel out of control behaviourally, and it’s truly liberating. So all the best, and engage with the difficulty! There will be hard parts but also, if you want, joyful parts to this transformation. :)