Yettid

Great info. Thanks! I'm not sure I have Binge eating disorders but I can eat a pound of chocolate or half tub of ice cream. And donuts, ugh 3 or 4!😳

It's interesting to hear from veteran wls and newbies alike. With all due respect, it's easy to say "I am committed indefinitely" to a certain way of eating when your just a few months out. I'm trying to see the big picture for my lifetime. Thanks all.

It's interesting to hear from veteran wls and newbies alike. With all due respect, it's easy to say "I am committed indefinitely" to a certain way of eating when your just a few months out. I'm trying to see the big picture for my lifetime. Thanks all.

This is just my experience, you may do better than I have.
I was in the same boat as a pre-op, I was a sugar addict and a binge eater. I'd read every self-help book I could find and spent a year in therapy pre-op but none of that helped. After surgery for the first 6 months or so I had no urge at all to overeat, or to eat foods full of sugar and carbs. I dropped 105 pounds in a year to get below my goal weight, my surgeon told me I was a "superstar", I was skinny and active and happy, but could already see the struggle with food was back.
Now, at 6 years post-op I've regained half my loss and am working to take it off again. Honestly, I've spent the past several years battling sugar addiction and carbs again. I feel good restriction when I'm eating Protein and veggies, but boy can I pack in the Cookies, or chocolate, or whatever. Got myself back on track a few times over the years and got closer to goal, but nothing I stuck with for more than a few months. I've finally found a coaching program that's helping me understand not only why I overeat, but what to do about it. I've dropped 20 of my 60 pounds of regain, and believe I'll be getting those skinny clothes back out of boxes by the end of the year. My post-op stomach helps me feel satisfied with small portions of the right foods, the coaching is helping me stop wanting the wrong ones.
Some people manage to make the switch after surgery and never look back, others of us return to our old habits. I strongly recommend you find a therapist or coach, or some other program to help you address the reasons you're overeating sugar and carbs. For the first 6 - 12 months you'll feel like a million bucks and the plummeting scale numbers and smaller clothes and compliments will replace the joy you're getting from food. In my experience, once you're at or near goal the joy from those begins to play a smaller role and you're at risk of going back to overeating.

That is exactly my sentiment. If I could stop eating with therapy or diet, why would I need surgery ? Thanks Jess, you get me. Lol

I agree, and I think that was the point of this whole thread. To say that the surgery is a tool when coupled with therapy and hard work could help those with food addictions be successful.

Binge eating is less about the amount than the loss of control and compulsiveness. It's eating out of control for a discrete period of time, not being able to stop. "Coming to" and not even being aware of how much. Almost a fugue state or trance.

If we could stop ourselves, why would we need The surgery? Truly wondering. I think many of us need BOTH, the mental help AND the physical help.

No, I'm sorry, it really won't. In fact, in our program people who binge eat are not approved for surgery whatsoever until they have their binge eating under control first. (I believe one woman in my support group said she needed to be six+ months free of a binging episode before being allowed to sign?) If you are a true compulsive overeater and binger, surgery will NOT fix those compulsions... and you could wind up badly hurting yourself!
Of course, I'm talking about true compulsive overeating binging, which is a serious psychological issue and a genuine eating disorder not "I went to a Pasta joint and ate SO MUCH BREADSTICKS AND THEN HAD SPAGHETTI!" which of course ain't great for you and often makes you feel like poop on a stick, but isn't the same thing as binge eating disorder either.
In the second case surgery will definitely limit your appetite and portion sizes to a given extent.
As for the sweets, nope, there's really no guarantee it's going to help with that. My first few weeks out I couldn't stand anything sweet whatsoever, but my sweet tooth is definitely back now! Some people experience dumping syndrome when they eat sweets, which can work as negative reinforcement, but it's not for all sweet foods and it often goes away the farther out from surgery you are.
Surgery is an amazingly powerful and life-changing tool, but it has limits. There are some things the surgery can really help with, but other things we must work on and fix ourselves.

Some people can stop compulsively craving and binge-eating sugary treats only via abstinence. For these people, sugar is their drug and they'll never be able to eat it in moderation. Therefore, they must abstain from it altogether.
Again, I commend you for exploring this issue before you commit to surgery. It takes a lot of guts and healthy self-introspection to admit to having a problem and doing something about it.

Yes you need to figure out why you over eat, yes you need to do the mental work, yes the surgery is a tool and you need to work hard.

BUT it's a big tool. Hunger and eating is a complex system regulated by hormones/Endocrine system, gut biome/gastrointestinal system and behavior/mental processes/reinforcement and likely a lot of other things we haven't discovered. This podcast is amazingly educational on the interplay:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/weight-loss-surgery-podcast-bariatric-lap-band-rygb/id662443588?mt=2&i=1000373855300

This surgery changed the biology of my binge cycle so the rest of it could work FOR ME. I haven't felt like bingeing since.

And of course everyone is different, but no I couldn't physically eat 10 donuts... crackers maybe.... more popcorn than I should, but like we are taking a couple of cups not a large tub. I'm four years out and get stuffed with one donut.

No...you can still eat sugary foods compulsively with a gastric bypass or sleeve. Only a small percentage of bypass patients experience the dumping syndrome after eating sugar; however, the majority tolerate sweets without any issues.
You can still binge-eat with a reduced-sized stomach, one donut or cupcake at a time. These are sliders, a.k.a. slurry foods. They turn into a liquid slurry once you swallow, sliding through your stomach and into your intestines rapidly without ever challenging your sleeve or bypass pouch. You can eat 50 cupcakes and never feel full.
In essence, the bariatric surgeon operates on your stomach, not your mind. 90 percent of success with bariatric surgery involves changing your psychological outlook on eating. Good luck to you.

I am a 45 year old happily married business owners with 3 kids. I'm not bitter, nor have I ever been sexually abused. And yes I'm FAT (445lbs) to be exact. I had my psychic evaluation and he said I binge eat. Never thought about binge eating. I eat when my family gets together. I eat until I feel that after thanksgiving warmth hits my brain. I never one time thought it was weird or wrong to feel that. Now during my pre-surgery time I am constantly aware of stopping before I feel this feeling. My family Dr. Has urged me to examine the emotional cause of why I eat. Just want the surgery to be as successful as it can be. And I for the love of Jehovah don't want to be one of those people who gain all the weight back.

If you have never had WLS before you haven't had the advantage of the metabolism reset or the lowered hunger hormone Ghrelin. It will definitely help you, but you will still have to do the mental work.

It will only help if you do the work necessary to change your relationship with food. See the replies above.
you can definitely make this work if you want to.

I would start addressing your food addictions now before surgery. I would get a referral to a therapists that specializes in these areas. The surgery will be a tool to help you, it will reset your metabolism, but you will still have to make the choice to stay on your diet plan. You need to get in the right mental frame of mind. This is a lifestyle change for life, not a diet. You have to chose to want to develop healthy eating and exercise habits.
There are many successful examples of people that have beat their food addictions on this forum. The way to conquer them has been different for everyone, but for me avoiding the foods that I know will cause me to slip up is working. I avoid simple carbs completely. I have decided to stick with a low carb way of eating indefinitely. It works for me. You can do this if you go all in, and make perminate changes to your relationship with food.

WLS can be a tool that can help you lose weight, maintain a healthy weight, and improve your quality of life, but you have to put in the hard work to be successful long-term. While you can (and probably should) work closely with a psychologist and a nutritionist, it ultimately comes down to you doing what you need to do to be successful. And you must make a commitment to this become a lifestyle change. People bat those terms around all of the time, but it is true. The people on here that do not reach their goal or that regain all their weight later never changed their relationship with food, depended on the "honeymoon period" to do what they did do, and more or less were seeking to "eat normally, but just less" (which is a fallacy, in my opinion).
The question you have to ask yourself is this: Am I prepared to change my life to ensure my success? If yes, then WLS is for you; if no, you might lose a little weight, but you'll never get where you want to be.