Thank you all for the input, encouragement and advice about breaking old habits. I'll continue tweaking and working on all of this in order to stay healthy.

What I've been remembering is that WLS is a tool, not a cure. In the end, I may have changed my physiology with surgery, but I didn't change my psychology. I had 53 years to build bad eating habits and behaviors, and that led to my being more than 200 lbs overweight, despite years of dieting, therapy, plans, and schemes. Unfortunately, now that the initial recovery period from WLS is ending, many of those habits and behaviors are showing up again. I've been trying to work on them all along and have to remind myself of the progress I have made:

-I have slowed down my eating

-I have become more conscious of portion size

-I'm much more aware of the difference between "head hunger" and "stomach hunger" and how to feed each one

-I've been working on positive activities to do in the evening, when I'm most likely to start thinking about snacking randomly.

I'm still working on some other things, including starting to want more food before I'm even done eating. When that feeling comes, I try to stop mid-chew, and become aware of what I have in my mouth, using techniques from mindful eating. Then when I'm done eating, I try to recognize how long I still have the taste of the food I enjoyed in my mouth. I also try to launch into some activity or distraction to delay eating again. This all usually helps, I just need to be more vigilant about practicing what I preach.

This is going to be a long journey...but I'm ready to try.

Yes, I keep repeating that in my, "The surgery was only a tool, the rest is up to me." So far so good for me at six weeks post-op. I'm keeping myself in line/in-check because I'm terrified of taking that first bite of a cookie or eating too much thinking it'll be the slippery slope into going back into bad habits. I guess fear works! ?

49 minutes ago, GradyCat said:

six weeks post-op.

Topic posted in vets forum.

I don’t belong here either.

Fear works at six weeks.

Come back in sixteen months I know I will be curious if you ever had that bite of cookie.