I don’t believe will power plays a long term major role in your success either.. I have decades of evidence that my stubbornness & pig headedness meant I could stick to any diet & lose weight. But I always put weight back on because i always went back to eating exactly the same way. Sound familiar? I never dealt with the why I ate. I never permanently changed my relationship with food. My will power couldn’t compete with those old, strong habits & thinking.
Many of the benefits of the surgery don’t last. Your hunger comes back. Your restriction isn’t as strong. You can physically eat more, etc. (People can & do eat out around their restriction & their smaller tummy.) What the surgery does is give you time. Time to lose weight. Time to examine what, why & how you eat. Time to change your relationship with food, to establish new habits & routines around eating. Time to do the head work. The surgery alone doesn’t do all the work for you. If you think it will you won’t be as successful.
Reframing the problem, as @SpartanMaker suggested, certainly worked for me.
For many years I managed my reflux through dietary choices. Cut out daily carbonated drinks. (Limited how much soda or tonic water or champagne I’d had when socialising.) I cut out caffeine (except green tea). No spicy food (helped I had a sensitivity to chilli). Avoided rich, creamy, fatty, oily food. If I ate/drank them I would experience severe hiccups & other reflux symptoms. It became it didn’t matter how much enjoyment/ pleasure/comfort I got from eating/drinking them, they made me sick so it wasn’t worth it.
I approached my post surgical weight loss & the way I eat now the same way. I’ve put my health & well being above any emotional benefits I got from eating. I feel so much better by not eating in my old way. I don’t get bloated & windy everyday. I don’t have those little white pimply bumps on my arms & they aren’t dry & scaly either. My thighs don’t rub together so no more heat rashes. I sleep better. My feet don’t ache when I wear heels or stand for any length of time. I have more energy. I didn’t have any comorbidities before my surgery so I can’t claim I don’t have those anymore but my chance of developing them is extremely low. I’m maintaining my weight. And so on. Initially it was my physical well being that motivated the change of thinking but now there’s also a emotional & mental well being component. And yes, part of that is vanity. The old maxim of eating to live not living to eat resonates strongly with me.
I’m trying to apply this thinking to the stretching exercises I do now. (I really don’t enjoy exercising.) I feel better & body parts are looking leaner & more defined.
Sorry for the long post.