Emotional eating can sabotage Weight Loss Surgery

Weight loss that stalls, plateaus or ends in a person gaining back more weight than they originally lost are all forms of yo-yo dieting. This see-saw pattern of weight loss versus weight gain can go on for years. It is never about being greedy, and never about a lack of willpower. It is, however, a repetitive cycle of behavior of the emotional eater who self-sabotages their weight loss success due to a number of key habitual, responses many of which exist below conscious awareness.

There are many examples of when self-sabotaging behavior around food continues after WLS. It seems that the more people who commit to surgery without fully resolving their emotional reasons for bingeing, compulsive sugar cravings, zoned out or mindless grazing, and disordered eating in general then the more people who post-WLS will continue to struggle with emotional eating.

Therapists Sally Baker and Liz Hogon specialize in resolving emotional eating. They see a growing number of clients post-WLS in their individual practices in London, England and Melbourne, Australia.

Endless over thinking about food, and a whole range of compulsive behaviors can continue after surgery. Even the feelings of dissatisfaction about amount of weight lost post-WLS is just an aspect of the negative self-belief that can dominate the thought processes and feelings of someone in the grip of emotional eating.

Changes can take place, and belief systems that no longer serve a person can be released and replaced with a more positive, and helpful framework. Sally and Liz have found from their work that as many of the emotional drivers, and reasons for carrying excess weight in the first place are below conscious awareness then that is where the therapy work needs to happen for change to really embed and be sustained.