Weight Loss Surgery Learning Library

New gastric bypass weight reduction surgery patients say they miss food, they grieve the loss of food, they yearn for their old foods. Some describe it like the death of a beloved friend. The foods patients grieve for are sweets and baked goods, pasta with heavy sauces, and salty snacks.

Mourning for lost foods is a natural step in the re-birth process after weight loss surgery (WLS).

However, I submit this phase can pass quickly if we consciously remind ourselves that these very foods we have loved and lost were not our friends. These foods were killing us. These foods caused us to be morbidly obese. Prior to surgery a morbidly obese person is dying a slow death by over consumption and malnutrition. Poor nutrition and excess weight taxed the cellular structure of the body causing illness, pain and suffering. Weight loss surgery was a last-ditch effort to save a life and restore quality to living.

Say goodbye and good riddance to those poisonous foods. They are not part of your life any more and isn’t that a blessing? Isn’t that exactly what you wanted when you elected to save your life with weight loss surgery?

Losing these foods is not deprivation – it is liberation from the damage, pain and suffering they were causing your body. Celebrate their loss, don’t mourn it. I guarantee when you start looking at it this way the phase of grief and mourning will be brief because your mind will not allow you to simultaneously grieve and celebrate.

Download the LivingAfterWLS Self-Assessment Worksheet

Understanding Hunger, Appetite & Satiation

Hunger is not the only physiological signal managing our food intake. There are several factors that decide when it is time to eat and when it is time to stop eating. As recovering morbidly obese people it is important to try and understand the signals our body sends in order to lose weight and not become morbidly obese again. After all, ignoring the signals contributed to our obesity in the first place.

The following definitions are from Understanding Nutrition (10th Editon) by Ellie Whitney and Sharon Rady Rolfes, pages 252-256:

Hunger: the painful sensation caused by a lack of food that initiates food-seeking behavior.

Hypothalamus (high-po-THAL-ah-mus): a brain center that controls activities such as maintenance of water balance, regulation of body temperature, and control of appetite.

Appetite: the integrated response to the sight, smell, thought, or taste of food that initiates or delays eating.

Satiation (say-she-AY-shun): the feeling of satisfaction and fullness that occurs during a meal and halts eating. Satiation determines how much food is consumed during a meal.