Time after bariatric surgery as stages of grief

And here we are again. The moment when we thought that we had it all figured out and that we were heading somewhere where things would be easier, much better organized, structured, and under control, we realized that the bariatric surgery was a new beginning, but that it is not the beginning we had hoped for. It is a new level of mess. You are undergoing the same stages of grief as before the surgery.

https://bariradka.com/en/2024/10/01/time-before-surgery-as-stages-of-grief/

We have had the surgery and we still hope that the recovery will be fast, that it is just a first step, and that pretty soon you will be able to live a normal life and eat like before. Can you foresee where I am heading?

Denial

I am not saying that the beginning is easy because it is anything but. It is a huge mess that shows the new reality at its best. You are barely drinking, eating anything makes you sick and nauseous, everything is too much, it smells weird, makes you gag. But you are calming yourself that this is only the very beginning, that things will get better soon, and that you have to push through this.

You are exhausted, sleepy all the time, extremely cold, you are crawling around the house and you are lucky if you make it till lunch without having a nap. This is far, far away from the normal life you had been dreaming about. You still hope that this will go away soon. It was a major surgery, so it is obvious that you are struggling.

Anger

You have finally made it through the nasty pureed food, you see a protein shake, scrambled eggs, or cottage cheese and you feel like throwing a tantrum like your three years old. You can’t stand that! You keep eating this again and again and it is leading nowhere. You want to have some normal food! Everybody around you is eating as they please, all those things you can only dream of and you are craving, but you are physically not able to have it. Beyond frustrating.

And your life? Omg! I hope your doctor had mercy on you and left you still at home. Because if you have to go to work, you are half dead by lunchtime. The exhaustion that you thought you used to know just got a new meaning. Level PhD. It is incredible. You sleep 15 hours a day and it is not enough. This is not what you signed up for. By now you should be able to live a life like any other person but you are struggling with basic things instead.

You can eat, you hate everything that goes to your plate, you are exhausted, cold, tired, grumpy as hell, your mood swings resemble a bipolar disorder, you name it. Anything is as you thought it would be. What is more, your weight decided to stall! You haven’t lost anything this week and if you remember it well, the last one was the same. Could somebody explain to you why you did all this??? It was sheer nonsense and you regret it bitterly.

Bargaining

It has been maybe some six months now, you can eat at least something that resembles food, but it is still very little. There is hope. It seems that you will get one day to some reasonable portion of food, that you will be able to eat some pizza or cookies again. You sometimes even try a little, but you remember the last dumping experience, so you are scared and you stick to your allowed diet.

Your weight decided to cooperate with you finally, so you can see the number on the scales crawling down little by little and it motivates you to keep going. You can do more in a day than before, yet it is far from what you hoped for. But it is improving, so you are patient for now and you hope that you are finally getting there.

Still, you are very aware of the fact that stupid food is everywhere, all social life revolves around meals and sharing and you can’t do that, so your socializing suffered a major blow. You go out but it is nothing like before. Maybe it will get better soon.

Depression

It has been almost a year since your surgery. You can eat almost everything now, but it seems to everyone that you are anorexic, that you are obsessed with food, that you have become extremely picky, that you count your calories all the time, and that you have become crazy about exercising. You measure and you track everything. Everybody comments on what you eat and how much, they check everything and make jokes. Going out became a minefield. You would rather stay at home.

They don’t understand it. You changed beyond recognition. You started losing friends. You feel extremely alone. No one gets what it is like for you. It is so much work. Yes, you lost the extra weight, and you are close to your final goal. But was it all worth it? They all say how happy they are, how satisfying they see the process, and how it all makes them happy. And you? You feel nothing like that. You are scared of regaining, you don’t feel like sticking to the stupid diet every single time. It is a real challenge.

Acceptance

Food is everywhere, you can’t escape. You realize that the more you fight it, the worse things get, so you stick to your diet and you ignore the rest. People still stare at you when you order things from kids menu but you don’t mind anymore. You eat your protein and veggies, and you have a treat here and there, but you mind your own business. You know why you are doing it. Things will never be the same as before.

You will never be able to have all that you used to order just for dinner. And the best part is that you don’t mind anymore. Some of that food has become weird and even yucky now, so you don’t miss it. You tried it before and it was a nono. It was more a surprise and deception than the expected threat.

Transformation process

You had to do something you had never done before. It was something you only heard about but you never thought that you would actually have to do it yourself. You were always negotiating, half cheating or simply ignoring it. The fact is that you changed. To become the healthy and slim version of you, you had to undergo a transformation. Not only the physical one that everybody sees and comments on. The more important that you didn’t think about at first, was the inner one. You had to change as a person with all your life and habits. If you think about it, nothing is the same as before.

This is something you wish you had known in the very beginning. But you were naive and completely oblivious to the amount of work and sacrifice you would have to put in so that all this would eventually happen. I bet that had you known all this, you would never have undergone the surgery. This is too much.

Base of hope

But maybe it is better like that. You are entering the whole process and all you have is hope. You hope things will work, that you will lose the weight. You know it will be hard, no doubt about it. But you have the tool, so it makes the process easier. But at some point, it will become routine. It will become your new life and your new normal. It is only up to you what the outcome will look like.

You know it best. The moment you stop doing what you should be doing, things start going back to where you started. Gaining the weight back is so incredibly easy. Stick with your routines, count the calories, measure your food, and do the exercise. It is the only way of maintaining long-term success. Yes, it can be boring and annoying. But make sure you stick to this. The long-forgotten habits that had led us to the table of a bariatric surgeon are only sleeping and waiting. And they can be patient…