Welcome, Melba. I was 56 when I had my surgery. I'll be 72 this year.
How you do after depends on the shape you're in, not necessarily how much you weigh. My advice is not to worry, but to plan to rest, rest, rest until you feel like moving. Never force anything. You're making a huge biological change to your body. It will work, but it isn't like sneezing. It's more like recovering from a tooth extraction.
I know the procedure you'll have will be much less invasive than what happened to me. Most people here seem to be back on their fee within a few days.
But the thing that will challenge you forever is your messed-up brain--your eating disorder. I am bulimarexic and still suffer from urges to binge and purge, but much less so. And the urge never manifests into an action.
I think the key to everything is revising your need for perfection. You can desensitize your criticisms by looking through magazines with photos of normal or fat or obese people and just take in their images with all your feelings, with an aim eventually to feel no particular judgment. I'm really aware of the intensity of every little thing from childhood, from my slip showing to my shoes being scuffed to a sweater suddenly being too tight. These little defamations ruin everything. Most of us would never judge anyone as harshly as we judge ourselves.
Unfortunately, we mostly use food to deal with every emotion, from love to hate. And we are acutely aware of our emotions, believing them to be bigger and more controlling than other people's. That's usually not true, but we cling to it because we have a fear of success. We're supposed to fail. And failing allows appeasement and comforting with badness, i.e., food.
It is possible to amp these things down and they are simple, but require repetition. Here are a few ideas:
- put your fork down between bites
- put your food down between bites
- don't snack
- weight and measure your food
- commit to what you're going to eat by making a list every morning
- if you slip up, admit it, write it down, "scold" yourself and move on
- if you make mistakes all day long, take deep breaths and hold the thought in your head when you inhale, letting it go when you exhale
- if you can't be nice to yourself, think of someone you adore, worship, would die for, and imagine you're dealing with him/her/it
- practice affirmations
- pray or meditate
- scream into your pillow if rage takes over and you hate yourself
- EXPRESS YOURSELF. Obesity is the real silent killer.
- come here and talk to us. we've done it all, we've heard it all.
i could write a million more things, but i'm going to stop here. You can absorb these, and other members will chime in. You're talking about one of the most common things in the world, gluttony, obesity, lack of control, addiction. It's not going away, but you can learn to live with it and be in charge.