New gastric bypass patients say they miss food, mourn the loss of food, and long for their old foods. Some describe it as the death of a dear friend. The foods patients cry for are sweets and baked goods, pasta with thick sauces, and salty snacks.
Grieving food loss is a natural step in the rebirth process after weight loss surgery (WLS).
However, I believe that this phase can pass quickly if we consciously remind ourselves that these very foods that we loved and lost were not our friends. These foods were killing us. These foods made us morbidly obese. Before surgery, a morbidly obese person is slowly dying from binge drinking and malnutrition. Poor nutrition and excess weight overloaded the body’s cellular structure causing illness, pain and suffering. The weight loss surgery was a last-ditch effort to save a life and restore quality of life.
Say goodbye and goodbye to those poisonous foods. They are no longer part of your life and isn’t that a blessing? Isn’t that exactly what you wanted when you chose to save your life with weight loss surgery?
Losing these foods is not deprivation, it is liberation from the damage, pain and suffering that they were causing to your body. Celebrate your loss, don’t regret it. I guarantee that when you start looking at it this way, the mourning and grief phase will be brief because your mind will not allow you to cry and celebrate simultaneously.
