need advice

I really appreciate your helpfull advise. We all need to be reminded of stuff we knew but fall into old bad habits instilled in us over the years. I use to be a lifetime WW and theonly way I stayed on program was attending meetings.. I wi8ll do whatever it takes not to laps into food coma...

Get some therapy and check out Overeaters anonymous. It's a great program to help you deal with your food issues - which are apparent after 2 surgeries and you still haven't been able get control of you're food and weight. 

At the end of the day it all comes down to calories and carbs. You need to consider cutting both to lose weight. 

First I want to congratulate you on your success and thank you for your suggestion. I will consider OA.

I hope you do. After dealing with a substantial regain and exhausting all efforts to get it off without success, OA is saving my life and helping me finally get the regain off. Happy to talk more about it if you want ...just PM me. 

You don't have to go back to shakes, you can if it helps... but I wouldn't do all shakes. You have to plan... that is the biggest thing, don't just wing it. Have the choices you need available. Weigh and measure...get your protein and water in.

I can't tell exactly, but from your posting, it looks like you're in the 170s trying to get down to 150.  As you are finding out, you do not have much wiggle room in your diet if you really want to lose that last 20-15 pounds.  Take the advice that everyone is giving you - get the crap out of the house, write it down and begin to look at your triggers.  You may need more support that you are getting - are you going to support group meetings, checking in with your surgeon.

Also, it appears that you have lost a lot of weight and some of that has been muscle mass (about 20-25% if you are in the typical range).  You must replace this with progressive weight training, if you have not done that already.  Replacing 20 pounds of fat with muscle will increase your metabolic rate by 100-400 calories a day and make getting and keep those pounds off easier..

Those last pounds can be devilish to get off - declare war on those tricky calories!