I really don't want to abuse this forum, but..... (really loooong)

 Well, I think you are showing great wisdom and forsight and you came to the right place for a vent. I hope you get approved rapidly and everything goes smoothly for you.

I am 3.5 yrs out and I still have the terrible anxiety and "sometimes" the binge eating that goes with it, but with the help of my sleeve tool, I can quickly realize when I am eating fast and mindlessly and am able to come down without doing much damage weight wise.

Also, I proactively exercise myself to exhaustion every morning so that some of that energy is dissapated.

I take it one day at a time, sometimes one minute at a time.

Good luck

Heather

"My worry is that if I can screw up this bad beforehand, what is to stop me from doing it later?"

Because you have the surgery to help you.

There's a reason that diets fail 90-99% of the time and WLS succeeds 60-90% of the time. It's because it changes your body so it stops fighting to be obese and wants to be a normal weight.

Obesity is a disease not a character flaw. Do the best you can pre-op but don't beat yourself up for occassional -- and inevitable -- slippages.

 Eating disorders are tricky *******s. Just when you think you have everything under control a relapse sneaks up and bites you in the ass. I have a lot of empathy, my friend. I've done my fair share of bingeing.

Things will be different after surgery, but not always in the way that you expect. At first not eating is easy, because you can't. Chemically, the long preop diet is so devoid of glucose that it changes the way that we perceive flavor once we can finally eat. We don't crave what we used to crave. When we try to eat it, it doesn't taste good any more. This can be a really powerful weapon, because it allows us to get out of the habit of trying to self soothe with our old standbyes. In people who aren't addicts, this is a wonderful thing. But we are addicts, and this period is rough. When we stop being able to suppress our emotions with food, a lot of **** comes out. A LOT. I went through two weeks of what I called "emotional diarrhea" where I cried at the drop of a hat over **** I hadn't thought about in years. You may want to step up your therapy to once a wee****il you get yourself on a more even keel. That's what I did, and it was a life saver.

The next stage is kind of complicated. You start to see how little food you can eat and still survive, and it starts to feel good. Some people start moving into food withholding behaviors that resemble anorexia. I had to actually stop going onto the main board for a while because I found it to be too triggering for me. Be careful of this. Anorexia and binge eating are two sides of the same sick coin.

 Hello Anita, you hot smoldering stack of sultreness -

Im recovering from plastic surgery and typing on iPad so forgive short message -

You being accountable is awesome. You beating yourself up isn't.  Accountability is great, but fine line between that and destructive self blame. Keep working on therapy - my belief is it can be hugely important. I've had a lot of success with CBT myself. 

You mention tools - excellent. Before surgery tell me (I mean yourself) what your tool will be to cope instead of binging and purging. If you just gotta do something crazy, what will new tool be? Have something in place. Even if it's just "less bad" rather than "good" know what I mean?  

Dont worry that you are imperfect especially before your surgery. Having the surgery alone will change how you feel in many ways.  You just have to trust us that your compliance will be much easier after surgery - like MadameMac said. Surgery will make everything much easier since you're doing so well now you're going to be nearly perfect after you have surgery - as much as any of us humans can be. I have nooooooo doubt at all over your future success. 

I sleep now. 

Hey, I accidently defriended you on My fitness Pal and now I can't find you.  Please friend me.  Starbucks_5.  I meant to defriend someone else, not you....