Thank you - I do want to stress that I don't see it as a 'weight loss journey', though - the weight loss has been a side effect of what I've done.
Focusing upon weight loss means to me concentrating upon negatives - the 'you can't do it', the 'you can't eat that', the 'you'll just have to feel unhappy because you're not allowed to do anything else to give you a break from those feelings'.
But focusing upon activity is a positive.
Activity lets me leave those voices behind in my past. It enables me to focus upon counting reps or the sensation in my muscles or what is coming through my earbuds, not the shitty things. It gives me a rush of endorphins or the ability to trick my body into thinking 'well, you were anxious/upset/angry/feeling threatened, but you've just done the fight or flight thing instead of freezing and trying to quieten your distress with particularly unhelpful food. So you can relax, you're safe now'.
The food that I eat fuels and repairs and enables me to get the most positive sensations and effects from doing physical activity.
Learning to be that aware of my body, I also learn to listen to what I actually need to eat; If I crave say, a burger, I have a burger because I'm craving fat and protein and salt and salad; but instead of a half pounder with processed cheese slices in a giant crappy bun that's only there to make it possible to hold the thing up, all the onion rings, chips, mayonnaise, ketchup, a can of Rio and because I've fucked the diet now, might as well have the ice cream and some chicken wings for later, I have what I actually want - a thick, pure meat, burger. And pecorino cheese. And an egg. And tomatoes. And some mushrooms. And onions. And gherkins. And the onions/mushroom are cooked in chilli garlic oil. I'm still eating far fewer calories than the takeaway version, but I'm also eating a wider range of nutrients - and I don't feel sick and like a failure because I just couldn't use willpower ignore my body telling me what I needed.
The idea of willpower being all that is needed is the same as saying 'you just have to think yourself well' - or using the analogy of food being used as a crutch, it's kicking the crutch away from somebody with a weak, wasted leg from being in a cast and saying 'now go and run a marathon' or WLS being the equivalent (to ME) of 'You broke your leg badly. You can't walk anymore because when I took your crutch away and told you to run a marathon, you couldn't. Might as well get a wheelchair as your body's changed permanently and nobody's ever able to walk properly again after that, so you might as well not bother'. Except that unlike a wheelchair, WLS carries a risk of death, like all surgery It's not giving you a chance to rehabilitate, to learn that whilst it might feel uncomfortable and scary, you can regain strength, function and range of movement and the pain will decrease, even if there is still some evidence of the injury in scarring. You won't necessarily look like somebody who has never broken their leg, but that's OK.
The time where it is hardest is when I get home from work and I'm tired, achey and cranky. I tell myself 'I can go for just ten minutes and if I'm still not feeling it, I can stop. Ten minutes is better than nothing'. Once I've got there, I've never done just ten minutes - I'll bargain in my head with a 'Well, you're here now, might as well give it another ten minutes and then you can go home'. By that point, the endorphins are kicking in and I've already done twenty minutes.
We're powerless to change what has happened in our pasts. But we do have the power to change how we deal with things right now. Some people make that change by handing the power over to somebody to perform drastic surgery so they have no choice but to endure the results, whether that's having unpleasant consequences from attempting to get past the post surgery restrictions and then avoiding them, risking their lives in surgery itself, or accepting the permanent changes somebody has made to their body and knowing they mustn't risk the ten grand or whatever it costs to them or their family. And some are able to change in ways that are not dependent upon anyone else forcing changes upon them. I'm amazed I'm one of the latter. But I am - and only found that out once I listened to what I wanted to do and feel like, rather than what I wanted to look like.
If that's interesting to the OP or anybody else, I'd say think about it. Even if you do ultimately have WLS, it's what you're going to have to do for the surgery to be successful long term. But it could mean that you don't have to. And avoiding permanent changes to your body, the increased risks of anaesthesia and the pain or ultimate health issues/discomfort has to be worth thinking about, rather than going straight to 'You'll never do it, just have the surgery'.