It is scary to see how deeply seared the bad habits are.

I'm staying with my parents, and the house is loaded with junk food.  I would obviously not eat any of it right now without severe risks, and I'm not even hungry, but my brain automatically desires this stuff.  I'm glad for right now it's easy, but know that it won't always be, and when I go back to my house.  Just an observation I had during the early recovery.  You are quite truly working AGAINST your own mind.

Totally! For me, I see this surgery as our greatest opportunity to disrupt our disordered eating habits. It isn't just about restriction.  I'm still early days out. So there are a lot of foods that aren't in my house. I'll buy them for entertaining, but that's it. I'm at a point right now, where I don't think I'd eat them, but I'm  100% positive I would be thinking of them all day.

 I'm not sure what kind of post op support you have access to, but if you can meet with a behaviorist, it's so helpful. even googling it, will give you a lot of useful information. Other than the surgery itself, Journaling everything I eat on my fitness pal has probably been the best thing I've done. You start to see patterns, and understand why and when you eat or crave certain things.

the struggle is real!

hope your recovery goes well, and keep posting on here!

Which is one of the reasons I think we're all doomed to failure if we don't take a long hard look at our mental processes and work to fix them - especially early on when the losing weight part is easy.  

It all starts in our brains... We think about that bite before we put it in our mouths.... There are many times I just throw things out I have bought if I can't handle not eating too much of it. Sometimes I am fine with something and then other days I am not..... There is a daily dialog in my mind...it has changed over the 2+ years....but it is still there.

Bad habits are really, really deep. And even if you put in a year of excellent habits after surgery, it's still never going to outweigh decades of bad habits. 

It's a constant battle.

Think of it this way; at least at your own home-you control what is brought into it. 

That being said, it's not always easy to avoid buying crap. I think just buying it is still a habit even if eating it isn't. ( Not sure that makes sense. )