TDoern

Becca - believe it or not from what I've read it's quite common for surgeons to ask that their patients lose a certain amount of weight prior to weight loss surgery. I can't give you each doctors/insurance companies reasons but for some it's as simple as finding out those that are committed to the life change and those that aren't.

What I mean by this is that your life changes so dramatically after surgery (or it should) that some people simply can't handle the changes they need to make. Believe it or not losing 10% of your body weight is hard yes, but it's possible. Keeping the weight off was always the hardest part for me.

I personally advise avoiding anything that seems to easy. My advise would be to take your post op guidelines for your surgeon and work a diet around that. For example if you are having the Roux-en-Y (RNY) surgery your post op life will revolve around protein and water. Very similar (at least in my opinion) to the atkins diet, except much stricter. For example, my post op requirements required two protein shakes of at least 35g protein for two meals a day, and then one regular meal until you reach goal weight. So trying something close to that might work. I was also required to get in at least 64oz of water each day, so that would be a start. Carbs, due to dumping and just that they don't do anything for your body really nutritionally, were out.

Not sure if this answers your question or helps, but that's some of it. As far as the "if you lose the weight and then don't meet the BMI requirements" thing I would definitely call the insurance company on that one.

Don't forget that some surgeons require the same type of weight loss, six month doctor supervised diets, and worse prior to surgery, so 10% weight loss while difficult could be worse.

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