Pre-surgery diet questions

After being 75% down the path to gastric bypass I just had my first visit with the surgeon that will do the duodenal switch.  I was surprised to now be told that my insurance requires 6 months of medically supervised weight loss attempts.  I would like to hear how others have handled this.  I was thinking of possibly going forward with an all liquid diet.  Thoughts and comments appreciated!

The ASMBS says the whole diet before surgery is not necessary.  The best course of action is probably to do the least possible to satisfy their requirements.  After all, what if your BMI drops too low to qualify for surgery?  And you know you will gain it back and then have to start the whole process over again.

Next, why further damage your metabolism with another diet?  I waited 2 years for surgery and starved myself.  I really believe that's one of the reasons the DS didn't work as well for me as it did for almost everyone else.  I had very little effortless weight loss.  That last diet blew out the last shred of metabolism I had left.

If I had it to do over, I would low carb a couple weeks before surgery and that's it!  Check on what your insurance actually requires and do it!  But don't make it worse than it has to be!

Six months on a liquid diet would be brutal -- I recommend trying high protein, and eliminate all white carbs.  Call the insurance company to find out exactly what is required  for if one little thing is missed, they can make you do it all over again.  Don't trust the office staff at the surgeon's office.

My insurance required it, but my primary care physician wrote a letter stating that I had tried many diets throughout my roller coaster weight loss/gain for many years.  They took that instead of me having to try to diet for 6 months.  Talk to your Dr. and see if he/she will do that for you.

thanks so much - I am hoping that the fact that I have lived through this roller coaster will help!!

In my situation, when I was trying to use insurance, they required the six months diet as well. The diet stipulation was that I lost or maintained my weight. Like the others here have said, I did not want to lose weight and then for them to congratulate me with a denial. At your first visit, get your first weigh in recorded and keep that number. Mine threatened that if I went over, I would have to start the whole thing over. Also getting a letter of necessity and appealing is a worth while thing to do in case they accept. Good luck.

I would do a strict high protein diet or the liquid diet. I always did better with the high protein diets. (0lbs in the 4 months before my surgery.
they were worried I did so well I wouldn't do the surgery but I knew I always gained it back.

The only reason I've heard for people to do a pre-op diet was that my surgeon told me that people that lose before surgery have a better
chance of doing well post surgery. I've never seen a study like that so he may have been talking just based on what he saw in his practice.

The fact that insurance requires it is just insurance BS. I think they hope people will change their minds. If tou have done WW or some other group 
for an extended time you might try and document that for the insurance company and see if they will accept that.

I was a self pay so my pre-op motivation ad nothing to do with insurance. My Doc made it a requirement at my BMI. If I didn't lose at least 40 lbs he wanted to do the DS in 2 stages. No way did I want to go under the knife twice.

Good luck!