Opening this up for discussion, not judgement or criticism.

One of the things I've witnessed here that has always made me raise my eyebrow a bit is people's questions about -- and others' willingness to help -- "beat the system", so to speak. I haven't seen the topic come up in a while, but when I first joined it was fairly common for someone to want advice on how to qualify for the lap-band, even though they don't qualify. And there was a lot of advice given about putting sand in clothes, weights in shoes, forcing down a gallon of Water before being weighed, etc.

Opening this up for discussion - in general - is it ok to "nudge" the system this way? Is there anything wrong with doing it? What's the line between what's "ok" to nudge, and what isn't?

My BMI was 35.2, sorry I said it was 39. I have heart disease and other stuff, my weight was 203, but I was approved. If I wasn't approved I was ready to fight.

Anyways, I had the surgery sept. 20th and am feeling great, lost 22 lbs so far. Best thing for me ever, I see my cardiologist in November and he will be proud of me.

Don't give up.

Well La madam,

There are more people in America who can't afford to have surgery done in Mexico or any other country as far as that goes..

:clap2: Great post! Excellent points. So many people cannot even afford to go to Mexco.

commenting on the original post...you can't cheat the system by putting sand in your clothes or drinking water just before.....it all goes by BMI...they measure you along with the weight....they can tell if some dingbat put sand in their clothes...by the way--did someone actually do that...i'd laugh them right out of the office. interesting posting!!

Well, I guess I was fortunate I didn't have to put sand in my clothes. They did not, however, measure me. The formula for BMI is weight times 703 divided by height in inches squared. Body measurements don't enter into it. I was self-pay as my insurance excludes all WLS. That sucks. I am an RN (as are many others here) and I recognize the many problems our health care system has. I know there are problems with nationalized health care programs in Canada and the UK but we have been trying to do things here in the old US of A for a long time now and it just seems that if we were to put our minds to it we would produce effective national health care. OK - I'll quit typing and run for my bomb shelter now. Katt