My appointment with my PCM isn't till next week. I don't wanna loose too much before we submit to Tricare for the surgery because I wanna make sure I am still eligible without comorbitities. I wanna start loosing now to get ahead of the game though.

It is probably going to take awhile for approval. It took me about 7 months and the insurance approved me in 3 days. I had dieticians, psychologist, preop nurses, medical testing - extensive, preop with surgeon and finally the surgery date. When you meet with the surgeon, he will probably want you to lose some weight to make the surgery safer - they want to see less fat/loose fat around the liver as it has to be moved so they can put on the belt. From the time I met the surgeon until the surgery was about 2 weeks. So, basically, you will need to be on a diet just before surgery. Your doctor or others will tell you when and how to start. You can start now - practice with the nutritionist diet - it took me awhile to get use to the high Protein diet and to eat without liquid.

Lots of luck - hope you get approved!

Thanks, my husband is military, so I have Tricare. My BMI is 43, so I'm pretty sure I'll get approved. The surgeon told me that the wait here on post is only about 3 months from the time you go to the seminar, so I'm hoping she is right. I do know one lady here on post that had gastric bypass that took her 18 months to get everything done, but I think they have more testing and stuff to do to get approved.