Kags1694

Received email today to say that due to BMI being high, my medical has been declined. (no other health problems)

Two choices now:

(a) Medical Wavier?

(b) It it possible to take me of our application, my husband and son
get there PR, and for my hubby to sponsor me?

Keep on reading email, but totally confused by all of the paragraphs, I think I need to leave it a couple of days, and read it again

We have been given to the middle of August to decide.
I need to lose a further 2.1/2 stone to get my BMI down to below 40.

Any advise would be much appreciated.

Suzbits

Sorry I can't give you any advice, but just wanted to say don't give up.

I really feel for you as we have our medicals this week and it would be awful to fall at the final hurdle.

Kags1694

Good luck with yours

ballsrburning

It's really easy, exercise and stop eating crap, to have a BMI of over 40 you must be eating awfully and not exercising.

I was BMI 30, 5 months ago and now I have a BMI of 20, all I have done is stop filing my face with crap, I only eat healthy now but do have the odd day off once every 6 weeks and exercise 5 times a week. I can never see me going back to BMI 30.

There was a woman in our gym who was easily over BMI 40, 2 years ago and now she is back to average size i don't know her BMI but she easily less than 11 stone just by looking at her. She was in her 50's when she started, I have a lot of respect for her she worked hard and got the gains.

Get a personal trainer they are worth it trust me. I eat on average every 2 and a half hours but no carbs after 3 pm, but this tottally depends on you and your state of health, you will not be hungry all the time if you do it correctly, seek the help of a proffesional. They really do work its a good investment.

Good luck I think you should try and lose the weight. Rather than finding a back door way, its not good having a BMI of 40+ my grandfather died becasue he was overweight, he was only in his 50's when passed.

turkeys

If only life was that simple mate. You sound a bit ilke the fatfighters woman on Little Britain!

TeamEmbo

No, as far as I know, it is not possible to be 'sponsored' by your husband to avoid a medical. If he is the one with the job offer presumably you are on the back of his visa application anyway as 'and spouse'.

You say Immigration asked for an answer by August - what options did Immigration give you on their email?

As far as I can remember BMIs of 30 and over are of concern to Immigration as this would indicate a possible health risk - diabetes, high BP etc etc. Did you have the extra blood test? Could go back to your doctor to see what the results were and if anything showed up that you might need treatment for? If all results were normal could you get your doctor to write to Immigration stating that although you have a high BMI you are perfectly healthy.

Perhaps a strict healthy eating plan and exercise would help but I would have thought losing 2 1/2 stone by August was a tall order and possibly not healthy in itself? It is such a long, restricted flight to NZ, I would have thought that undertaking that with such a high BMI would be risky to your health?

I'm sorry I can't think of any other positive advice but hope it all works out for you

howden40

So sorry to hear you were declined purely for being overweight with no other known health problems. I feel it is always a good idea to leave bad new letters for a day or two then re-visit, you take it in better as it's not such a shock.

Sadly we live in a world who at present seem to be inclined toward 'punishing' anyone who is overweight and apportioning blame for becoming that way. How to make someone feel good - not.

We don't know your history, no-one has the right to say you are filling yourself with 'crap', you may just have a high carbohydrate diet (not all carbohydrates are crappy foods. High protein intake doesn't help either.

Loosing weight IS NOT EASY what is easy is for reformed 'fatties' to sit sanctimoniously on their high laurels and say I did it so why can't you.

Join a gym, hire a personal trainer it's worth it. Yep, but not everyone can afford it financially - I sure couldn't.

Loosing weight is a slow tedious journey but it is worth it. You will 'fall off the rails' but hey your dieting not dead, pick up your diet the next day. You can be really strict and have a treat every 6 weeks or you could do as I did and treat yourself weekly, I had a treat each weekend if I felt like it. Knowing you can't have something makes you want it more.


Start with small but effective changes such as:-

Always have breakfast, the earlier you eat after waking, the quicker your body kicks into using calories up.

Half meat intake and double vegetable intake.

Don't pick when cooking or serving meals, I always 'picked' at the wrong bits, chicken skin, pork crackling, you know the really nice stuff.

Eat at least every 2 hours or so, piece of fruit in between meals, sunflower seeds, raisins, pumpkin seeds (really good for you and always remind me of nuts), if you go long periods without eating you then tend to 'pig out', especially on the wrong type of foods. I used to have breakfast then get 4 slices whole grain bread and make up salad sandwiches, cut bread in half giving me 4 halves then have one half every hour or so with a glass of water, which took me up to teatime - worked for me.

Park your car as far away from supermarket entrance as possible, easy exercise and any increase is better than none.

Walk to supermarket - this is a really good one as you are limited on what you can carry home, so it saves money as well. If your like me you always buy more than you went for, this way you can't.

I bought a pedometer and increased my steps by 1,000 a day until I reached the recommended 10,000. Mainly by walking to the supermarket and back.

Having said all this I have gaily piled on the weight over the last 7 months and now have recommenced my diet. I know it's not going to be easy.

Of course the really quick fix is liposuction - not an avenue I would venture upon, but everyone's different and of course it depends on your financial situation.

BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not apportion blame to yourself,you are probably feeling bad enough at being declined without punishing yourself further. You are what you are, you can change when you are ready.

Best of Luck and be nice to yourself

Pauline

Kags1694

Thanks for so much encouragement, I do go the gym twice a day, I do have a personal trainer, I am a vegie and I am losing weight sensibly. There are reasons why some people dont lose weight and my weight was gained after a car accident!!!!!!

chippy64

Kags, sorry to hear your news. We keep being asked for extra medical details and it all seems so excessive.
I think that if they have a definite cut off point on BMI/weight and they are not willing to look at individual cases, they should announce on EOI forms or similar, so that you don't spend out thousands of pounds for nothing. :curse: If you had known in advance, you could have waited to submit when you get to their 'ideal' BMI/weight.
Go for the waiver - why not, what have you got to lose?
Best of luck and fingers crossed.

Rock Ape

If you download the med forms from NZIS it states that you should be looking at a BMI of not greater than 35 in adults.

Adventurer

Of course there are also many other facets to healthy or unhealthy eating rather than saturated fats. Bad is too much Sugars, Salts,) Good is Waters, Veg & fruit etc.
HOWEVER
I am just giving you perhaps one of the simplest and easiest ways to improve the diet and reasonably quickly.

One of the easiet ways to lose weight or at the very least control it, whilst at the same time improving your health somewhat is to:-

Basically stop eating lots of saturated fats.

Stop eating what our family now calls 'Dead Food'.

A)
Cut out any butter and margerine in sandwiches and most cooking. After 2 weeks of having sandwiches without butter or marge the craving goes and you get used to the sandwich without. (Our family now including young kids have no butter or margerine used in their basic form) This small task can do a great deal for your health and family members.
B)
Cut out as much as possible eating the following:-
Fatty Meats, Chicken Skin, Cakes, Biscuits, Crisps, etc.

C)
Try to eat very little foods that have over 10gm per 100gm of saturated fats and if possible try to keep most below 5gms.

And please do not deceive yourself or make excuses- 99.9% of people who are overweight are only overweight because the total calories they digest are more than the calories their body uses. It is that simple and only that simple.
Diets also do not work!!!!!!!!!
You have to permanently change what you eat.

Good Luck

chippy64

RockApe, I know it says that you should be looking at BMI of less than 35 but it doesn't actually spell out that if it's not, you won't get in. Just think it needs to be more prominent.

Rock Ape

Yes I take your point. Like everything else involved with entry to NZ the process is a minefield of uncertainty and inexactitude. I'm never sure how much is discretionary to the case officer or wirtten in stone. And don't even get me started on NZQA.........

Kags1694

Hi I lost just over 4 stone so far, dont use butter, dont eat any items on your b list. I go the gym twice a day and I have a personal trainer. Dont eat meat.

I put on my weight when I had a car accident, and was not able to excercise.

It is not always down to what you eat.

Adventurer

Sorry Kags but
IT IS ONLY DOWN TO WHAT YOU EAT OR AT LEAST THE AMOUNT THAT YOU EAT compared to what you use up.
If you eat more calories than you use you put on weight.
If you eat less than you use you lose weight.
There is no other outcome.

I have been involved in health, eating and physical exercise and fitness most of my life including work and I despair of the majority of overweight, fat and obese people who always have a 'reason' for their predicament.
I have also suffered from weight problems in my time and ill health, despite being physically super fit, caused by eating far too much crap for too many years. At last I have changed and hope that I will be able to prolong my life now to see my kids grow up to a mature age.

Physical exercise is normally a relatively small part of weight control unless someone is doing enormous amounts. Of course the benefits for health are substantial. Perversely small amounts of vigorous exercise can cause many people to put on weight due to the exercise often increasing the appetite and then consuming more than the calories burned in the exercise.
There are some exercises which are especially bad for the calories used equation such as swimming. Swimming, although a very good form of exercise, generally causes massive appetite and extra eating often way above the calories burned. Many people can swim for a few minutes and be ravenous.

Anyway I really like to help people and if anything I have written helps anyone to reevaluate then great. If anything upsets anyone that is just the way it goes.