Is there anyone out there that is from New Zealand. I have just joined this website - thanks to another friend who told me about it. I was just wondering if there were any other kiwi's out there. I have just had my banding op on the 8th March 07, so it all rather new for me. Just gone on to the mushy food stage and excited about that. Some normal food that I don't have to drink - YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

hi miranda, thanks for reply. i...think... i should be alright for the liquid diet as i have been doing it (not religiously) for the past few months for breakfast and lunch while working. i start back from xmas hols on monday ready to return to it.

can i ask how much it has cost for the surgery? i have a somewot skeptical husband ( he has no issue with paying for the surgery) who i guess has seen is wife over the past 15 years on the diettreadmill with little results. we ran into a friend yesterday who said she knows someone who has had it done and has lost 9kg in 9 months... hes wondering if its all that its cut out to be??

so if your out there people...i would love the feedback.

ps: i am still getting use to being on a forum so if i post this twice ..my bad.

the surgery cost $20.000 and I know it is going to be worth every penny. I have several friends who have had it done and ALL of them have done really well. you really have to stick to the program and be really strick with yourself, which is like that eternal diet round about but one doesnot put on the weight. I lost 8kgs before surgery. I have 22kgs to lose which is not alot compared with some of the weights I have seen on the forum. I have found the forum invaluable and have learnt so much about the pros and cons of this operation. Have you got a copy of the lapband book? I found making the decision harder than wether I should get married or not. as one of the threads said it is better to live with a band than die trying to lose weight the other way. How much do you have to lose? I will help as much as I can and it is the kind input of strangers that has got me so far. I have been charting EVERYTHING that I have eaten on FITDAY for the last 6 weeks and it really was eye opening. My email address is miranda@mbr.co.nz if you would like to communicate by email.

Hi - Did you end up having surgery with Dr Friss? I am bokoed in for October....

Hi, No I didnt have my surgery with Dr Friss as I heard about surgeon a little closer and where I could have family accomodation . Dr Robert Cable did mine, a very nice man and very thorough/concientous.

Merelou

Thank you very much. I am booked in with Dr Friss in Oct but have heard mixed reviews. I am hoping to lose 30 kgs. How long did it take you to lose weight?

Hi - Did you end up having surgery with Dr Friss? I am bokoed in for October....

hi there,

how did you go about getting booked in for surgery? did you need to be referred by your dr

Hi I am new to this and am on day 2 of optifast - finding it really hard. I am due to be banded on Sept 24 by Dr Fris. Where do you get the lapband book from and can you tell me what you drank on the 2 weeks liquid post op.

Thanks Lea

Kiwis! :thumbup: It doesn't look like this thread's been active for a while but I thought I'd say hi anyway. I was banded almost three years ago by Dr Fris (he and Heather are awesome!) and have to say I wish I'd found this place a little closer to then. Oh well. It's been an interesting three years, anyway.

Hello, well i have never done this before and have no idea what i am doing! i am looking for a good surgeon in auckland and wondering how restrictive life after surgery will be? appreciate any advice:)

Hi, i can see this has not been active for a while. but i live in auckland. i was banded 4 days ago by Dr Fris. Im looking for some kind of support group on the shore or in auckland atleast. im finding the liquid diet a bit hard at the moment. cant wait for mushies lol.

By the way lifeback i know its been a couple of months since u posted but Dr Fris is good, hes a top surgeon so i felt very comfortable being in his hands.

let me know how your getting on,

And if anyone can help me out that would be great.

Hello, well i have never done this before and have no idea what i am doing! i am looking for a good surgeon in auckland and wondering how restrictive life after surgery will be? appreciate any advice:)

As Laura said above me, Dr Fris is brilliant, I definitely recommend him. He's really onto it and helpful in a relaxed, optimistic way. The other staff at his clinic are really nice too - the secretary is helpful and nice, Heather is brilliant and supportive (not sure if she's a doctor or a nurse or something? She deals with inflations and checkups after Dr Fris is satisfied everything is going ok).. The nutritionist was really helpful too - I went to her a couple of years ago (if they still have the same one) to discuss food options for multisport races of all things. Very helpful.

At the above mention of multisport races you might already get that my life hasn't been all that restrictive. Sometimes I get a bit annoyed at my family or friends (or boyfriend when my ex and I first started going out) having a real preoccupation with food - going out for dinner, getting pizza, eating bread-heavy sandwiches... You really notice how much food plays a role in what you do. Going out to dinner on a date, social nights out for dinner, family and friends asking how you live on eating so little... But for the most part they just shrug it off as an oddity (at the moment I also say I don't need to eat much because I'm sitting down all day, which is true!). Apart from that annoyance sometimes it's not bad at all. The thing that convinced me to go ahead with it was that Dr Fris assured me I'd be able to go diving after the surgery. Since then I've continued playing floorball (indoor hockey), gotten into climbing (only problem is too light to belay some of the heavier guys now!), and I've also started running. And I'm considering more multisport races. You just need to adjust how you eat... The multisport race I did was with two friends who I told about the surgery - they were worried I wouldn't get enough energy because I couldn't eat much, but after talking to the nutritionist I made sure I had high energy snacks and just ate small amounts really often. Almost constantly on the hiking sections of the race. Incidentally, out of the three of us I was the only one who didn't have problems with getting a sugar/energy slump because I was eating almost constantly compared to them more less often.

Incidentally, I found last year I was eating a little more than I expected and when back in NZ I checked in with Heather at Dr Fris' office - I've upped the exercise regime a lot (for fun! Can't believe I finally got to that point!) and she assured me that now I'm 'normal' - I'm at my ideal weight (or there abouts) and my body uses the food I give it to fuel exercise, so I'm actually eating the amount I need and not freaking out that I'm eating too much or too little. It took almost 5 years, but there you go!

Hope the above helps. Despite getting annoyed that I can't enjoy a foccaccia roll (unless I spend about 4 hours on it), or nachoes (unless I have a handy friend or boyfriend to eat about 3/4 of them!) as well as I used to I definitely don't regret it. You figure out tricks to deal with eating out soon enough. (Salads and soups are good!) Oh, and another thing I realised is that people are generally more supportive than you think they'll be. Especially if they knew you before and know you after. Or see before and after pictures (I crack up whenever Heather shows me mine!). Straight after the surgery I did have a friend ask me if I was bulemic (don't have sushi on your second day of solids! I'd just lost about 10kg from the op and she noticed I wasn't eating much), but once I told her what I'd had done she was relieved and really supportive. Not that I've gone and told everyone, but I'm more relaxed about who knows now, than back when I first got it done. If you really don't want to tell anyone though, I realised something pretty quickly - people are usually too interested in themselves to notice. And if they do notice, just say you've been working really hard at the gym. Or watching what you eat. Most people I know (except those really close to me like my two friends from that multisport race, two other close friends, past boyfriend) congratulated me on loosing all the weight and left it at that. I did find that I got heartburn after I got to my goal weight, and when I moved to the Netherlands no one here knew - apparently stress can trigger it, as once I told a workmate here about my surgery I haven't had heartburn since. Go figure!

Laura, if I was still in Auckland I'd offer a trip out for coffee/juice/something, but I've moved to the Netherlands (where, incidentally, it seems gastric surgery is being given out more commonly than cold and flu meds!). How much longer are you sticking to liquids? I can tell you know that after 5 years it's happily blanked out of your memory. Or mine at least. Think it's because of all the optifast. If you don't find people in Auckland and want to email rants or whatever give me a heads up. Think you can email via my profile here... Hmm.

thanx heaps, nice to know that it gets easier lol.

im excited for whats to come anyway.

im on liquids for another week or two im not really a hundred percent sure. oh and i cant wait for my stomach to feel normal again so i can sleep on my front i havent had a good nights sleep since surgery. i hate sleeping on my back.

i havent really told anyone just my family and one of my aunts, my brother also told his friend (i wasnt impressed). i recently fell out with my best friend so i wont be telling her anytime soon. i think im ok with ppl not knowing atm i have this website with people in the same position as me which is nice.

thanx again if i dont find abybody here i'll be sure to contact you, its always good to have someone to have rant to lol.

thanx heaps, nice to know that it gets easier lol.

im excited for whats to come anyway.

im on liquids for another week or two im not really a hundred percent sure. oh and i cant wait for my stomach to feel normal again so i can sleep on my front i havent had a good nights sleep since surgery. i hate sleeping on my back.

i havent really told anyone just my family and one of my aunts, my brother also told his friend (i wasnt impressed). i recently fell out with my best friend so i wont be telling her anytime soon. i think im ok with ppl not knowing atm i have this website with people in the same position as me which is nice.

thanx again if i dont find abybody here i'll be sure to contact you, its always good to have someone to have rant to lol.

HI Laura, sent you a PM last night, not sure if you can see it, cheers

thanx i got it, lol just sent u an email.

It definitely gets easier! Hehe.

I got my surgery done right before Christmas 2005... Dr Fris appeared to think I could decide when to go on solids myself, so managed to time that alright so I could eat a bit of Christmas dinner. That's when I realised people don't notice much outside of themselves - hadn't told my aunt or uncle and they didn't notice anything different on Christmas day!

Can totally sympathise about the sleeping thing too - whenever I woke up for the first couple of weeks I had to have my mum help me get out of bed. My abs were totally shot. Used to do crunches ALL the time but since surgery notsomuch. Haven't had the discipline to do them as much over the last few years and for a while after the surgery it hurt too much! Should start doing them again...

I think I timed my surgery quite well... It was at the end of my second year of uni which included some bitchy flatmates, so didn't see much of them after that, and new flatmates/friends didn't really notice. One was in that multisport race, the third girl was one I'd been friends with since first year and when I told them neither really seemed surprised. Geez, family telling people without you knowing - totally get that as well. I'm not even sure how many people my mum has told! Ended up having some odd conversations with a neighbour for a while, haha.

Incidentally, that same neighbour had a friend who got banded and didn't lose any weight whatsoever... (She kept being amazed I lost 40kg in under 2 years). Apparently the neighbours friend had been melting chocolate and drinking it through a straw from when she was on liquids!

It definitely makes it easier having someone to talk to though. My trainer at the gym was excellent for that till she moved to Aussie. For a while after that not having anyone in Dunedin I could talk to (family and friends who knew were in Auckland) was kind of difficult. It's just for the mental/emotional support.