Lance Spice

My name’s Lance Spice and I work in major project infrastructure delivery. I’m a father of five, married my wife Julia. Prior to the surgery, I’d got, my weight got ballooned up to about one hundred and twenty-five kilos.

I got to a point where my health got quite bad. So my blood pressure got to a point where they actually put me on three blood pressure medications. I got sleep apnea, had a back injury from my time in the military and that was getting worse with more weight. It just got to a point that it was getting very hard to even move.

I think I was embarrassed. I’d been quite fit. You just think, well jeez what have you done to yourself? I’m a father of five and that was my biggest fear, was looking at my kids and thinking, am I going to be there to see them graduate? Am I going to be there to go to weddings and watch their children grow up? And I probably wasn’t.

It was my wife who said, look, maybe you should think about it. I was very opposed. No, no, I don’t need to. And then I just got to a point where I went…Actually your right, there’s nothing, I’m getting worse and worse. I don’t know what else I can do.

I found a surgeon. I’d heard good things about. He filled me with confidence. And you can join the Facebook page and you can talk to other people that have had the surgery, and there’s only good stories out there. So I’ve got, I’ve had the gastric bypass with a minimizer ring. Yeah, it’s a big adjustment to start with.

Looking back now, you know, I eat the same foods as the rest of the family, I just eat smaller portions and I’m currently at about eighty-five. My waist size of my pants was I think forty-four inches. My pants now are thirty-four’s. My shirts…I was in four XL and I’m in medium shirts now.

And my energy’s been really good. So I do martial arts with my kids. We can go running down the park and play games and yeah, just a world of difference. I mean I’d still try and do that when I was bigger but I didn’t have the energy. It’s a lot different now. I think they realize that I’m going to be around for longer. And now my wife’s had the surgery. She’s doing really well. Life’s looking good. I feel like I’ve extended my life. I feel like I’m going to be alive for a lot longer.