Twice The Fight, Twice The Success

After improving her health, Gemma Davie was told she had breast cancer. But her new lifestyle proved key to her road to recovery.

- Emma Hibbs

Stunned by the news that the biopsy results meant it really was cancer, I had just one question for my nurse: ‘Can I still run?’ It sounds so trivial in the grand scheme of things, yet my fitness was paramount to me.

I’d known that lifestyle choices, such as being overweight, can increase your risk of developing some cancers, and it’s true that no one expects it to happen to them. But the timing couldn’t have been more cruel for me.

As a teenager, I’d been quite curvy, but my love of badminton kept my weight in check. That changed when I went to university and exercised less, while drinking and eating more. By the time I was 23, I was wearing a size 18 and weighed more than 15st.

My mum had lost weight with Weight Watchers, so I joined online. I liked that nothing was off-limits; it fitted my lifestyle. I lost weight, but gradually it crept back on. By the time I had my son, who is now five, I weighed 12st 10lb. I wanted to be a good role model and be active with him, but my knees hurt climbing the stairs.

I rejoined Weight Watchers online, but it wasn’t enough for me. As a busy mum with a full-time job that required a lot of travel, I felt that I needed to make time for myself, so I joined a Weight Watchers meeting instead.