THERE are many reasons people start to slim – but few are as arresting as Janis McCarthy’s.

As a mother of two young girls, she was told at the age of 43 that she had breast cancer.

It was to be the first of two diagnoses of the disease, eight years apart.

Overweight at the time, Mrs McCarthy had slipped into a sedentary lifestyle of office-based working, late nights and takeaways.

She said: “I was working, and I have always worked, in quite strong jobs and I have always rushed around everywhere.

“You come home in the night time and grab a takeaway because you can’t be bothered to cook, and a) you put weight on and b) you are eating the wrong foods.

“You are sitting at desks and you only catch food when you have got time and gorge afterwards when you have time.”

Her job at George Wimpey homes meant a lot of driving, and little time to exercise properly.

The Castle Hedingham mum to Leanne, who was eight at the time, and Paige, who was nine, said the diagnosis of hormonal cancer left her “gobsmacked”.

backbone “I remember sitting and crying and thinking ‘Why me? What have I ever done to anybody?’.

“Sometimes you get really angry. It’s a really scary time for everybody going through it.”

Her husband Robert’s strength, which she describes as “like my backbone”, and the understanding of her two little girls got her through, despite the trauma of hair loss and the early onset of her menopause, caused by the chemotherapy.

But when cancer struck again, in her other breast, last year, Mrs McCarthy felt she needed to act.

“I read Professor Jane Plant’s book, Your Life in Your Hands, but really you are living on peanuts and greens. My cancer nurse said ‘Why are you doing this to yourself? Everything in moderation’.”

She encouraged Mrs McCarthy, now 52, to simply eat healthily, with no processed foods and nothing to excess, which is when she joined Slimming World in Sible Hedingham.

When she started, she weighed 15 stone – which soon started to fall off.

A year later – and still determined even though she is still having treatment – she has lost two stone, and feels she can relate to others in the ups and downs of their lives.

She is about to launch her own Slimming World group, and has pledged that she and her members will lose weight together.

She said: “Some people are overweight, and on their own don’t have the self-confidence to come in.

“I will meet them outside if they need to. I know how hard it is to get in by yourself.”

Call Janis on 01787 469455 about the class, which starts on January 7 at 7pm in Sible Hedingham Baptist Church.