A West Dorset woman has told how she lost five stone in weight in six months after being diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Jodie Martinez, from Bridport, was diagnosed with the illness this time last year following tests after she suffered a miscarriage in October 2012.

She decided to lose weight in October 2013 and has slimmed down from 19 stone to 13 and a half stone. Now, following her extraordinary weight loss and cancer treatment, she is in remission and has been told she can start trying for children again with her husband Ramon.

Mrs Martinez decided to tell her story to encourage other people to lose weight. She said: “We had been trying for a baby for years and after the miscarriage the weight piled on because of the stress and upset.

“A week before my 25th birthday we went to the doctors to go to the fertility clinic and had to do some tests. Following the tests I had a phone call telling me I had to go back to the clinic and to take a loved one with me.”

When she went back to the clinic, she was told she had abnormal pre-cancerous cells in her cervix and would have to undergo an operation.

Following the operation in March 2013, she was told that although the cells had been removed there were two lots of abnormal cells and they were actually cancerous cells.

She was told she would have to return to the clinic every three months for further check-ups.

This caused her to put more weight on following the operation and took her until October 2013 to realise she needed to lose weight to aid her recovery and to allow her to receive fertility treatment.

Mrs Martinez said: “After the miscarriage, because I’m a stress eater, I just piled the weight on.

“I couldn’t see an end to it and it took talking to someone after the miscarriage to realise I needed to lose it.”

Mrs Martinez said she was in tears when she was talking about it at her first session at the weight loss group she plucked up the courage to join.

She has followed a strict dietary regime since October to lose the weight and at the start of the month, doctors gave her the all clear and told her she only needed to visit the clinic yearly for check-ups. She was also told her and her husband, Ramon Martinez, could now start trying for children again through fertility treatment.

Following her weight loss, she has now become an independent consultant for the Cambridge Weight Loss plan and is based in Bridport.

Mrs Martinez has vowed to keep trying to lose weight and has a further two stone to lose before she reaches her target weight.