It was July 2013, a month before her 43rd birthday. Bernadette Lamaro was newly appointed to a senior government HR role and halfway through an executive coaching course she had worked hard to secure. Life felt busy, ambitious and controlled.
Then she got a cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
The next morning, she noticed dark bruises spreading across the backs of her legs. A blood test led to a call she will never forget. A pathologist, unable to reach her GP, rang her directly and told her to go straight to emergency.
She arrived at 6pm and waited through the night, watching ambulances unload trauma patients while she sat quietly, wondering what could possibly be wrong. At 2am, she was taken into a room, sat on a hospital bed and told she had leukaemia.
Within hours, she was admitted for aggressive chemotherapy. The following day, a haematologist explained that without immediate treatment, she had only days to live.
‘I went into fight-or-flight,’ Bernadette, now 55, tells the Daily Mail. ‘It felt surreal. One minute I was planning meetings. The next, I was handing control over to doctors and thinking, “Is this how my life ends?”‘
The years that followed were relentless. Remission. Relapse. More chemotherapy. A bone marrow transplant she describes as the hardest thing she has ever endured. She lost her hair. She battled infections. She lived in a cycle of hope and fear.
Seven years after her transplant, she is considered medically cured, although she says the word carefully. She still sees her haematologist for monitoring. She knows how fortunate she is. What she didn’t expect was what would happen after survival.
At her heaviest, Bernadette weighed 88kg (13st 12lb, or 194lb). She says she was outgoing but didn’t feel confident
After implementing three simple rules, Bernadette lost 35kg (5st 7lb, 77.2lb). She now weighs 53kg (8st 5lb, 117lb)
The years she didn’t talk about
You might assume that facing death sharpens your focus on health. Bernadette assumed that, too. Instead, she went back to work.
‘I was fiercely protective of my career,’ she says. ‘I had made sacrifices to build it. I didn’t want to lose that part of myself.’
She slotted back into long days and high expectations. Outwardly, she looked resilient. Internally, she was depleted.
‘You think after something like that you’ll suddenly become incredibly respectful of your body,’ she reflects. ‘I didn’t. I went into denial.’
Food became comfort. Socialising became distraction. Late nights blurred into late-night snacking. She defaulted to easy meals. She stopped exercising properly. The weight crept on slowly.
‘I stopped looking at myself properly in the mirror,’ she says. ‘I dressed to hide. Loose tops. Dark colours. Whatever didn’t draw attention.’
Walking upstairs left her breathless. By the weekend, she was flattened with fatigue. She kept busy enough not to sit with it, but in quiet moments she felt deeply unhappy.
You might think facing death sharpens your focus on health – but after battling leukaemia, Bernadette went into denial and began to use food as comfort
‘I feel resilient, I feel unstoppable,’ Bernadette (pictured) says, after losing 35kg (5st 7lb, 77.2lb)
‘I felt invisible,’ she says. ‘I was outgoing, but I didn’t feel confident.’
The wake-up call came in May 2024, when she was 53.
The question that stopped her cold
Bernadette had been watching The Fast 800 program for months. Developed by the late Dr Michael Mosley and based on Mediterranean-style eating and intermittent fasting principles, it had caught her attention.
Even then, it took her three months to click ‘join’.
As part of the onboarding process, she was asked to assess her mobility.
‘Can you easily get up off the floor?’
She tried.
‘I couldn’t,’ she says. ‘I was absolutely shocked. I felt devastated and disappointed in myself.’
After everything her body had endured, she realised she had not truly cared for it.
‘That was the moment I thought, “I cannot keep going like this.”‘
What followed was not a dramatic boot camp or an extreme elimination diet. It was something far more structured and surprisingly simple.
The early shift
Bernadette began with the stricter phase of The Fast 800 before transitioning to a more sustainable approach. In her first week, she lost 5kg.
The number startled her, but it was the psychological shift that mattered more.
‘It showed me how much my lifestyle had been contributing,’ she says. ‘Planning, being structured, being conscious. I realised I had more control than I thought.’
Over the following months, she would lose a total of 35kg.
Her energy lifted. Her sleep deepened. Her mood steadied. She found she could handle work pressures without feeling overwhelmed. Friends began to notice something beyond weight loss.
‘You seem lighter,’ they told her. Not just physically.
The transformation, she says, came down to three clear rules she committed to without compromise.
The three rules
She ate three proper meals a day.
She eliminated all snacking.
And she stopped eating at least three hours before bed.
‘That structure changed everything,’ she says.
The no-snacking rule was the hardest. Office culture had normalised afternoon chocolate. There had been lolly jars and birthday cakes. At home, she would wander back into the kitchen after dinner and pick at whatever was there.
‘It was boredom, stress, habit,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t hunger.’
Removing snacks dramatically reduced her calorie intake, but more importantly, it forced her to pause.
‘When I stopped snacking, I had to ask myself, “Am I actually hungry? Or am I avoiding something?”‘
Eating three structured meals gave her rhythm. She began planning her week. Shopping intentionally. Cooking recipes she genuinely enjoyed. Salads and vegetables became something she craved rather than tolerated.
‘I feel satisfied now,’ she says. ‘I look forward to my meals.’
The final rule – no food within three hours of bedtime – transformed her evenings.
‘I used to eat right up until I got into bed,’ she admits. ‘Now dinner is dinner. That’s it.’
Within weeks, she was falling asleep almost instantly. The constant stomach churning and gurgling she had once laughed off disappeared.
‘It was like my body could finally rest.’
The changes that surprised her most
As the months passed, the physical changes became undeniable.
She began parking further from the station and walking briskly. She walked up escalators instead of standing still. Hills no longer required strategic pauses. She returned to swimming, something she had avoided out of self-consciousness.
One evening, feeling bold, she pulled out a stack of clothes she had bought years earlier in smaller sizes. She turned on music and tried them on.
‘It was one of the best nights,’ she says. ‘Things that wouldn’t zip up suddenly fit.’
For the first time in years, she felt visible.
‘I used to ask, “What can I wear to hide this?” Now I ask, “What do I feel like wearing?”‘
She describes walking through the city feeling liberated, noticing people noticing her again.
‘It sounds vain, but it’s human,’ she says. ‘I had felt invisible for so long.’
The medical marker that mattered
For years, one stubborn issue had lingered in her bloodwork: fatty liver.
Even during remission, her liver markers suggested visceral fat around her organs. It concerned her doctors.
At a routine follow-up, her haematologist noticed her weight loss immediately. When the results returned, her fatty liver had resolved.
‘We were hugging,’ Bernadette says. ‘It was the first time in all those years that marker had normalised.’
Her doctor was curious about what she had changed. For Bernadette, the validation was deeply emotional.
‘It felt like my body was finally working with me.’
A careful reflection
Bernadette is measured when she speaks about her leukaemia. She does not claim that diet caused it. Blood cancers are complex and often unpredictable.
But she does wish she understood earlier how daily habits affect long-term health.
‘I just wish I had been more informed,’ she says. ‘More respectful of my body.’
Today, at 55, she is planning the Three Capes Walk in Tasmania. She is exploring ways to incorporate wellbeing into her HR career. She speaks openly about her illness, something she once avoided because it felt too painful.
‘I feel resilient,’ she says. ‘I feel unstoppable.’
Three meals. No snacks. No late-night eating.
They are simple rules. For Bernadette, they became the foundation of rebuilding her life.
