Shocking transformation. See what cancer did to this former body builder

A former bodybuilder given just weeks to live after being diagnosed with cancer today blamed his 10,000-calorie a day diet and energy drink addiction for triggering the disease.

Dean Wharmby was told he had just weeks to live in November after a large tumour was found on his liver. But he is still battling the disease five-and-a-half months later, thanks, he believes, to cutting out sugar and relying on natural remedies.

It is a huge turn-around for the 39-year-old, who told MailOnline he turned to a diet of burgers, pizzas and bacon sandwiches – washed down with seven to eight cans of energy drink – to create the ‘perfect’ bodybuilder’s physique.

But he now believes the high-protein, fatty diet he lived on for four to five years may have led to his illness, first diagnosed in 2010.

‘It was because I was trying to be as big as possible,’ Mr Wharmby told MailOnline.

‘I can’t say it was the diet for sure, but things like the energy drinks could be contributing factors. Red meats – all things we have found out have so many impurities in them now.

‘I think it was a combination of it all.’

Mr Wharmby had been a  bodybuilder for 20 years before he became ill.

In the beginning, he admits to taking steroids for about a year to create his physique because ‘everybody did it’.

But he soon turned his back on them, as he began to build his personal training business.

It was then his diet took a turn for the worse.

‘I could train seven clients in a day, back-to-back,’ he said. ‘Then I would have to have the energy to train myself.’

He added: ‘I was constantly on the go.’