Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LISA RILEY ON
She has lost 12 stone and finally has the body she dreamed of. But Lisa Riley has one big regret about her dramatic transformation – that her beloved mum isn’t here to see it.
Cath died five years ago after a 12-year battle with cancer and Lisa is still coming to terms with her grief.
Just imagining what her mum would think of her new shape and how she has turned her life around is enough to turn Lisa’s smiles to tears.
“More than anything I regret that she is not here to see it,” Lisa explains between sobs. “I just wish I had done it sooner so she could see what I have achieved. The other day I found the outfit I wore to her funeral – you could house five people in it.
“In my head that is the last outfit she saw me in. Now I am a fifth of that size.”
Lisa and Cath were soulmates. They did everything together and spoke at least 10 times a day on the phone before Cath died from breast cancer that spread to her pelvis, ovaries and pancreas.
“I am still dealing with my grief,” says Lisa. “I have to tell myself every day how proud she would be.”
After losing so much weight Lisa was left with loose, saggy skin and went under the knife twice to have 1.5 stone of it removed. She knows how thrilled her mum would be for her.
“I can honestly see my mum on holiday in Lanzarote and she would look at me in my bathing suit now in utter shock that I have done it.
“I’ve lost the weight, had the ops, I’m sticking to my food plan and training like mad in the gym. Everything is becoming muscle and toned in the right places. I think my mum would be blown away.”
Cath Riley was a powerhouse of a woman. Witty, intelligent, opinionated, and Lisa’s biggest champion.
If anyone criticised Lisa, Cath would be like a lioness protecting her cub. Lisa knows her mum tried to encourage her to lose weight, all the time insisting she was happy with Lisa as she was.
So instead of drawing battle lines between them, Cath did what she did best, and backed her daughter 100%.
“My mum did take me to the dietitian,” says Lisa. “But I think it got to the stage where it was falling on deaf ears so she became my champion. She got so used to me saying ‘I’m happy being big,’ she didn’t want to battle with me.”
Lisa got her big break as Mandy Dingle in Emmerdale in 1995, and not