Jan 30, 20213 min read

Gary Banford's "Fighting Fit Part 2"

Gary's story here;

"I started experiencing some mild symptoms mid-year, 2019. They were similar to

those that my Dad had about 2 years before he was diagnosed with exactly the same cancer as I now have. My father battled his symptoms having been wrongly

diagnosed many times. Once he was diagnosed, he was given 3 months to live; he

subsequently went through 6 months of chemo and continued his battle for a further

2 years. I first went to the Doctor in May 20, telling him ‘I think I have cancer

because….’ He told me I was wrong, but he would put me out for tests

(gastroscopy).

A week later I still had heard nothing, so I called the Doctor again, this time he told

me that I was on a 3-4 month waiting list for the procedure. I did not accept that and

emailed him directly informing him of my exact symptoms by bullet point. I was in for

the gastroscopy a week later. They found 11 tumours, 4 at 3cm in length, malignant

in appearance in my oesophagus and a further 7 small er 3-5mm in my stomach;

they took biopsies of all tumours I was subsequently put in for a CT scan within 2

weeks from which I had the results within 2 weeks. All tumours malignant, Stage 4,

inoperable cancer with the offer of palliative care only. This was on 16 th July 2020.

Gary Bandford's Fighting Cancer with Fitness Challenge

Almost immediately we decided that this was a fight that I had to take head on, that this was the only way to act, be fit to fight.

If I could turn the clock back, I would have chased the Doctors at initial onset of symptoms, regardless of how mild.

I started my fitness campaign purely because fitness is my life outside family and work, and I decided that I would need to be as fit as I possibly could be to get through this and although the disease had already started to restrict what I could or could not do!

I am a CrossFit enthusiast and an instructor. So far, my friends in CrossFit gyms in

Australia, USA and Scotland have taken on the ‘Gazman 50’. After the first month of

posting my videos on Face Book an old friend in Australia coined the workout

Gazman 50, this then grew into three different CrossFit gyms in South Australia and

doing all 30 days of exercises that I had posted so far and did them all back-to-back

to help me raise money for Abbie’s Sparkle Foundation. This has now been

repeated by a number of CrossFit gyms in the UK."

Gazman 50

For time

 50 Squats

 50 Push ups

 50 Hands to knees sit ups

 50 Alternating forward lunges - 25 each side

 50 Glute raises

 50 Thrusters (with whatever you want)

50 Alternating hand touch Russian Twists - 25 each side

 50 Squats

 50 Push ups

 50 Alternating side crunches - 25 each side

 50 Alternating forward lunges - 25 each side

 25 Hollow snaps + 25 Superman snaps

 50 Turkish get ups - 25 each side (with whatever you want)

 50 Squats

 50 Push ups

 50 Alternating forward lunges - 25 each side

 50 Hands to knees sit ups

As the second part of the interview I asked Gary what his main "Hakx" or tips would be ;

I asked Gary "Got any advice for people out there?"

Gary's response : "My advice to anyone out there that has a symptom that they don’t recognise as a normal cold, flue, migraine etc., etc., is to go to your Doctor and get tested. No matter what they say, fight your corner and don’t just accept ‘first-hand’ what they say. I

have since had multiple friends tell me that they have now been to their Doctors

having initial diagnoses of lesser ailments that have now been diagnosed with more

serious conditions."

He also told us on the video "Find something, write, exercise, whatever, to help get you out of the dark places and through the worst times."

To see the interview click here

Audio Podcast here

Gary Bandford's Youtube here

Social Media

Email: garybanford@hotmail.com

Twitter: @gary_banford

Instagram: gary_banford

Facebook: Gary Banford