Jamie Eason Pictures: Fitness Model on Top After Beating Cancer

(CBS) We've all had our ups and downs, but few have had such highs and lows at such a young age as 34-year-old fitness model Jamie Eason.

PICTURES: Jamie Eason

After a few entry-level office jobs following college, Eason went to work for her family's roofing company in Texas. But being chained to a desk was not for her, she realized.

While managing a crew of roofers, she tried out to become a cheerleader for the Houston Texans  - and got the job. Life was going great.

Great, that is, until she found a suspicious lump in her breast.

It turned out to be cancer. She had a lumpectomy, and eventually all was well. Except that she had missed so many practices that she had to quit the cheer leading squad and had to take a job as a computer instructor.

Four years later, she realized that she was what she calls "skinny fat."

"I was soft and flabby," she tells CBS News. "I had cellulite. I drank Dr. Pepper and ate Goldfish and fast food almost every day."

It was her wake-up call. She hired a personal trainer and visited a nutritionist, and the new and improved Jamie Eason was born.

"Within a few disciplined months, my body began to transform," she says. "I felt physically fit and emotionally, I had a true sense of accomplishment and well-being."

She won the first fitness competition that she entered, and since then has graced the covers of countless magazines including Oxygen, Muscle & Development, and Fitness.

"I realized I had found a path for my life," she says.