IT was the moment Jayne Torvill knew she had to take drastic action. As she watched herself on TV, the sight of her bulging out of her skate costume made her cringe with embarrassment.

Now, with the fourth series of Dancing On Ice about to start, coach Jayne – one half of the most famous skating duo Britain has ever produced – is looking fabulous at 51.

Two stone lighter and four dress sizes slimmer, she now weighs in at eight stone. “And that,” she says defiantly, “is where I’m going to stay.”

Holding up a photograph of her former self wrapped in shapeless clothing, Jayne laughs. “I look like my own mum don’t I? And yet it was taken only four years ago.”

Jayne and partner Christopher Dean won gold skating to Ravel’s Bolero at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984 and went on to have a hugely successful global career.

But the pounds started piling on for Jayne after they retired in 1998.  “When you’re 5ft 2in every extra pound shows,” she says. “My biggest single indulgence? Cream.

“I just love it – in pasta sauces, on puddings, even with my cornflakes for breakfast.”

By the time Jayne and Chris were approached in 2006 with a new idea for a TV programme in which professional skaters would be partnered by celebs, she was squeezing into a Size 14.

“And as I’m not exactly a double D-cup that freaked me out,” she says. “But I just couldn’t stop eating and I wasn’t training so I wasn’t burning off any of the calories.”

The idea, of course, was Dancing On Ice – though Jayne and Chris had no idea it would be such a hit. “We were very sceptical when the format was first explained to us,” says Jayne.

“It seemed crazy to try to teach people who hadn’t skated before and get them to a reasonable level in a short space of time and then put them on TV.

“At most, we thought there’d be one series.”

There have now been three series, two tours and a DVD of the second tour. There was even a Dancing On Ice Christmas Day special.

And with the fourth series beginning on ITV1 at 7pm next Sunday, Jayne’s never looked better.

She says: “I knew enough was enough when I saw myself on TV in the first series. Even though I’d lost a few pounds, I was still overweight and being on screen puts on half a stone.

Seeing myself was the kick-start I needed.” Jayne lost a stone by cutting out the cream and sticking to a low-fat diet.

She then shed the final stone over six months last year by following an exercise regime dreamed up by personal fitness trainer Dan Little, which she now demonstrates on her DVD.

He worked it round moves which echoed skating steps and added high- intensity exercises to attack Jayne’s fatty bits.

“It worked,” says Jayne. “My hips now measure 33in – which used to be the size of my waist. I’ve lost six inches off my middle so I’m down to 27in. I look slimmer – and people tell me I seem younger.”

The crowning moment came when Jayne recently went back to her native Nottingham and, in a glass case in Nottingham Castle,  saw the costume she wore when she and Chris won Olympic gold.

“I felt quite emotional,” she says. “They got it out of the case for me and I held it up against my body. It was a Size 8 – and I could have still fitted into it. Secretly, I felt quite proud.”

Apart from her svelte appearance, Jayne’s weight loss and increased fitness have had a beneficial impact on her health.

In the early 90s, she reveals, she developed asthma following a bad attack of hay fever. “The asthma calmed down when I retired in 1998 but then, two years ago, the attacks started again.

“Now I have to use an inhaler. But I can get through all my skating routines without any problems because I’m so fit,” she says.

“I used to have a problem catching my breath afterwards. Now I don’t get out of breath if I run upstairs or I’m chasing after the kids.”

Jayne met her husband, American sound engineer Phil Christensen, in Sacramento at the end of the 80s when she and Chris were on tour with a Russian skating company.

He helped out with the sound for a week – and then made an excuse to stay on for a further week to “make sure the equipment was working properly”.

Jayne says: “We met up again when he came to the UK to work on Phil Collins’s tour. And that’s when a deepening friendship blossomed into romance.”

The two married in Sacramento in 1990. “Phil’s seven years my junior,” she laughs. “But most people say he looks older than me!”

The couple have two adopted children, Kieran, six and Jessica, two and a half.

The demands of both choreographing the routines and appearing on Dancing On Ice mean Jayne only gets back to her East Sussex home once a week for the six months of filming and touring.

“Phil’s fine coping with the kids. I was well-established when we met so it’s not as though my workload came as a shock to him. Anyway, he’s now mine and Chris’s manager.”

So what does Phil think of his new slimline wife? “Oh, he says I’m lovely, whatever my size. It’s mums at the school gate who are most likely to pass comment!” she says.

Jayne gets real pleasure by shopping for outfits that flatter her figure. “I used to buy baggy clothes that covered me up,” she says. “Now I’m not scared of wearing something fitted. I want to show off my new shape.”

LOSE It! With Jayne Torvill is available now (Universal DVD, £19.99).

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