NEW WOMAN!

From then on, she could only swim or do weights with any safety.

‘I was devastated because I was a gym addict,’ she laughs. ‘But at 46, I discovered fitness modelling and the world of body building. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons, driven by vanity, yet this was what I’d been looking for my entire life!’

Jane entered her very first body-building contest the following year, under the guidance of trainer Tom Hewett, then celebrated her 50th birthday by competing once again.

‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was declaring to the world that I had fully recovered,’ she explains. ‘I will never go back to the dark times now.’

Had she not found herself through body building, she doubts she would still be alive.

‘I didn’t want to see 50. I was going to try [to commit suicide] again.’

She has made it her mission to help other women who hate their bodies and themselves as much as she once did.

‘If I can teach people in a positive way, and spread a little kindness, then I feel rewarded and happy.

‘This is five years in the making, it doesn’t happen overnight,’ she explains.

‘You can only do a little bit at a time to facilitate change. But if you can find your passion – and it took me until I was 46 – you can find your self-worth and set your soul on fire.’