Dancing on Ice - Aggie MacKenzie
11 January 2008 - Introducing celebrity skater Aggie MacKenzie
Age: 52
Occupation: TV presenter for How Clean is Your House
Skating partner: Sergey Malyshev
Celebrity Supporters: Kim from How Clean is Your House, Anneka Rice,
"My bingo wings were really horrendous, they were absolutely the pits and since I've been skating they've been all sort of sucked in."
Cleaning guru Aggie Mackenzie confesses that the more time she spends on ice, the less confident she gets, however her new hobby does have one benefit: enabling her to scoff as much chocolate as she likes.
"I have good days and bad days, and in fact the whole of last week was a bad week. I just feel like I'm getting worse and worse. I'm like a child actually. I feel that before I was doing stuff on my own and now I know I've got a hand on hold on to I'm like so reliant on that hand it's like having a dummy with me. I feel like I'm just getting worse and worse but I've decided that I'm going to stay positive and just enjoy it.
"The advantage is that, my God if I want a Kit-Kat or a Mars Bar or a Twirl or a Twix I just shovel it down, it's fantastic, no problem with that now. I am so hungry, my appetite's so sharp and it's great."
As well as the insatiable appetite, Aggie is also thrilled that her body is already beginning to tone up with the extra exercise.
"I never go to a gym and actually when I turned 50, I thought I've got to do something so I thought easy option: yoga. I've been doing yoga the last few months and I think actually that's helped me a little bit on the rink with the core muscles. I can feel the benefits already. My arms – my bingo wings – were really horrendous, they were absolutely the pits and they've been all sort of sucked in, it's amazing. And I can feel my waist is much trimmer so there are benefits definitely."
Having to squeeze in rink practice with her panto rehearsals, Aggie has had to cut down on sleep, social life and drinking.
"I will not be drunk on the ice," she jokes. "If you have a drink you just can't work 14 hour days.
"I've had to give up sleep as well. My alarm goes off every morning at 5.15am. I've also had to give up my social life because I'm in panto I've had to go to bed every night at half past ten so my social life is out the window."
The mother of two sons aged twelve and sixteen, Aggie has taken her dancing partner Sergey under her wing as well.
"He is such a darling. He came round for supper last night, he's so sweet, he lives just round the corner from me and I just want to mother him. He's very, very, very patient having to say the same thing to me over and over again - 'arms, knees, arms knees. Straighten your arms and bend your knees.' Can I remember it? No!"
Aggie laughs as she admits that when she signed up for the show, she didn't quite take in an important aspect of what it all involved.
"One thing that passed me by which was the name of the programme: Dancing On Ice. I'd kind of forgotten that it was dancing and for someone who's completely rhythmically challenged it's really, really hard. I've got no sense of a rhythm, a beat or co-ordination."
Having not watched the series before, Aggie was sent a tape of a previous series and watching Kay Burley's twists and turns on the ice left her terrified.
"My stomach was churning over as I was watching it. It really was I thought 'what the effing hell have I let myself in for? This is scary!' Then I thought I'm just going to have to be much tamer and if I'm voted off that's fine but please God let it not be the first week."
