So, I am innocently watching television as I am apt to do once in a while, ok, all the time, and I see the most amazing preview! I was watching a Friends re-run (where Rachel’s dog Le Poo dies) and I see a preview for a show called “How to Look Good Naked”. Not how to lose weight, how to diet yourself gorgeous, fat camp, how to manage a gastric bypass, but how. To. Look. Good. Naked. I immediately went to the W Network Canada’s website to see what was up with this show.

Learn to LOVE the way you look! Each episode puts one woman and her body-issue under the microscope. Instead of plastic surgery or fad-dieting options, our leading celebrity stylist gets to the core of her negative body-image by debunking the myth of perfection. With secrets from the world of fashion and beauty, his aim is to arm her with the confidence to show it off – both fully clothed and completely naked. A provocative anti-plastic surgery series for women, of every shape and size, which is truly revealing!

Loving how I look now? I found tears in my eyes. I myself had become caught up in a current body hatred cycle, and trying to diet and exercise myself out of the despair. I am not discounting losing weight for health, I am diabetic and that is a huge reason I want to be healthy.

I started to remember some sage words from one therapist or another from over the years. You must love yourself NOW, love your size NOW, your love handles, your bra size, your tummy, your thighs, your butt, every piece. You cannot do something good for a body you hate. You cannot treat something you hate with kindness, gentleness, and goodness. She told me it would be difficult to give nutritious food to a body I hated. It would be almost impossible to keep to an exercise regime, improving a body you hate. At the time it was in one ear and out the other, like so many things you are not ready to hear.

The host of the British How to Look Good Naked, is a man. This initially shocked me. In this one hour show, hundreds of women were willing to get naked for him to prove that breast firming gels did not work. His name is Gok Wan. He is a Stylist, not a psychologist or any other professional designation that you would assume someone who makes women loves themselves would have. His book How to Look Good Naked is published by Harper Collins. I could not find it on Amazon.com, but found it on Amazon UK. I ordered it immediately from Chapters.com, an online Canadian bookseller.

I am struggling with words to describe Gok. He is amazing. I felt comfortable with him right away through the TV! He casually talks about boobs and tummies and how great your ass is, like he is talking about making a risotto. He is matter of fact about it, which I think is what makes him sound (and I believe is) so sincere. In talking to participant Vikki, he says her tits are fabulous and she should flaunt her cleavage and not hide it under gigantic shirts that give her no shape and make her look like a frump who has given up. “Love the cleave!” her tells her. I laugh, and look at my own gigantic cleave. Perhaps I can get closer, in a more personal fashion, to my own big cleavage. Maybe, just maybe, even love it.

www.jenandtonic.ca
contributing editor, World blogs :: Canada