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Look Good Naked Naked Naked Naked!!

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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

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Mousy and disgusted 5 pts

I have hunted for a good bra for a place that knew how to fit my big rack. I got a a few underwire bras that I thought would finally help and after a few hours they bruise me under my breasts and leave red marks. I looked wher I live on the internet where to get the best bra fittings and bras. It is considered really expensive. I am willing but what if I buy one bra which will probably a weeks groceries for me. Why can't they really teach people how to really fit you in bras in departments stores or extra. Foundation garments scare me but I have a big spare tire and then a littlier one at top what underwear will cover that, I feel like buying a sack dress because I am sick of my drooping boobs and inability to even pick out underwear and bras without spending to much and then they hurt me.It is hard to do this on a disablity check. I am not trying to look like a diva even when you are handicapped you don't want to look like a bag lady.

Mousy and disgusted 5 pts

I am disabled and right now going through a miserable time liking anything about my physical appearence. I say the amercican version once and it sucked. I love Gok. I wish I could somehow appear on his show. I actually wiegh about 250lbs and I have lost 100lbs but unfortantely no toning went into this. Is was just because of getting of meds and losing which just left me with saggy celutite sking and three tummies. I am most housebound but I would like to start looking good about myself somehow. I continue to watch How to look good naked and get some ideas but their is no catagory to dress just plain fat everywhere. I recently got out of an eleven year relationship. My boyfriend never made fun of my weight he liked it. No names but I never believed him and because of other severe problems I had to move out. I am not looking for a relationship now but I can't imagine ever getting undressed in front of anyone but me. I see so solution that would be perfect fo others in the shows but I have never had the money to shop at a department store because it is too expensive and with fibro I am a train wreck on high heels. I secretly adore them but can't walk in them without breaking my ankle. Sorry to be such a downer but I don't know where to stop on making myself look better with a low budget and didn't have an girl infulence in my life. I always just tried but never looked right.

Lisa Stone 6 pts

I think various sponsors are doing such a good job of meeting women on the level of self-acceptance where we want to be (Dove, for example), that we could be pleasantly surprised. And I don't think I would have said that ten years ago!

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder ( http://www.blogher.com/member/lisa-stone )
Surfette ( http://surfette.typepad.com )

Lisa Stone 6 pts

, depending upon your personal cup size, you have GOT to love the JenB.

Brilliant post, beautiful.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder ( http://www.blogher.com/member/lisa-stone )
Surfette ( http://surfette.typepad.com )

JenB 5 pts

I am abducting your blog name, Liz, and declaring us all EVERYDAY GODDESSES!

www.jenandtonic.ca ( http://www.jenandtonic.ca )
contributing editor, World blogs :: Canada ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/world/canada )

Liz Rizzo 5 pts

After the Emmy Awards last night, and thought, Really? Really, *this* is fat, and I'm supposed to feel bad? Because my body *feels* great, but I definitely struggle to accept my body when faced with the zero-body-fat legion in my industry.

Liz Rizzo ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/liz-rizzo )

I blog at Everyday Goddess ( http://everydaygoddess.typepad.com/ ).

mrsflinger 5 pts

I love LOVE this post Jen! I followed you from Twitter to here and as someone struggling with Postpartum weight, I think it's amazing how you tackled something that is not only part of our culture but so prevalent on TV. I think this show might just turn things around for us. I hope so!

schmutzie 5 pts

I haven't seen the actual show, but I have seen the ads for it, and I can't wait to catch an episode. All of the women in the ad were not skinny, were not 19, and seemed like such regular people. It's not that we all have to be so terribly sexy and hot, but it shows that we've got more to love about ourselves than we've been lead to believe.

Schmutzie's Milkmoney Or Not, Here I Come ( http://www.schmutzie.com )

Lyssann 5 pts

Oh please oh please let this come to the U.S. I too struggle with this and just today I handed the scale to my husband and asked him to take it away. I'm definitely working on being where I am right now and being healthy. It's hard. It's actually been easier watching HGTV less commercials for weight loss (watching wE or oxygen is absolutely awful).

Healthy Manifest ( http://healthymanifest.blogspot.com )

Debra Roby 5 pts

I love the idea of loving my body just as it is! When I look in the mirror, I often see what I'm pleased with but I also find the spots that I wish would just be different. I need an appointment with this tv show.

Ya know some cable channel will look at this and try their own take. but I wonder if they could find a host that would have that "trust" level immediately?

Nah... they'd probably screw it up by tying everything to a sponsor.

Debra
A Stitch In Time ( http://astitchintime.blogspot.com )
Deb's Daily Distractions ( http://debsdistractions.blogspot.com )

paper napkin 5 pts

Wow Jen! That show sounds awesome. I've only watched the biggest loser once (I was in the urgent care w/Em) and I hated how they made it sound like fat was a mortal sin. SHAAAAAME on you for letting yourself get this way. I didn't want my daughter listening to that nonsense.

We totally need this show in the US.

Sheryl ( http://papernapkin.typepad.com/ )