Beautiful Wednesday: What Not To Wear -- A TakeAway

Well, today is Beautiful Wednesday.

Barely! It's 11:30 and I want to get this out by midnight to make if for Wednesday.  Well, I just wanted to do a shout-out today to one of my favourite shows that helps in the area of helping women to feel beautiful: What Not To Wear on TLC.

Not the best picture quality, but a pic of me, last summer.

In case of any of you don't know this show, it's about a woman who dresses badly and is nominated by her friends or family for a makeover. The hosts, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly, then give her a card for $5000 to shop in New York, providing that the candidate gives up her current wardrobe and listens to the show's hosts. A hair and makeup session are always thrown in at the end.

I caught an episode of this today while folding laundry and as always, I was blown away. I always think, there's no way Stacy and Clinton can change her! And half-way through, sure enough, the woman starts to transform her thinking.

And it got me thinking about, "how do they do that?" The person always turns around, no matter how stubborn they are in the beginning. What changes their thinking? It's the actual looking good that changes her. In today's episode, the woman saw herself in the mirror wearing dresses, saw how good she looked and started to change.

Many times, it's nothing short of a miracle to see the person at the beginning, and the person at the end. It's not just the superficial looks that change, but rather the thinking that changes.

And it comes from seeing themselves look good for once. As well as a lot of psychological breakthroughs. (Stacy and Clinton could have been therapists, I think, if they weren't TLC hosts!)

But looking good transforms them. For example, the lady today (sorry, I don't remember her name!) hated dresses and always wore oversized boring clothing. The hosts made her try on 10 dresses in a row. By about the fifth dress, she actually started to like how she looked!

Here's the takeaway. We act on what we see in the mirror and it affects our life. It is a cycle, either way. If we think we are fat, and therefore don't try to look our best, we might be less likely to see our bodies as worthy of being taken care of. If we feel good about how we look, we are more likely to see our bodies are worthy of care and nurture. So, it is worth it to look our best, even when we are 150, 100, or 50 pounds overweight.

I think society preaches an opposite message, though. If you are overweight, be ashamed and get thin! But shame does not nurture and shame does not sustain us. Love does.  We can only keep going on negative motivation for so long.

I had a binge time last week where I started focusing on feeling fat and ugly. As a result, I got down and actually overate. I find that persecuting myself never helps me. Feeling beautiful does. I know I haven't posted many pics of myself, but I want to post some current pics soon, to show the body behind the blog voice. I don't always look my best but I try to. Like any woman, some days are better than others. But I am big believer in discovering our own beauty, at whatever size. Then losing weight will just help make us even hotter! Love you ladies! Be beautiful! And I'd love to hear your thoughts. on this topic or that show!

NOTE: I started this post on Wednesday, but it actually got posted on Thursday. I'm still calling it Wednesday, though!