Sunday 17 April 2011

Gwyn and Jen's Beauty Secrets

I'm the first to admit I've been a little hard on Gwyneth Paltrow in the past (here and here). I don't know, there's something about her that rubs me up the wrong way most of the time. However, I found myself mentally high-fiving her for her recent statement "It's not luck or good genes. I work my butt of to look this good". I mean, wouldn't you be a teensy bit irritated if people said it was your "good genes" that gave you the rocking body, or that you were "naturally slim" when you're really killing yourself at the gym and refraining from stuffing your face? I would (not that it's ever gonna happen).
And it got me to thinking (twang that country guitar) - if my career depended on my looks (which let's be honest, it does for any woman in show business), how would it change my life?

- Jennifer Aniston's main beauty secret is sleep. While I agree with her 100%, it doesn't seem to happen for me as I am an incredibly light sleeper. For me to get the sleep I'd need to look fabulous, I'd have to banish the Ball & Chain to the guest bedroom, find a magic wand to make him hear kids in the middle of the night, stop all traffic and pedestrians within a half mile radius of my house, and somehow prevent the damn ducts in the wall from creaking when the heat comes on at 6.30am (which is the middle of the night as far as I'm concerned.)

- portion control. My mother maintains that I don't eat enough, which I sometimes don't. I'm clearly not too thin, but it's like that Weight Watchers rule that if you don't eat all your points, it won't work. I think my body must be creating its own fat to survive. Yes, that's what it is. So I should really make a bigger effort to sit down and have a proper lunch instead of an apple and some cheese. Yeah - that'll happen.

- booze. I'm tempted to skip over this. I mean, seriously, if you like a glass of wine, what's the point of being gorgeous if you can't have one? But then again, if my livlihood depended on being gorgeous I'd probably change my tune. On reflection, I think I'd just have to ignore this one and opt for eye surgery when the booze started to take its toll.
- hours and hours of exercise, every day. Actually, this wouldn't be too much of a challenge as long as I had someone to cook, do laundry, pay bills, schlepp the kids round and generally take over. It's all very well saying you work your butt off to look good but most of us just don't have the help to be able to do that. (Ok, now I'm back to being irritated by Gwynnie.)

Fortunately people usually want me for my brain. Ok, that's not true either. However, I'm going on TV in about two weeks, so I'd better start putting some of the above into practice. Eek.

10 comments:

  1. That's the good thing about blogging - most of the time people have no idea what we look like!
    I have seen you, however, and therefore can state that you will look bloomin' lovely when you're on the telly.
    (Let's hope it's not HD though, even Gwynnie must struggle with that?!)

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  2. Yes - my first thoughts when I saw that were 'well, if I could afford to spend an hour and half with a personal trainer every day, maybe I'd be able to work my butt off too.....'

    Sure, she works hard to look like that, but she has the time and the money. Grr.

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  3. Smear some Vaseline on the camera lens and enjoy that glass of vino, Expat Mum - Please let us know when you're 'on the box' - It'll be lovely to see you in the flesh, as it were? Break a leg! xxx

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  4. Teehee. I have been working my butt off in and around my house today and I'm hoping it will have the same effect as whatever she's doing. Maybe I'll wake up blonde...

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  5. Sleep? What's that? How exciting about your TV appearance! Lx

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  6. What are you doing on tv? Sounds exciting.

    If my career depended on my looks... I can't really imagine that, but yes, it would have to involve more exercise and working out.

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  7. I'm sure you could get in touch with Kate A's old trainer, er... security guys. I totally agree with the # of hours a day and what we absolutely have to do. People depend on us. I guess we can be happy knowing that our children know us and spend time with us, but I'm not sure I can say the same for G's kids.

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  8. Don't think you are hard on either. you only have to look at Gwynnies mother in The Fockers to see she has amazing genes...and Jen has the perfect bod, even though she does yoga for 2hours a day (and probably more). Of the two of them Jenn looks a good laugh and always says she's terribly fond of a cocktail so if either of them want to meet for a week sip, I'd rather chat to her.

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  9. Good post. I think a lot of looking good (whatever that is for the respective person) comes down to making sacrifices. I happily stay away from booze during the week - in order to get my sleep (I found that I sleep better if I don't drink that glass of wine with dinner), which then makes me more energetic during the day = more energy to work out. Even without a lot of money and extra help looking good is possible. It's just a question of how much you really want it. (And you look great, btw, I've seen you in the flesh!)

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  10. Oh, don't even get me started!

    I do actually spend my day exercising after my 10 hours of sleep. Then have a salad prepared by my personal chef.

    Doesn't everyone?!

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