The Shocking Truth about Body Image with Jules Von Hep

0:00Welcome to Catching Up With The Royals, a brand new show with me Richard Coles. And me, Emily Andrews. Every week we'll be going beyond the headlines, lifting the lid, and what life is really like behind the palace walls. Hello, sir. Good morning. I'm the Sun's new royal correspondent. Oh, he said, look at me up and down. Things are looking up. We'll be diving into the moments everyone's talking about. What does the world owe you if all of a sudden you've handed back your crown? Meghan and Harry can't keep hold of their staff. We'll reveal the secrets of an organisation usually shrouded in mystery and explore defining moments of royal history to see how the past still shapes the monarchy today.

0:38Now, you actually knew Princess Diana. I think one of the ways she acquired power was through that relationship with the present. But before that interview, no-one had really spoken and been so open. Was that a game-changer? So join us every week wherever you get your podcasts, on YouTube and on Saturdays on 5 as we catch up with the royals.

1:01Welcome back to the unprocessed truth. If you're tired of scrolling through perfectly packaged advice and unproven diet claims, well you've come to the right place. We're officially done with the noise. We're cutting through the marketing myths, the health halos and the wellness scams to talk about what actually works for real life. We're going to be inviting on experts, scientists and leading professionals in their field to get deep on the subjects you care about most so that we can discuss the nuance and really understand what you need to know to make an impact on your life. An advocate for body positivity, self-confidence, celebrity spray-tanned artist turned entrepreneur, welcome to the studio Jules von Hepp.

1:52Hello, thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us, I'm very excited. How are you? I'm fabulous, what a lovely studio. I do, although I am slightly intimidated I'm like am I on Mastermind? It's quite dark and moody. It's dark and moody and I'm like where is this gonna go but I'm here for it. Well we're trying to get to the truth we're trying to get to the deep dark place of what's going on but before we go there let's start off with a bit more about who you are. Yeah of course and if you are listening to this and you heard celebrity spray time and you think what the hell is that it was and is a career that I completely fell into um I tried really hard to have a desk job in my early 20s and it just didn't work out for me and I met a celebrity facialist and I'm talking like the most successful facialist in the world does every Hollywood actress we met by chance and she said I think you would be an amazing spray tanner and I was like what the fuck a spray tanner like I've been to uni I've got my degrees I've got my a levels I've worked really hard for this desk job that I thought I should have but at the time I was like fuck it I'm gonna try it what's what have I got to lose um so got trained up started spray tanning fell in love with it and then met a makeup artist who at the time was doing the x-factor um I then was the spray tan on the x-factor I got poached by strictly come dancing so was the spray tan on strictly for three years I then met makeup artists who booked me to work on The Crown, on Versace campaigns.

3:29I then started doing runway shows around the world and then celebrity clients and traveling the world with people. And then at 32, created my own brand, The Isle of Paradise, built that, exited in January. And then I wrote a book called The Confidence Ritual, which is all about empowering yourself from the inside out. And now I'm sat here in this very dark studio. wow all just from thinking fuck it let's give spray tanning a go do you know what i live my life on a basis of am i happy is this bringing me joy um i'm not driven by spreadsheets i'm driven by freedom i'm driven by creativity i'm driven by um how what i do in life how that's going to make people feel how that's going to affect other people's existence so yeah it is partially by fuck it but it's also I think I've been very lucky in the fact that I've been tuned into my gut from the early days and I've just followed what feels good.

4:27Well you followed your passion you said which is amazing yeah and that's led you through all these things and you've now exited a business and written a book which is huge. Thank you. Congratulations on both. Is the book out now? The book is out now yes. Okay so people will link to the book so everyone can go see that but we want to get into you know the world you were in a little bit and there's this kind of constant demand on how everyone should look and feel i remember i'm old enough to remember when the first hd tvs came out and a load of celebrities freaked out because all of a sudden you could see the blemishes and the things on screen that you couldn't necessarily before and now we live in a world of hd where it's in your pocket and it's on social media 24 7.

5:13so i want to kind of cut through the noise and get into how you think you know what how you've seen celebrities feel about their looks but you know how people themselves have that body confidence everyone has that negative self-talk around I don't like my smile or my teeth or you know something like what got you on that journey of you know body confidence and writing the book so as a spray tanner every single day I was working with naked bodies so everybody gets naked and the first time you do a spray tan you're like holy fucking shit there's a vagina right there and I have to kind of do this job but over time the nudity almost becomes natural and second nature and it's work yeah um and when I first started spray tanning I have a history of disordered eating and low self-esteem and I started working with naked bodies while I was in a place of really hating my own and I couldn't believe I remember I will never forget tanning a Victoria's Secret model and she had just got in from I think it was New York and it was at the time when Victoria's Secret models were seen as the peak of the perfect body and she took her clothes off and she said oh oh my God, I'm so sorry for my cellulite.

6:41And I was like, hang on, you're supposed to be one of the most beautiful women in the world and you're apologizing. Okay. I then really started to notice that actually every client did it. And it was this moment where the jewelry, have you ever had a spray tan? No. Okay. So when you have a spray tan, everything comes off. the jewelry the fragrance the deodorant the clothes the hair goes up all your makeup comes off usually your underwear comes off and you are there in a tanning tent it's actually a liberating experience having it because you're naked with a stranger not in an intimate way you're there for a treatment but as a spray tan artist you actually see somebody for who they are they've got nothing left to hide behind and i really have seen people at their most insecure and their most vulnerable and i'm not talking about just like one or two people i'm talking about millions of people and people who are in the public eye so that's politicians celebrities models singers actors but also people who aren't in the public eye yeah and everyone apologizes everyone everyone apologises and I realised actually is my body the problem or is society in the world we live in the problem because everyone who I'm meeting has been conditioned in one way shape or form to hate how they look or hate something about themselves they've been conditioned to lead with an apology about their body but that's just something completely natural and then I started to say stop apologizing what are you talking about like there's there's actually nothing wrong with your body and what I see is someone beautiful engaging um interesting funny maybe they're going through a hard time I'm not seeing anything to do with your body because my car's on the meter you've got to have this spray tan and we've got shit to do during that time working with naked bodies I then started to change the way slowly I felt about my own body based on listening to everyone else's insecurities i just thought actually my love handles is not a thing that i should hate because everybody has something that they're holding on to everyone and even if they say they don't chances are they will yeah um and then that led me to stop sharing my journey publicly online about learning to like my body um and then when isle of paradise launched it was all about body confidence and celebrating individuality um and being a spray tan has felt like this duty and this right to pull down these smoke screens that people think are there and actually say do you know what it's all just a fucking load of bullshit and everyone's wobbling one way or another and who you are is good enough what a fascinating story and a fantastic insight right when you've seen all those naked bodies in a victoria secret model i mean they're going what she's got cellulite and it is crazy but the fact that they're apologizing is the most bizarre part to me right because what what do we have to apologize for and it's not just women either um my male clients would apologize too it's both sets both spectrums there isn't anything to apologize for but the thing is how we are communicated to from brands and obviously as I had my own brand you start to really see how other brands are communicating whether it's in food whether it's in house home appliances or beauty products or fashion there is this selling of let's create a problem and then this product is the solution and you read that across the board of how this thing this one thing is filling the void that you might have but you don't have it's just being created through marketing but then that creates an insecurity oh something's wrong with me I need this product.

10:36And then you start this internal chat of negative dialogue. So do you think it's the companies and the marketing to blame? Or do you think it comes earlier from childhood? Like in the school? Oh, I think it's boxes A to Z. Yeah. I think that yes, the companies are to blame. However, if sales are more driven by purchases with a certain type of advertising, do I blame a brand for doing that? to make money to pay for the food on people's tables that work for that company i don't know um it's a difficult one i always tried to push isle of paradise to be about empowerment selling on empowerment and not on insecurities which i think in the beauty space is easier to do than what people think i don't i can't say for the other categories but you must have run ads yeah of course we run ads but the models were i always pushed for the models to be smiling and happy and creating like a diverse bodyscape um which not a lot of brands do because you know they're saying sex sells and lots of businesses will just lean naturally into that why are models pouting all the time why aren't they smiling yeah don't know fair enough it's a good question right and it clearly worked you who did you exit to so we sold their business to a company called yellowwood and ppi and we sold that in 2020 and i left this year amazing i think that's always the biggest marker for success when you can take your vision and your passion for how that company should be run and then someone else is going to take it and scale it and take it around the world totally and i didn't do it on my own that we were this team of people and amazing business partners i can never take full credit for everything um but it is an amazing thing to do to build and isle paradise wasn't just like a brand that sold in one boutique store on a high street it in lockdown trended and it was third top skew at sephora in america um it's one of the fastest selling south town brands in the world and it changed the beauty industry and when we launched i was so i was just so sick of looking at the beauty space and thinking god every model looks the same every campaign looks the same every makeup is the same every model is the same all the products look the same and i just became really sick of it and pushed boundaries to include models that weren't retouched and that was a conversation that was difficult at the time because the retailers were saying well no you have to take that blemish out no you have to take that line out no her underpants can't be that small you have to make them bigger oh i think she's showing a bit too much flesh well no that's a real body that's what it looks like and we had to fight hard and push back and if you want to be a disruptive brand and you want to create noise within the category that you're building you have to be a bit ballsy and push back and say no tough shit if you want this product this is the messaging that you're getting well you've changed the industry clearly from the inside out oh i think i did change the industry um but i think the beauty industry is going backwards it's going backwards it's going backwards you look at the products they all look the same you look at the messaging they're all at the same brands are scared brands are scared brands are scared boundaries what are they scared of um i think they budgets are tight people aren't spending as much as they used to so the spend on risk taking is so tight that taking a risk or a perceived risk is difficult for brands so they go to the try they just go to tried and tested fair enough okay so let we've talked about a bit brands company maybe you know how childhood can implicate it but what about social media what's your view on social media what's doing to our body confidence i don't think we can ever blame social media for how we feel um you control the scroll ultimately it's up to you who you engage with you who you follow it's up to you if you open that up or not there's always going to be content there that is going to trigger or make you not feel confident just unfollow it stop engaging with it stop if something's making you feel bad why are you doing it i think that there is so many amazing accounts on social media that can make you feel amazing that can make you feel empowered um i will never blame social media i think it's an amazing tool for freedom of speech but you just have to use it in the right way well but it is engineered to kind of keep us engaged, keep us scrolling, keep us watching.

15:15Yeah, just put your phone in a drawer if it's not making you feel good and read a book. You need some strong willpower to do that these days. I mean, they've got so good at it. You know, I think when Instagram started as just pictures, it wasn't the same as it is now where you just get in a loop of videos. I know Instagram is a bit like Facebook now. It's a bit like Take a Break magazine. Like it's a lot of trash, but it's very good to read. but you can still go on it and you can also still live in the real world i feel like i'm in this state of total rebellion at the moment where and you might feel the same where you create content you know you're feeding that beast you know what you're doing yeah um but then you also have the ability and the power to say i don't know if i want to create as much content if i want to create such short videos or content that is just watching something for 20 seconds and scrolling on like there's more to life than that and I think that there will be a movement where people will say I just want to live in the real world if it makes me old and boring that's fine but actually what social media does is provide entertainment what it can't do is do what nature does and that's heal you yeah yeah no I mean you're totally right we have the control and I think because obviously I'm in the health and the food space and I'm you know constantly putting content out there myself I mean we sometimes post three times a day so I'm guilty of feeding the algorithm but I do it because I want to make people healthier and put out good education so I try and follow as many accounts as I can that are more about education than they are just you know nonsense entertainment as it were but the thing I always I think the other danger with the algorithm is it shoe holds you down a particular route right like if you constantly are looking at say pictures of models where you're like aspiring to be to be like their body say it's just going to show you more and more and more and more of that and put you down this rabbit hole and one thing i consciously try and do is like try and go against that so i will follow and engage with people that i don't necessarily disagree with because I deliberately want the other point of view as well to get like a more rounded view of what's going on but there's also the the point that if you are engaging with content that is showing you this body and I'm using inverted commas this body that you is an ideal body and you're engaging with that and you're looking at it and thinking oh my god I need that body actually what that should be telling you is maybe you need to make peace and accept your body as it is and actually that instead of falling down that rabbit hole fall down a rabbit hole of self-love it was really interesting when I got engaged as I announced it on social media I had so many PTs and diet brands and wellness spaces um cosmetic surgeries like literally every day in the dms i was like have i not made my fucking self clear in this content like i'm quite happy as i am and i have seen it so many times with brides or celebrities who have got a big event or a big moment a red carpet and they go on this factory line of cosmetic changes diet shifting everything about yourself and obviously as a spray tanner you're one of the last people to see this person before they go on to the event.

18:50And nine times out of 10, especially with people before their wedding, they just burst into tears before. And you can see this element of, oh, you've got the body of your dreams, well done, but look how unhappy you are because what you thought you wanted isn't what you want deep down. And you know it in your gut and you think, and you always, you thought this was gonna make you happy and it hasn't. and now what and now what and so when we got engaged I was like I could go down that route or I could actually go down a route of self-love and so when I go down that hour when I have that event I'm going to feel on the inside the best version of me and I'm going to glow from the inside out because god I work in beauty I know every product that can make you glow on the outside but you can tell people you can see it from a mile off when people are just wearing a highlighter but they're not glowing on the inside because they haven't done any of the work because you have to be happy confident buzzing it's the best day of your life whatever that comes from within not from the skin well exactly but it also goes to it's not just about a wedding it's about going to work every day showing up for your kids being around your family like aesthetic won't make you happy it just won't no it doesn't it doesn't change your life in any way I think you know I was someone who didn't do social media didn't engage in it didn't care about putting my life out there at all and then through my job and wanting to share helpful health information all of a sudden we got like 1.5 million followers across our channels and everyone's like oh what's it like you know you've got the daily mail writing articles about you and I'm just like it doesn't do anything for me like it doesn't change anything it's like a number on a screen it's totally meaningless like sure i've had some nice opportunities and we've got to do this podcast and other things because of it but other than that like everyone's always reaching for this superficial thing in the distance that when you get there it's just like you're still you hard relate to that when um when we were launching isle of paradise i remember because when you work backstage there is this um there's talk all the time with other artists of like where you're going next what client you're working with and you're always just climbing this ladder and they're like anyone who's got that grit in them that wants to create something for themselves you do want to launch your own business you do want to launch your own brand i remember launching out of paradise going to vegas for sephora because sephora have these big conferences and they had this event and it was a founder event and everyone who's anyone was there these big beauty founders this table of like success I remember thinking oh my god this is it this is the table that I've always wanted to sit at and I walked in and I sat down and looked around I was like fuck I just want to be in the pub with my mates like they're way more fun there's the conversation's way more interesting I actually am not vibrating at the frequency of any of these people and it was a really telling point of I was in the waiting room waiting to go to this place that I thought I wanted to go to and I got there and I was like it's not it's not where I want to be and so I think you do have to listen to your gut and to your point like it you think it's going to change and it's not and nothing happens well it's all from you know you are just you sure your experience and the stuff you do is different but you're still you your message is obviously all about positivity but if someone's like hating their reflection just in the dumps at the moment you know where do you begin firstly i fully relate to how that feels i hated my body and hated my appearance for 20 years of my life and i know how it feels to look in the mirror and i say this when i host confidence workshops pick one thing one thing that you like about yourself and I have some people and some clients that say I can't think of one thing and we have to sit and I'll say okay well this is what I think and you just have to hold on to my opinion for now so if you're in that place ask your friend or a family member what's one thing that they like about you for me I was always focusing and really hyper focusing on the shape of my stomach my love handles my chest I just hated it and actually i realized i could switch the conversation and focus on the things that i like at the time the only thing i could think of was my eyes and then it became actually i like my legs and then it grew from there okay it's okay to not be okay and it's okay to hate every aspect about where you are the journey and the ship of body confidence and this wand that oh i'm going to give you the perfect body doesn't exist babes like you have to do your you have to do the inner work and you have to speak nice to yourself the longest conversation you'll ever have in your entire life is with yourself and when you look in front of the mirror if you're going to speak to yourself like shit well you're going to stay in that place you have the power from the moment you look in front of the mirror start saying nice things to yourself pick one thing just one that you like and take it from there and i think there is a misconception that body confidence and inner confidence is the destination that we get to it's not it's the journey and the journey itself is going to be ups and downs ins and outs it's going to be hard it's going to be gritty there's going to be tears but you keep doing the work you keep saying nice things to yourself it will shift and it will have a knock-on effect the that's such i'm living proof i'm literally living proof i went from hating myself fully inside and out to now i've been proud of who i am and what i look like well amazing right but that point around it's the process and the journey not the destination is so important because I as a founder of a company myself you know I've always put a lot of my I'll be happy when I achieve this or when I've delivered this fundraise or when I've got that retailer listing that's that's been my mindset for best part of the last sort of seven eight years but actually when you get there it's just like the same shit again and you're like oh now the next found it like you kind of have to be a bit batshit crazy and you have to want this this next thing this next thing because as the business grows and you are heading up a team literally putting food on your staff's tables then the revolving door doesn't stop revolving but it's so important to practice gratitude and I'm not saying light 12 white candles and sit on the floor in a circle and like you know if you want to do it god go for it yeah but it is important to practice gratitude and recognize actually what you've built and how far you've come and what you've learned and how that's shaping where you're going I think so many founders everyone actually is heads down all the time running on this treadmill, just like, oh my God, I've got to build this brand.

26:00I've got to get this thing. I've got to live this life that I think I should have. And actually you can just get off the treadmill for just five minutes and go, wait, but what have I actually achieved and done and be proud of it? Because God, you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. We are so programmed to think that, you know, on our deathbed, perhaps somebody is going to go, okay, that was great. But we kind of fucked a few things up. we're going to go back to the beginning and you're going to get to do the whole thing again it ain't going to happen it's not going to happen life is happening right now we are living it it's moving all around us and so don't be so focused on the grind and what's coming next you know you can stop and just go this is amazing but i think relating it back to people's bodies in that mirror self-talk when you look at yourself in the morning everyone's like well i just need to lose one more kilo oh i just wish my abs were showing a bit more right they get in this very dark place around chasing that ideal body image but i think you've said nourish don't punish because it's quite a punishing thing to do to every day look in the mirror and go i don't like that that's actually self-punishment it is but it's also do you know what it's also the easy option if you want to take the easy route because that's what brands are telling you to do that's what every bit of marketing is coming to you something's wrong with you you have problems you need this to fix it yeah take that route take that route if you want if you want to live your life in this place of unhappiness fine take it it's no difference to me it's your life but deep down i think you'll know that something isn't right and you know like i said the conversation that you have is so important with yourself and being your own best friend no one else is going to have you back yeah you could say your partner is going to have it back yes they probably will to an extent but you've got to have your own back and you've got to be nice to yourself it's okay to say okay god i want to lose some weight we live in a we live in a world that is focused on aesthetic but your aesthetic is the least interesting thing about yourself it's actually really fucking boring if anyone in this studio talks about what i look like when i leave the room it's on you it's not on me yeah it like it's not what is important is what comes out of your mouth what's in your brain how you see the world your actions are way more important than your appearance but punish not nourish not punish is something that i say to myself a lot because when you're in a place of body dysmorphia or eating disorders it's all about control and it's all about punishment and when you flip the switch and say actually nourishment hey it's cooler to nourish but b nourishment comes from self-love and health is wealth you can still be healthy without punishing and being stuck in toxic diet culture you can and the food that you eat and I know you will agree with this like if you eat good food that isn't processed that is cooked with love it makes you feel better if you spend time in nature a massive realization for me was that I don't have to work out to lose weight I can work out just to get endorphins to help my heart house to make myself feel better that's actually just as important yeah well more yeah I mean throughout my 20s I was always trying to go to the gym for a six-pack abs right as you do as a young guy and then I was never really consistent with it couldn't really stick to it the moment I had kids and I actually more framed it around actually i want to be healthy live long and be in my 60s 70s 80s healthy and seeing my kids my grandkids and it became about longevity i've never been more consistent you know because it's there's a different purpose the aesthetics is just superficial it's on the outside um and that's why i also say you know this whole calorie thing is bullshit because actually it totally ignores nourishment and it is punishment because you're basically saying starve your body 24 7 and then you'll get what you want whereas in reality if you just eat whole nourishing foods i guarantee you you'll probably lose weight and feel amazing right which is actually all we want anyway because you your body has natural satiety signals and when you're just eating whole foods that have fiber in it and protein and good fats fills you up if you eat McDonald's and empty calories of cereal and bread and crap it doesn't fill you up and then you're constantly chasing the next meal and you're on this kind of guilt trip all the time and it's it's tough for people it is tough but it's the world unfortunately it's the world we live in and being a rebel and pushing back and not going with what the mass want you to do is hard but oh my god it's worth it it is worth it oh I mean you know I've never counted a calorie in my life and oh I never read the back of that bloody pack I don't know I'm crap with numbers I don't I don't want to know what's in it am I hungry that like and yeah cooking from scratch I work with um Jamie Oliver and I was interviewing him recently for his new book um Honestly Healthy um and he has a really interesting view on life about how we have almost lost connection how actually food brings everyone together around a table and is something that tech can't cheat it will never be able to cheat this human connection that food brings and we're losing it we're not prioritizing it and it's so important to actually go we're going to have food proper food together at the table we're going to have conversation that is not something that's boring it's something that actually is essential to us being happy i believe and to live longer so if you look at the blue zones around the world where the people live to the hundred most on average more so than food actually purpose social connection and these kind of psychological things are a unique common between them all because you know that meal around the dinner table where you've got your friends or your family and you're sharing what's gone in your day is so fundamental to human connection and how we're designed to kind of live yet as you say in kind of our modern western culture it's like grab a sandwich eat on the go off you go and then often now you know maybe you're in your older age and you're sat at home alone eating your dinner and it is it's not good right that connection as Jamie says to like real food that tech can never replace is so phone in a drawer eat your meal and just like the old school days don't like and I think I don't know I mean I'm going to be 40 next year and I think there is this massive thing that we have to actually be this generation millennials are just going to have to be the generation of going no we need to be really annoying old people and say no no food no phones at the table we're going to eat and we're going to connect and like live our life in the present because otherwise we've seen the film wally it's all going to go that way it's okay oh what yeah that picture of the the little carts they're driving around it's awful all right so what's one food rule that you'd like people to break today I believe that it's okay to eat everything you want if you want to but if it's not good for you don't do it a lot I don't think that it's about wiping whole food categories out of your diet if you want to have something it's okay to have it but just keep it like cake you know where you stood with cake you know what it's going to do you know it's not the best thing for you you know better having a piece of fruit before you start lecturing yeah we'll have a banana but sometimes you just want cake and that's okay but don't have cake for breakfast yeah i mean cake for breakfast is not a good idea unless it's your birthday that's absolutely that's fine but this is where the trick is right like there's cereals that have more sugar in them than cake that people do eat for breakfast every day actually i'm gonna totally change my food thing now that i'm unpacking it cook from scratch and learn how to cook from scratch and don't say that you can't cook teach yourself to cook I did one recipe every week or every month and just keep doing it on repeat teach yourself how to cook from scratch and food just totally changes and always cook good love you can tell the difference how did you learn to cook when when did you learn to cook when I was 21 I think and look admittedly I did it because I was like I really want to meet a cute guy and if we you need to impress him if I take a boy home I need to cook a banging breakfast in the morning and then that's it snatched um didn't work that trick but what it did do was teach me how to cook and so every week i'd just cook one new recipe self-taught you do it yourself taught and i think it just comes with confidence well absolutely i think it's so fundamental i totally agree everyone should learn to cook and it is just trial and error that's all it is i don't follow a recipe i just put a little bit of that in taste it it doesn't work okay put a bit more of that and then you just learn to balance flavors and crack on awesome well let's talk about masculinity and the ideal male body because you already talked about how you're gonna you know how you wanted to learn to cook so that you can impress a future boyfriend at the time what did you think of male body image were you going to the gym thinking i need to get in shape to find my ideal partner as well was that part of it no in my 20s i found gyms extremely terrifying.

35:45I found the fitness industry to be all about one aesthetic. I actually still think it is all about one aesthetic. Six pack abs. Yeah. And God, it's so boring. For me in my 20s, it was all about starving and calorie counting and deprivation. I used to do a lot of tans for Versace campaigns. And Versace, if you think of any male model in a Versace campaign, they are ripped and they are tanned and they are oiled up and i can tell you now they hadn't eaten like well any male model before a big shoot would have eaten a lot anyway and usually they drink red wine before and the night before so it dehydrates their muscles and then on the day there is someone like me with a little bronzer brush just sculpting everything and oiling everything and highlighting all their like clavicles their décolletage like shading their knees everything um so they don't even look like that they don't what the image that you see in the campaigns that model doesn't even look like that day to day well no because how can they right you say they drink red wine the night before to dehydrate themselves and they've probably been starving themselves for a few days to like remove all the water away and then yeah you're left with this perfectly well and shaded right they shade around the ads shaded i could tell you the exact brushes that i used to use to do it never compare yourself to these images in campaigns because that model that celebrity they don't even look like that no no no it's not real but how do you think it is for guys today to talk about how they look and i think it's still really difficult um if you look at the campaigns say for underwear or swimwear or fitness the models that are used by brands are traditional one size six pack that male model so the ideal body shape for a male model or for a man hasn't changed um i think the also the term dad bod is incredibly derogatory yet it's just thrown around um i actually don't think there is enough conversation about how men feel in their body and how not just in the gay world but also in the straight world how it our bodies change through time and is we're all carrying something so how how do you think we can get raw with people and give them one real truth about confidence in their body image and change that i think take it from me as someone who's looked at naked bodies for most of their career everybody is apologizing and also open up the conversation start talking start talking and if you don't want to talk to your best friend or your partner or a family member you can open up elsewhere you don't have to have the same conversation with everyone you can have different conversations with different people and some people you open up with deeper than others that's okay but know that how you feel in your body it's okay to not love it it's just part of the journey and if you want to love how you look if you want to take this cloak off this weighted number that is pulling you down and not making you feel good you can do it when you can talk because i always find if you just talk to someone about that thing that's like weighing you down or making you feel conscious or self-conscious you know actually just talking it out loud can just release it because that fear and that reaction you're expecting just isn't going to be there right but if you struggle to have that conversation great places to do it are in a car and on a walk when you're not actually looking at the person you're next to each other so you feel like you're talking you can feel the energy there and i do this with some of my friends who i can if if they are struggling and i can tell they're struggling we will go for a walk or we'll go i'll say oh let's go to the pub or let's go for dinner but I'll pick you up and then we start a conversation in the car and it just opens things up and remember listening is a skill if you have a friend that's not feeling right and you can tell ask how they are twice how are you they'll say fine yeah but how are you and then they'll open up really great advice and I think the listening point is key as well because I I'm like a doer and a fixer in general right so when my wife will tell me something I'll be trying to find a solution but she just wants someone to listen to or someone to listen to her right and just so she can speak it out loud and share what's going on for her and I'm there already trying to fix it and go oh we can do this we can do that and she's like let's just shut up just yeah because you can't numb people's feelings and if people need to let their feelings come out to the surface you have to listen pause and validate those feelings because if you feel it it's real and it's okay to feel like that your feelings are completely valid let it all come out and then unpack it together but i think a common mistake that people make is hear the first bit and try to fix it straight away shut it try to fix it oh look we can do this we can do this and actually that's only the top bit of the feeling that's come out you've got to let it all keep coming you've got to let it all come out yeah and i think that's why so many people need help on that journey right because it's hard to have that conversation to get to the deep layer underneath you know how when you've worked with all the people you've worked with and how do you get there because i know you ask twice but what if someone's not forthcoming then they might not be that day but you can have a conversation again it does come from being a spray toner i think but it also comes from having this like hard journey there is this element that you have to tune into how someone else is feeling and ask those questions and if you think oh my god i can't ask that ask it just ask it create a space for someone else to feel like they are safe and that they want to open up and that there's no right or wrong answer i think that we live in such a right or wrong culture but sometimes it's gray and that's okay yeah yeah and it's just everybody's real lived experience because they all apologize about their body i can't get over that that's crazy but you know what do you think's the secret behind all of this that allows people to do it because it's very easy to say let's talk and let's feel better and let's be kinder to yourselves but how does someone actually do that there's no one secret i wish there was i wish i could be like you know what mic drop here it is this is going to make me to my millions um but it's actually about lots of little levers that need to be pulled so have conversations say nice things to yourself hang out with people that make you feel good um in the book i talk a lot about energy radiators and mood hoovers we all have those people that you think oh jesus christ i've got to see sandra tonight and she is just going to make me feel like shit and after i see her i'm not gonna be able to shake that negative energy that's it that is a mood hoover right there mood hoovers live in this space that they are not um they're not happy with their own life and that's okay that's their current place or you have energy radiators people who lift you up make you feel amazing make you feel like the best version of yourself you don't have to put on a front to be around them you need to think about who you're hanging out with and if someone's bringing you joy or if they're bringing you down and that's okay and also work out not to shrink your body but to give yourself endorphins yeah absolutely it's got to be much more content i'm sorry i wish i could give you that one pill answer i really do but like it's so layered there's so many different methods and what will work for one person at one stage in their life won't work for another in their in that stage well and that's just the reality of it right that's how if it was that easy it's you know we'd all be doing it but the reality is we're not but i think your point around you know actually choosing who you spend time with is really important because i i feel like people feel like they're obliged to go and see sandra the mood hoover right like because she's your friend but we don't give ourselves permission to say actually do you know what i don't really enjoy it so i'm not going to do that anymore we all know what happened to anne boleyn don't we you can do that to friendships you can just behead and say no more chop them off chop them off that's it well like what's the point in getting having this dead weight hanging on if it's not making you feel good anymore if you're if your views aren't aligning if you're not feeling that empowered why are you hanging out with this person because that's not making you feel great go on and give us an example of how you've ambelined someone in your life god um we'll take one example there was one friend who i would be around and she would constantly comment on the size of her body um how many calories she was eating uh the type of watch she had the type of clothes she was wearing um she lived a very materialistic luxury life where she everything was based on aesthetic and i noticed that when we met up the conversation was always about her and there was no questions there was no inquisitiveness about anybody else's life it was quite a lot of look at me fine absolutely fine and I kind of had this niggle for a little bit and then I was like no I am definitely feeling this and I think a lot of us when the red flag goes in a friendship we ignore it you just don't know that didn't happen I didn't see that you fucking saw it you felt that red flag and I just thought I'm not gonna I'm not gonna try and change this person they're really happy in their existence they're living their life as they want to and that's fine but I don't want to be around that anymore and so I just slowly started to distance distance distance to the point where I stopped replying to texts stopped seeing them and that was it goodbye so there wasn't a I'm sorry I don't want to see you anymore this isn't made in Chelsea okay fine no but I mean someone asked me I have had friends before that say you know is everything okay and I'm just like I've just grown in a different direction and I think our friendship has come to an end oh you've said that to be yeah it might hurt but it's better that people know it's hard though right because the truth is hard the truth is painful you might have just upset someone yes but through pain comes growth and when you're growing as a human it's gritty it's hard it might hurt but that's where the phoenix comes from it comes from the ashes so you've got to go down you've got to feel the pain you've got to come out glowing very well said very well said I think about it a lot at the moment because obviously I've got two young kids and I just have got to stop trying to do everything for them and make their existence perfect and just let them experience their life.

46:59Perfect does not exist. Yeah yeah yeah it doesn't exist and you have to let their experiences in their life be theirs. Yeah well for me that's the key that I don't know if I've got it right and we'll see how they turn out but they're only one and three so I don't know but you know the point is it's like it's their life they have to live it whatever they want to go and do whatever they want to go and be that's their experience i can't control it i can't direct it i can be there for them to help them on the journey but that's about it right i just think probably too many parents are trying to helicopter pair and control everything and they've got to go do this class they've got to do that class they've got to get an a in this you know and try and manipulate their world in a way that probably isn't helpful but good on you for telling people and being direct about that not many english people would be that direct no that's why i married a dutch man we are the most direct in the world i love it we are very direct it's it is an incredible culture and i still resonate it with it so much because they're just like well that's it that's the reality like what are you talking about like i'm sorry if you're upset but what so what it's just the fact whereas you know in the british culture we're very apologetic and try and you know make it all sound nice it's not me it's you or the other way around in most cases but it's wild um okay so let's you've seen the world right backstage models shoot celebrities strictly x factor what is the most toxic health myth thing you've seen that celebs are kind of doing well it's not celebs and i come from the naughtiest fashion world so i have seen casting directors tell 16 year old girls go and throw up in the bathroom and then come back and have a casting you're bloated don't eat anything for the next week i've seen girls eating cotton wool covered in honey what make themselves go then literally i have seen everything nothing shocks me anymore yeah i mean i think that's probably where the most toxic culture lies in fashion but fashion way back i don't know what it's like now i don't really work in that industry anymore um but you know you see the rise of thin is in and going back to size zero and you think oh god i hope everyone's doing this safely well there isn't my way to do it safely is there yeah i mean that's crazy eating cotton wool buds covered in honey why so they go to the toilet it fills you up because you just haven't eaten probably shouldn't even give that tip that's probably great well no it's not a tip that's very dangerous i'm sure like we shouldn't be eating cotton wool jesus christ there's definitely no nourishment in that although hunting's not so bad it's uh not what you want to be doing that is crazy so on the other side then not cotton wool from these celebrities a-listers fashion models what are you seeing them eat diet wise nourishing their body what's going on in that space you know i love food like the good side not always just the bad i see a lot of resistance of ultra processed foods i do yeah i see a lot of that of cooking from scratch of eating super healthy um and actually yeah that's the main thing that i see across the board actually with celebs and with models and and it's been like that i would say for a good while um i also really try and watch how much processed food i eat um and if i don't know what the ingredient is on the back of the pack i have to have a think am i going to eat that or am i not going to eat that my one weakness is oat milk because oat milk i know how bad it is for me but it's like having a marlboro light you know i shouldn't have it but fuck it feels good sometimes so it's definitely better than a marlboro light you're all right but um i mean that's really good to hear and encouraging because you know actually these people whilst they are taking an interest in how they look and there's psychological issues that may come with that and they push it to extremes the reality is they're starting to understand actually eat real food and you'll probably feel better look better like you say radiance from within and their bodies will be nourished and able to do stuff in a way you know especially if you're on x factor and strictly and performing on stage your body needs to work god when i first started doing working in tv the food backstage is terrible i don't know what i like i haven't worked in backstage for a few years now um but i remember doing strictly and it was right next door to a massive tesco and just all the food was like processed sandwiches and processed there wasn't anything like you couldn't eat anything um so it's hard and you're on the move all the time and i think people think that tv and film is really glamorous it's it's not backstage it's scrappy and sometimes you're on location the only thing is one tiny shop that only serves one type of sandwich and you're really hungry and if you're going to be in a bad mood before you shoot then you've got to eat it oh yeah i mean i know it firsthand because my wife and she was on strictly and um we toured well she toured the country doing a show around all the theaters dancing and you essentially live in a premiere in for three months and you know depends where you get to the next town at what time to to what's open and you're lucky if you can just get anything from a supermarket right and it got to the point with Anya that we were traveling around with our own fridge like a little portable fridge so that we could actually try and take good food because it's horrendous and if you just go oh it's fine I'll just eat while I'm eating then before you know it you're unhealthy feeling rough it's brutal definitely not glamorous that's for sure um but in your opinion then what's one of the most underrated areas of health that you know people haven't really woken up to yet in the beauty industry well i don't think it's the beauty industry i think it's in general i think that there is this misconception that being fit means being skinny and that your body shape reflects your fitness that's I don't think that is the case um I actually did a high rocks class recently and the instructor was like oh have you done a high rocks before I was like yeah and I did it and he came over halfway through and he said oh you're actually pretty fit aren't you and I said well jokes on you pal you judge my body by the shape like I can do this class just don't don't you go there but again we go back to the brands and how they communicate and what the fitness industry looks like and it's almost like within the fitness world you have the token curve model and then everyone else is ripped to fuck there's no normal body used within these campaigns there's no relatability um i remember doing a job for lululemon and on the video i was interviewing people on the street um and on the video so many people commented why is this person the face like being the face of lululemon why is why have you booked him to talk about fitness oh my god i sat for days afterwards thinking oh my god look at my body it's so bad um but that is the problem there is this it's just not being sold to or communicated properly that you don't have to have a six-pack in order to be fit and then i think that in itself stops people from going to the gym or working out because they think i don't have that body that industry or that life is not for me well because i mean you touched on something there that's interesting because you mentioned like there's no real bodies you've got either ultra skinny or then you get the kind of woke pushback of let's put people who are overweight on the on the cover and say this is perfect and it's fine and it's not to judge them but they're kind of i didn't say woke overweight i said token curve sorry token i said woke that's my fault but my point is more that we go from one extreme to the other we don't actually just go what's normal what's real what's most people's experience the spectrum is real using use athletic bodies use curve bodies but use things bodies in between as well we did a shoot um with ala paradise called get body posi and we used a real broad range of bodies within this campaign and i remember receiving messages from people saying i'm actually crying because I can relate to somebody in that campaign just one person um but it's a lot of work to do that you sometimes you need to move your budgets around in order to put that money in the right place but oh fitness brands really need to wake up and use their position for good and create products you can't expect everyone to have that body in the campaign that you're showing if you're not a making the sizes to help people get fitter and also um show people that it's okay if that is your body and you want to work out we have a like you're not displaying everything properly you're not displaying your full brand values yeah yeah i totally agree but you you touched on there after the video you were doing for lululemon that you for days were going oh what's wrong with you know it questioned your own body self-confidence you know but you were you've written the book on body confidence so you know is there ever such a thing as true body confidence if even you well it's not the destination it's not the destination you don't suddenly get to the palace of confidence and you walk in you're like oh i'm here i'll put my feet up i've made it no because your back catalogue is a history maybe of body dysmorphia or feeling low so when someone does say something oh yeah we're pulling up all the baggage from the back it's all coming back up and you're going oh I wrote a piece for Attitude magazine the other week and it was all about body positivity within the LGBTQ space and someone underneath left this comment and they said how can you write this you're just lazy and fat and I read it and I was like no I'm fine I'm absolutely fine and that comment has been blowing around in my head for like two three weeks after but i'm processing it and i'm dealing with it and even i need sometimes go back to my own book open it up and read because i have this is part of the journey and the process and learning that somebody else's opinion about you and about your shape of your body is really irrelevant to your existence oh oh, it's totally meaningless, right?

57:37I mean, it hurts. Like those words are nasty. And, you know, I've had my fair share of negative comments on social media. And if you read them - They stay with you. Oh, of course. You hear them, you listen to them, like they get stuck in your head. And I guess that's natural human behavior. But you really have to just find some grounding in yourself and knowing you're doing the best you can, you know, self-compassion, self-love, whatever it is for you that this is who you are and that's it and that's okay but you're normally your own worst self-critic other than all the yeah but if you've got some demon in the corner telling you all the things that you don't want it doesn't help it doesn't help no if you haven't got anything nice to say darren don't say anything at all i mean there's a lot of people who you know love to get in the comments and say some pretty wrong and nasty things and they don't consider it because it doesn't have any real world impact or consequences right like they would never say it in a room to your face and i think that's part of the issue like it's created this echo chamber on social media that people can say what they like and there's no repercussions and now i'm not saying i agree with the government locking up people for social media posts in a world where we should have free speech but there should be some kind of don't be a dick on social media recourse like there would be in the real world because if you're going to be a dick to me i'm going to you know have an argument with you or whatever who knows but people yeah i don't know how we get past that behavior in the social world do you have any thoughts on that uh i think i'm so at peace with who i am that i have no desire to tear down someone else and if you're the kind of person who leaves negative comments on somebody else's post actually maybe you're not okay and why are you doing that and i think i'm not i'm not going to go into the whole like let's unpack it and get all down to nitty gritty because i just don't vibrate at that frequency i vibrate higher than that and i'm like whatever that's fine but i'm not engaging in that no but that's a very good and that's my choice yeah but that's a very good way to look at it right rise above it ignore it it's meaningless and often as you say it's actually coming from their own insecurity or jealousy or something you know that's making them feel the need that they have to do that so let's finish on a question what does health mean to you health means mental peace for me i think that if my well i know that if my brain is the happiest then everything else will flow as it's supposed to i'm working out because i'm working out not for the shape of my body but for the shape of my mind i'm eating foods that are going to nourish me make me feel good it all links back to feeling but this all comes from mental health if my mental health is wobbling if i'm not feeling okay i lean into foods that i know aren't good for me because i'm comfort eating then that then has a knock-on effect to my body then to my fitness and then the spiral starts so health is when i'm at peace upstairs and everything else is flowing as it's intended mental peace yeah i love it peace is a great word you know just having that stillness and calmness within i always name each year i name i give a word for the year and my word last year was inner peace um and then this year it was ascension but next year i'm thinking wholesome but inner peace is something that i consistently go back to of am i at a place of inner peace is this am i protecting my inner peace and we don't always focus on that we just we don't flow within a piece enough enough focus and i think that massively has a knock-on effect to our day-to-day so focus on your inner peace okay well we can't end there because i want to know one quick thing you do to protect your inner peace oh my god i locked the door and i don't see anyone for days i hang out with people that make me feel good i dance in my kitchen i have fun i live my life like it's my my last day on earth and i say fuck it go on then that is honestly like how i protect my inner peace i just live in the now fuck it go on then that's the best way to end i love it thank you so much jules it's been a pleasure having you on the unprocessed truth and um i I think there's loads of great insights there for people and they can live with inner peace and more body confidence.

1:02:16Thank you for having me.