I'm sure by now everyone has heard the buzz about the new TV show "How to Look Good Naked." In it women of all sizes (although not too fat or too thin) get a make over without involving diets or other methods of weight loss. It's a cute, almost-inspiring show. However while looking good may increase one's self-esteem in the short run, what happens on days when we don't have four hours to get a makeover or shop endlessly. A lot of us have jobs and lives. And the vast majority of us will never get to be on a makeover TV show.

Let's talk about trying to look good inside all the time. Without the use of a make over. A little self-esteem goes a long way.

How do you get healthy self-esteem? I'm not an expert but I can share ways that help me feel better about myself. I spent 17 years dieting and hating myself because I couldn't lose weight --or, more correctly, because I couldn't keep the lost weight off. I constantly thought that good self-esteem would come once I lost 50 pounds. While I was working on Fat Chicks Rule, I read a book about a woman who only had self esteem when she lost weight. When she gained as much as a pound she hated herself and thought she was a failure at life! I had to learn self-esteem no matter how much I weighed or looked.

There are two ways that helped me: I learned to love my body and myself and I resisted negative messages all around. You have to remember the companies who create and sell beauty products and diets want you to hate yourself so you will buy their product. Should you still buy these products? That's up to you. Should you let these products tell you aren't good enough? No. To them you are a full wallet that needs to be emptied into their coffers. That's all.

When you insult your body either by dieting or calling it bad, you should always apologize. Imagine a person called you a foul name, something that really made you hurt. Would you want them to apologize to you or would you agree with them? Shouldn't that simple gesture be even more important when you do it to your own body? I think the first thing to do to try to reach healthy self-esteem is to tell the diet voice to Shut The Hell Up. Tell it to Be Quiet every single time it tells you to lose a few pounds. That isn't you. You are a better person than that.

Take a break and nice things just for you: Spend quality time with your spouse, friends or family. Get a massage, See a movie. Do something you really enjoy. Remember you deserve it. Remind yourself of your strengths & achievements (and don't you DARE tell me you have neither). You are a wonderful person with a beautiful body and mind, remind yourself of that every day.

Don't beat yourself up if can't always live up to your expectations. (Nobody ever does, that's what being human means.) I always loved the mantra of accepting the things I cannot change, and change the things I can.

Resisting the negative images are even harder these days because they are everywhere and the voices in our heads that tell us to buy, Buy, BUY! They seem to get more sinister and clever every day. Even if you don't watch TV or read fashion magazines, you can't escape it. There are ads everywhere you go, billboards, flyers in the mail (I once got a COUPON to come in and talk about gastric bypass!) and not to mention email spam and ads that promise you could lose 20lbs a night. (I really got a spam that said that.)

So I fought fire with fire. On the walls of my office besides pictures of myself, family and friends are size-positive pictures, comics, and expressions. Every time I walk past a Jenny Craig, I think about throwing a rock through the window and I laugh. I laugh off stupid people, fat jokes and remember that I am not the person in the magazine, I'm me: fat and happy.