How does a local Sydney strength coach end up on a bonafide survival show with no gear and even less idea? Naked and Afraid cast member, and resident MAXIM fitness guru, ALEXA TOWERSEY shares her nude reality TV endurance experience, and you may just up your skillset…
You’re probably thinking Naked and Afraid sounds like some sort of hardcore OnlyFans fetish, right? Well, unless the idea of getting your kit off and rolling around in the dirt with some creepy, crawly critters in the middle of the Colombian jungle gets you going, I’m sorry to disappoint.
Naked and Afraid is an American reality TV series that premiered on the Discovery Channel in 2013. The premise is that two individuals – usually a male and a female – are paired up and unceremoniously dumped in the middle of one of the most remote and unforgiving landscapes on earth, with only one tool each and the sole task of surviving 21 days.
Pushing the very limits of human endurance, they must find food, water and shelter whilst trying to avoid any of the territorial-sensitive predators or venom-filled reptiles in their new neighbourhood.
Oh yeah, and they must do all of this completely starkers. Even a solitary hair tie is contraband. And while a camera crew might follow their every move, they are forbidden to interfere.
THE HOW
In 2022 I interviewed Australia’s female answer to Bear Grylls – former Hollywood stunt woman turned professional survivalist, Ky Furneaux. On the topic of fear, she recounted the terrifying tale of her solo survival experience in the Amazon jungle with an extraction that involved her paddling upstream for four hours, all the while bleeding into piranha infested waters with an injury she’d sustained whilst making a now half submerged raft. And when a Caiman disappeared into the murky depths beneath said raft, she turned to her producer who calmly asked, “Well, do you want to quit?” Turns out she didn’t. Once I picked my jaw up off the ground, all I could think was, “I want in on some of this badassery.” One year and a cheeky DM later, I would get my chance on Season 17 of Naked and Afraid. Here’s what went down and some of the lessons I learnt along the way.
PREPARE TO BE UNPREPARED
When it comes to experiences like this, so much is outside of your control. You may be the best survivalist in the world, but if you get thrown a curveball mid game and you can’t adapt – you could quite literally die. There were two major things I Googled from the comfort of my couch. 1) How many days can you survive without food or water? Wilderness guides often refer to the “rule of three”, which says that a person can live for three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. 2) How many participants have been attacked by wild animals? None, unless you count the executive producer who stepped on a Fer-de-lance in Costa Rica and had to endure five operations to save his foot.
Armed with this knowledge and figuring that it would cost production too much if I died, I focused on all the things could take the edge off my day-to-day suffering. I sprayed my feet with Tuff Foot (designed to harden the paws of hunting dogs) and walked barefoot every day. I practiced setting cotton wool on fire with my Anaconda bought Ferro Rod on the top of my oven in Bondi. I learnt the basic rules of construction and man handled some branches into a rustic shelter on a friend’s farm. I took Colostrum to fortify my gut, ate fried onions and garlic every day in the hope it would act as a bug repellent and painted my nails bright yellow to appear poisonous. But more than anything else, I just prepared myself to be miserable for 21 days. Worst case scenario, I would just curl up in the dirt and suffer for the duration. Shit TV but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST OR FATTEST
Aside from running into a rogue croc or wandering puma, my biggest concern was that I wouldn’t have the reserves of body fat to allow me to handle starvation or cold. I committed to gaining weight indulging my love of chicken peri peri pizza and king size rolo bars and putting on close to 8kgs in the lead up. I’m not going to lie and say that this was a comfortable process for me because it wasn’t. My ego was torn – half of it caught up in wanting to look great, naked for TV, the other half understanding that this strategy could well be my downfall.
My brain and body went to war, but in the end I came to the conclusion that I was absolutely not prepared to have to tap out because I was scared of having some extra padding. And that’s what I think one of the best parts of this entire process was. It forced me to shift the emphasis away from what my body looked like and instead focus on what it could do. And that was f—king LIBERATING. Given that I ended up losing 10kgs and half my hair, post challenge, the decision was a game changer.
CLASH OF THE CULTURES
You could not have found two more different people than Milo and I. If you’re not familiar with Amish culture, it’s not really conducive to strong, independent and opinionated women. In most communities, women aren’t allowed to have a job. In some, they’re not even allowed to read books or to train. We were a match made in reality TV heaven.
For me, the relentless conflict management was the hardest part of the challenge, especially given that it had to be done within the confines of a three-by-three-metre lean-to. While the old me would have relished having the last word in an argument or felt the need to have my opinion heard, the new me inherently understood that it might be smarter to wave the white flag and walk away from confrontation. It was all about picking the right battles in order to win the war – the war being that differences could be set aside to get the job done and make it out alive and relatively unscathed. Sometimes you just need to say LOL and move on (eye roll optional).
FACE IT ’TIL YOU MAKE IT
If you’d have told me that one day I’d be proactively hunting spiders in order to put food on the table, I would have said abso-f—king-lutely not! Yet here I was, doggedly pursuing a massive water spider around a rock in the middle of a river deep in the Colombian jungle because I needed bait. There’s a quote that says, “Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I promise you something great will come of it.” Well, when the fangs sunk into my hand, that 20 seconds manifested as a full-blown panic attack.
However, something great did indeed come of it – that spider was wrangled onto the line that caught a fish and we were slightly less starving. Fear can be a useful survival tool given that it tells our bodies to respond to danger with a fight or flight response. Some fears aren’t meant to be overcome because they keep you safe. Putting your hand in a fire will burn you. Getting bitten by a snake may kill you. But other fears, like handling non-poisonous spiders, are of no use. And in my experience, anyone can do anything when a video camera is pointed their way.
DOING HARD THINGS MAKES THINGS EASIER
There’s a marked difference between getting uncomfortable within your comfort zone and leaving your comfort zone so far behind that you’re not sure you’ll ever find your way back. The biggest question I’ve been asked since I got back was, “Why would you seek out a challenge so extreme?” The answer – because I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. And now I do and that’s what I believe resilience is at its core. Experience. Surviving something hard and coming out the other side with the newfound knowledge that the last thing that felt like dying didn’t actually kill you. That, my friends, is a superpower. ■
Naked and Afraid (Season 17) on Discovery Channel is available on Foxtel, Fetch and Binge
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