New Weight Loss Wonder - The Mirror!!!

Diva

Cambridge Diet Counsellor
No, not the tabloid newspaper but that glass one that you more than likely have adorned in your home!!

It's funny but most of us have at least one mirror in our home and most of us also go out of our way to avoid it....me included! :)

However, did you know that facing yourself in the mirror at least once a day, and preferably in the outfit that God lovingly gave you for your birthday, is the most powerful weight loss 'drug' currently available!

Paul McKenna advocates doing his mirror exercise daily in order to make friends with your body. Yet it's amazing how many people with a weight issue wince at the very thought of doing this. However, I have learned that this essential in becoming self aware and self accepting. How can you learn to love what you neither see nor accept?

This is a particularly close subject to my heart because it is only recently that I have been able to look in the mirror without judgement and without anger...my weight has increased rather than decreased but now I can look in the mirror and see that I am more than just my body but also that my body is my main source of support as I go through making the physical changes.

So now I'm going to challenge YOU with this easy exercise....

  • Stand in front of the mirror and look yourself square in the eyes
  • First acknowledge all those areas that you currently don't like
  • Also acknowledge that you are in the process of change but you accept your body for all that it has done for you and now you are going to start treating it with the respect that it deserves by rewarding it with a healthy lifestyle to keep it energised and active.
  • Look into your eyes again and feel the love, warmth and energy that you have inside for the person looking back at you...
It's time for us to make friends with our bodies! This is the same body that we will have at goal weight that we have today....so if we don't love and accept it now, what guarantee do we have that we will be able to later down the line??!!

Do this repeatedly each day for a week and I'm sure you will start to feel differently towards your body. Come back and share with us how you're getting on and what observations you are making.

Once you have done this for a week, graduate to the Paul McKenna exercise whereby he challenges you to look at yourself through the eyes of someone who genuinely loves you and cares for you - this one is not for the fainthearted as it can produce floods of tears!!! :p
 
It's quite interesting that this post has not generated any responses!!! Is it because ....its just too hard a challenge to face???
 
You have a point Diva!

For hating how I looked for so many years, now to look in the mirror is a slow process!

I have only just taken the full length mirror out of hiding! LOL!

I agree that we should celebrate our good assets, but I must say that they look a whole lot better when covered in clothes! I could list what I DO like about myself, but the list of what I don't like would span pages and pages on your thread! LOL!

Thanks for making me think!
 
I have been struggling with this. As you know, this particular exercise had a huge impact on me at the seminar, and I have been trying to do it 'tenaciously'. The thing is, when you are feeling pants about yourself it's really hard to do. But reading this today, and sat reading my journal earlier and I have recommitted. Thanks Diva Lady :)
 
It is quite strange because I have actually done something very similar to that over the last week or two and the wierd thing is that now that I am shrinking I can often see it in the clothes I wear but when I look in the mirror I just see fat and find that very hard to reconcile. I spent a lot of time looking to see if I can see a difference but to be honest I didn't ever look at myself buck naked at my fatest so have struggled to get a sense of perspective.

I will however, do this again using the affermations and see if that helps.
 
How's it going with the mirror exercise? Has anybody been doing this on a daily basis and got any results or observations to report???

I struggle with this one on a daily basis myself but see the remarkable results it has in all of my clients that do this....so that being the case, why do we find it so hard to do??? Having said that, once you've done it a few times it does get easier but its keeping the momentum going that I find to be the challenge....any ideas??
 
Momentum is definitely the hard bit. When I do it, I walk taller, feel better about myself - when I don't I seem to shrink and try to hide, which perversely means I don't want to look in the mirror :(
 
Oooh have only just seen this thread (sorry Diva, hun) if I used my mirror for anything other than doing my hair I think the little people inside it would all scream and the highness of the pitch would cause it to break and them to die.

I don't want to kill anyone so I won't do the exercises ;) :D

That's my excuse and I am sticking to it ...
 
LMAO - Oh, Brightness! :D The excuse itself doesn't really matter...its still an excuse!!! :D

I've got a load of them myself.....one of mine is that when I look in the mirror I only make myself feel bad so its best not to! So, then what happens....I walk around all day feeling awful because I can't even bear to look at myself in the mirror!!! Anyone see a pattern here??? :)
 
This one is a really hard one for me. We have one small mirror in our house.

I don't even look in it to do my hair, which is why I always look like I've been through a hedge backwards.

If I put makeup on I tend to use the vanity mirror in the car so that I don't see the whole of my face in one go.
 
I've got a load of them myself.....one of mine is that when I look in the mirror I only make myself feel bad so its best not to! So, then what happens....I walk around all day feeling awful because I can't even bear to look at myself in the mirror!!! Anyone see a pattern here??? :)

Stop being inside my head!!! :eek:
 
Sorry, only just found this thread.

Brightness, I laughed so hard I cried reading your excuse!!!!!

I have to say I might try this tomorrow, but the suit god gave me was obviously brought on the cheap on e-bay and was 'sold as seen' with a 'we don't take returns policy' attached to it!!!!!! :p

I think this will be a very hard task - I have to say, thinking about good things I can say about what I'll see eludes me completely right now. My husband may want to witness the attempt (not the see me in my birthday suit bit) - it will be the first time he will have known me to be lost for words!!! LOL!!:)
 
Looking forward to hearing how you get on Kebab!! And don't forget some of your own affirmations as you look into your eyes staring back at you!!! :)
 
Just seen this thread!

The mirror thing is so true!

After doing up the house a good few years ago I had got rid of one of the big mirrors and this then left me with only one full length mirror and it was on the door inside of the wardrobe...the rest were small.

So the only real bit of myself was from the bust up and I was happy enough with that and my sister said to me around the time that how did I manage without a proper mirrors as she had the house full of them...She told me to buy some and I never bothered.

Two years ago I began buying mirrors and now have a couple about the place...but it is only this year that I have stopped frowning at myself:eek: and giving out:eek: I think my frown lines have improved.

Having no mirrors is a way of avoiding yourself and not owning up to the reality of what is going on.

I remember the day out shopping that as I approached a mirror and thought that is an attractive women and the women was me and I had to walk back wards and have another look to check that it was me...sad but true!
 
Having no mirrors is a way of avoiding yourself and not owning up to the reality of what is going on.

So, so, true Mini!
 
Ooh now - this is a funny one with me. My mum has a bedroom with mirrored wardrobes all along one wall. When I look at myself in the nuddie in them, I really dislike the full frontal view (eek) but am quite ok with the side view!

Funny how it's the wrinkles on my belly and thighs that turn my stomach and make me feel ashamed - and yet I feel ok when they're covered up in clothes.

I felt like this at 19 stone too!
 
My mum has a bedroom with mirrored wardrobes all along one wall.

Funny how it's the wrinkles on my belly and thighs that turn my stomach and make me feel ashamed - and yet I feel ok when they're covered up in clothes.

Isobel, when I stayed at your mum's house back in April, I totally avoided looking at myself in your mum's bedroom wardrobe mirrors - except when I was fully clothed.

I'm getting better at looking at myself now and actually quite like what I see now, even though I feel exactly the same as you do about the wrinkles on my tummy and thighs - it's starting to really bug me actually! For the first time in my life I feel better dressed than undressed. Even when I was almost 19 stone I wasn't as self-conscious about my naked body as I am now .. what's all that about?? :rolleyes:
 
Even when I was almost 19 stone I wasn't as self-conscious about my naked body as I am now .. what's all that about?? :rolleyes:

Because when you are that big you almost don't look at yourself. Whereas once you decide to do something about it, all you can see are the flaws that are appearing - you almost become hyper critical even though all of it is an improvement on what once was.
 
I've just seen your thread and I think it's a good challenge. There are so many people that only realise how big they are when they see photos taken of themselves; they are probably avoiding their reflection on a daily basis.

From my own experience, I did not like what I saw in the mirror, but no matter how hard I tried to make a transformation it wouldn't happen until this year when I started Lipotrim.

Now I'm not a vain person, but I work in a place where we have a big show room and there are mirrors everywhere. I humbly confess I glance shyly in most of them as I walk past and do a bit of posing when there's no-one about.

Marylyn x
 
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