Getting to Know Your New Reflection

 Overweight people avoid mirrors like the plague.  But when you’re losing a lot 

of weight, you need to get to know what the “changing you” looks like.  Stop 

avoiding your reflection and get to know the “new you.”

It’s a fact:  Overweight or Obese people DO NOT LIKE mirrors or ANYTHING that 

reflects back to them as to how others probably see them physically.  Many 

heavy people go as far as removing all full-length mirrors throughout their 

home in the attempt to avoid seeing their reflection and finding more reasons 

for self-loathing.  They think that removing the full reflection will ease 

some of the harsh self-criticism.  The reflection of (say it with me) “from 

here up” (your hands below the chin to signify the bottom line) is the only 

thing a heavy person wants to see reflected back.   

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Read More Weight Loss

This is what I did for years, and to my DEMISE at that!  Had I kept a closer 

view on my reflection, maybe I wouldn’t have let the pounds pile on as they 

easily did for so long.   But that is my 20/20 hindsight, as they often say, 

right?  

The first thing I did after my surgery was buy a cheap $12 full-length mirror

 so I could “keep an eye” on how my body was changing.  OH, let me tell you, 

how I cringed at the reflection I saw!  I wiped tears away from my eyes as I 

knew that NOW I had the tool through the RNY bariatric weight loss surgery to 

get rid of the excess weight.  But it was a hard reality to face that reflection.

But as the pounds kept dropping, I began to learn to love my new reflection.  

Sure, I saw draping skin, lack of tone, and countless other flaws I could list 

to fill a New York City phonebook; but the good news was that I was losing 

weight and my body was shrinking!  

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Read More Weight Loss

And not only did I learn to appreciate the reflection in a full-length mirror, 

I also learned to STOP AVOIDING reflective glass!  There used to be a day when 

I would walk past a huge store window as fast as I could so I couldn’t see 

myself in the glass’ reflection… and I certainly didn’t want others seeing 

it either!  As I was losing my weight so rapidly, I got in the habit of stopping 

and actually looking at myself in reflective glass at the store, a restaurant, 

and even marble walls in offices.  My husband seemed to, one day, “had enough” 

of this behavior and came right out and said to me, “You are becoming too vane!”  

As shocked as I was that he didn’t understand me, I said, “I’m not vane… I have 

to make sure that it’s really ME in there… I don’t know what the NEW ME looks 

like half the time.”  He then slumped in semi-shame at his remark and agreed 

that it’s even hard for him to keep up with how the new-me appears.  Another 

reason why we don’t recognize ourselves is because our shrinking wardrobe 

changes so often, we don’t’ know it’s us in those clothes! 

To further prove this point of not recognizing our own reflection, I want to 

share the following “capsule” that illustrates this point perfectly.  This 

was one experience that a friend of mine had:

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Read More Weight Loss

She says, “I want to a restaurant for a big birthday celebration.  Across 

the room, I saw a woman who looked so familiar to me.  I couldn’t stop staring 

at her, and I noticed she stared back at me a lot too.  I asked my husband if 

he knew who the woman was across the way, but he couldn’t locate who I was 

talking about.  I grew more and more intrigued with this woman who I knew 

for a certainty that I knew her from somewhere.  As the night progressed, I 

noticed that she even had some family members who looked familiar to me… and 

THEN THE LIGHT BULB went off…. I WAS LOOKING AT MYSELF IN THE REFLECTION OF 

THE MIRRORED WALL!  Talk about embarrassed!  I must have spent a good half-hour

 wondering who that woman was, and all along it was ME!”

As you continue to lose weight, your reflection will change, and you’ll have 

to look at it again and again at the risk of appearing vane to others.  Like 

I told me husband that day he called me “vane”, I further explained that one 

day my image will remain unchanged by weight loss and I won’t need to look as 

often since I can recognize myself.  

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Read More Weight Loss

So if you haven’t yet done so, get a full-length mirror in your home and take 

a look at yourself each week.  Learn to recognize every curve, bump, bulge, 

etc.  Then as you downsize in your body, you’ll appreciate it more because 

you’ll know the former you better then had you not learned to look at your

 reflection.   Getting to Know Your New Reflection