Would You Ever Do a "Mirror Fast"?

by Lexi Petronis, Glamour

How often do you look in the mirror a day-and how does seeing your reflection make you feel?

According to The New York Times, there's a new name for taking a vacation from your reflection: it's a "mirror fast." While some bloggers are avoiding their and chronicling the results, other women are simply taking a break from seeing their reflection in any surface because of the way it makes them feel:

Marisa Gizzio, 45, a stay-at-home mom in Garnet Valley, Pa., went without mirrors for two days last October to help her overcome her tendency to ruthlessly criticize her figure. "Any reflection, even in the sliding glass doors at the grocery store, I would automatically check if my butt was sticking out or my legs were too big," she said. "It was such a waste of time."

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Gizzio decided to axe the mirror because she'd regained a little bit of the 60 pounds she'd lost a year earlier, and she "still had that fat girl looking back at me, so [she'd] just throw up my hands and think, what's the use?" She says a mirror fast helped reverse that mindset. "I needed to wipe the slate clean and start thinking about what I liked about myself, which made me feel more confident so I wanted to eat better and I wanted to exercise," she says.

In lieu of completely nixing the mirror from your life, one social worker and therapist suggests that you stop looking in it so critically. Instead of looking at your own disapproving face in the mirror, replace it with a softer look of acceptance and repeat a word or phrase that "captures how you would like to feel in your body"-"elegant," "peaceful," or "I'm OK."

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I don't dwell on the mirror too much-I feel like there's not enough time in the day-but I am definitely guilty of a daily sideways-turn to determine if my belly seems stick-outty or not. I wouldn't mind not doing that anymore.

Do you ever avoid the mirror-or would you like to? Would you try a "mirror fast"? How do you deal when you don't like your reflection?

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