Although Garfield will say bathroom scales are the worst enemy, there are many who will argue that the bathroom mirror is more of an enemy. As the saying goes, “the mirror doesn’t lie” or does it?
Mirrors can be a more reliable way to track progress than the bathroom scales
A person can weight more than they did a month ago and yet look slimmer and harder than they did when they weighed less. The main reason for this is rather simple. Fat, being less dense, weighs less than muscle. So if you lose body fat but gain muscle at the same time you can weight the same (or sometimes more than you did before) and yet look and feel better. So if all you do to track your progress is measure your weight on the scales, you may be getting quite the wrong picture of things. Having a look in the mirror may actually be a better way to see if you’ve been making progress.
Unfortunately although our mirrors might be accurately portraying the way we look, our interpretation of our reflections are usually skewed due to a number of factors such as:
Our bad photographic memory
If you put a frog in a pot of cold water and put the pot over a fire the frog will be oblivious to the fact that it is being boiled alive because it can’t tell the the water is slowly changing from cold to very hot. This is similar to the way we look at ourselves in the mirror. We don’t actually realise that what we are seeing today is different to what we were seeing 3 months ago.
Lighting and angles
Lighting in a lot of bathrooms can be quite unnatural (so that you can clearly see yourself). In the real world lighting is usually a lot kinder on our appearance. Also (and probably more of a problem than lighting), the angles in which we can see ourselves in the mirror are limited to, well, one angle - straight ahead. It is very hard to get a good view of yourself side on, and even harder to see the back view!
Our harsh self-criticism
You will usually find that your most harshest critic is yourself. It is so easy to look into the mirror and immediately push yourself down. Sometimes this is due to self esteem issues, more often than not however, it is done subconsciously because one is so desperate for change they are withholding any credit to force themselves to try even harder.
It is for these reasons that I personally don’t recommend judging results by looking in the mirror.
A much better solution to the bathroom mirror is before & after pictures. Get a friend to take a photo from front on, side on and your back, and then do some follow up photos in a few months time. If you’re too self-conscious you can just use a self-timer in order to have the picture taken, but beware of the whole ’self-criticism’ thing. It is better for a friend or relative to judge the before/after photos than yourself.
One last thing, I don’t by any means say you should completely avoid looking in the mirror. Taking a look in the mirror can be a great confidence and motivational boost. What is important is that we don’t use what we see in the mirror to measure and track our results.
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