ok ladies, where i work we have a lady come in and exercise with the kids and today we worked out in a mirrored room. it was horrific! i got to see how incredibly ridiculous i look when i work out. i look like i don't know it was really bad! I am really trying but i am started to get discouraged i still feel and look like a blimp. ( i know that's not nice) HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i hate mirrors too. Will you always have to work out in a mirrored room? I can say that you do get used to it, as horrifying as it might be at first. Probably no one else cared what you looked like, they were too busy going "oh my god, look at how horrendous I look when i work out!" too

God, I used to do Pilates , with my waif sisters, in one of those rooms. We would leave and they would be in an ecstatic mood and I would be bordering on suicidal. The last thing i ever wanted to see was myself, stretching and flexing, with my big *** in the air. Girlfriend, I hear ya. I quit going to classes and just worked out with a place without mirrors. I could never get past it.

I actually don't mind mirrors -- the vision I have in my head is always 100x's worse than what I actually wind up seeing.

But I do have to say that one time, I took this bellydancing class with a friend and having th ose huge studio mirrors in there was terrible. It wasn't even bellydance... more like hip-hop club dancing to sitars ... so you see the teeny instructor and everyone else in the class following her perfectly and then big fat me messing up everyone's rhythm. It was bad.

Sounds frightening, I dont thing I would enjoy that very much. Maybe you can turn it around and try and try to use the mirror as a motivational tool. Envision the fat melting away as you go...

I have always been embarrassed about how I look when I'm working out... it used to make me extremely unmotivated when I was required to do it in public (like in hs & college PE classes). I thought I just didn't like exercise until I started doing it on my own at home. Maybe that would help you feel better about it & more motivated - if you don't have to do it in front of other people?

However I have to say that a mirror at home can be helpful sometimes (with something simple like the treadmill) - you can look at yourself knowing that you're doing something about it & you won't look like this for much longer

As my boyfriend always says, people in the gym are too focused on themselves to really notice anyone else. Don't worry - I doubt anyone else thought you looked ridiculous.

My bf says the same thing but I don't even have any full length mirrors in my apartment. No way, No how.

I didn't either, until I moved in with him. I'm getting better at accepting what I look like in mirrors, but I still hate photos.

thanks ladies. all your comments do help. i was just freaking out a little thinking how others must have thought i looked. we will have to see what happens.
ps. it was an aerobics class