The look of fibromyalgia

I used to be rail thin, thanks to good genes and a sensitive stomach that didn't digest much. This, in conjunction with my big boobs and perfectly shaped butt, gave me quite the ideal body. Of course I took it for granted and envied the girls with a little bit of meat on their bones. As they say, we always want what we don't have. I wore bulky clothing to hide my breasts because they felt too big in comparison to the rest of my body, and I didn't wear my first bikini until I was about 29.

Now I take five medications and have gone from 97 pounds to 145. As an apple I carry most of my weight in my stomach, and it has been quite the transition to learn how to love, accept, and clothe my new body. I finally understand why women are so obsessed about weight and why they count calories and put themselves down. I now understand dressing to hide your flaws instead of to hide your sexuality. Now I wear low cut shirts in order to accentuate my breasts instead of pretending they aren't there, in order to draw attention up to my face and away from my protruding stomach.

The Catch-22 about fibromyalgia is that your illness makes you take medications which make you gain weight, but it also prevents you from being able to exercise to get the weight off. I did Jillian Michaels' "30-Day Shred" until it gave me a new repetitive strain injury in my shoulders. I did a walking DVD twice until it put me in a flareup that lasted for a couple of days. There is a direct correlation between exercise and flareups which contradicts my inherent drive to be active. Instead I regulate myself to Tai Chi, an exercise bike, and walking (not in place), but only when I feel 100% which in the winter is not often.

I abhor the thought of taking off my clothes and having a love interest see my round belly. I may have learned how to dress my body, but what about when the clothes come off? Every woman's fear is looking like her mother, and when my fibromyalgia hit my body grew to look like my mother's middle aged one, only now she exercises enough to keep the weight off so that even she and my grandmother are thinner than I am.

On Monday my roommate and I start diets to lose weight after one party and before another. Luckily my new abode has an exercise room attached to the complex, complete with an exercise bike and a treadmill, two of the exercise machines I can actually use, and which have helped me lose weight in the past. My ideal goal is 130, my attainable goal is 135, and my realistic goal is 140. I will diet in part because of body image but to a larger degree because I like being aware of what is going into that body. Ironically ever since I have gained weight I am much healthier in my eating choices. Now an entire bag of cookies has consequences where it once did not. On Sunday I will wear a killer (stomach hiding) dress to a hopefully killer event, and in two months I will wear a festive 80s outfit hopefully a few pounds lighter.

I want to end this post with an positive spin but in all honesty, I can't. I'm human, I want the body of Salma Hayak, and I want to look good naked. If I can't look good naked, I want the body health to be able to do something about it without flareups telling me I can't. So, what do I do? I don't have all the answers, or even in this case just one answer. Just that I hope my next boyfriend can rub my Buddha belly and feel like the luckiest man alive.