Never In A Million Years

Never in a million years did I think I would be posting about something like this and posting pictures. But it's something that I've had to deal with my whole life, especially more so over the past few years as I've gained weight. Don't get me wrong, as a CFer, I'm supposed to have a healthy weight, so gaining weight is encouraged, but it's hard when I don't like the way it looks. What am I talking about? My lovely CF belly! If you know me, you know what I'm talking about and I'm sure you've seen it. I thought it was just the way I was built until I joined CysticLife and realized it's a CF thing....awesome, thanks CF.

I was always underweight in high school and before, but when I went to college, I started steadily gaining weight. For CFers, it's hard for us to absorb fats/nutrients from our food, so it's hard to gain/maintain our weight. When I started gaining, my doctors were very pleased, but I was not. It was hard as a college student to start gaining weight, and noticing it physically, but I knew I had to do it to be healthy. I'm now at a healthy weight that both the doctors and I are pleased with, but it's still always in the back of my mind that my belly sticks out. Plus, I have three scars on my stomach from a surgery when I was born, so I feel like it gives a look of rolls...even better. It also doesn't help that I've got skinny little arms and legs, so I feel like it sticks out even more. Doesn't matter how much I've eaten, or not eaten, if I'm bloated or not, it's always there. In fact, last week at school I had a student ask me if I was pregnant -- not something I was happy to hear about, but oh well, gotta laugh it off. I can't wait to actually be pregnant so I have a reason to have a belly! I'm not posting all of this to say how I feel bad about myself, it's just another 'joy' of CF. So, without further ado...here are a couple lovely pictures of the infamous CF belly:

July 2010 - Lovely, huh? Doesn't help that I'm about
to eat an enormous amount of my birthday cake!

October 2010 - I hate that I have this picture because
it's from my wedding day, but that's what it looks like
when I'm relaxed. Plus I was at my heaviest
weight here (4 pounds more than today)

July 2011 - Taking a break from hiking

I want to thank Inhaling Hope (another CF blog I follow) for giving me the courage to create a post about this - read her blog about her CF belly here....see I'm not the only one! :-)