Body image from Hell

One of the realities of writing a regular blog is that you wind up writing about yourself.

I mean, you really write about yourself.

Take me, for example. My "hobby" is diet and exercise. But the meaning of that topic has evolved for me over the years.
When I was in my teens, twenties, and thirties...hell, even into my forties--my only concern was weight control. All I saw was the number on the scale. If I weighed below 150, that was good (I'm almost 5 foot six); above 160, that was disaster.

Fast forward to the golden milestone of 50, and everything changed.
For once, the scale was not my enemy. Thanks to some alchemy of habit, discipline and possibly pharmaceutical intervention, my weight is under control.

My body is not.

Loose flesh, cellulite run wild, a waistline that curves in only when constrained by a breath-stealing waist-cincher--this is my current reality.

What the hell happened? This is not the way it was supposed to be.

This is the way it was for years: You lose weight, you're happy. You gain, you're unhappy--that's the mantra of the teen-to-forty-somethings.

Come fifty, and all of a sudden, everything changes.

Take your underarms, for example. When did they start waving independently of your hands and lower arms? Oh, the shame of it all.

Then there's cottage-cheese upper thighs. Let's not even talk about that.

In the midst of all this middle-aged decay, there are glimpses of hope.

My breasts, for example, Currently, my boobs are like the eighth wonder of the world. I used to be a size 38DDD. Thanks to the intervention of a talented Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. who removed two pounds of fat and rearranged the support structure. for once in my life I can actually go braless. I haven't gone braless since I hit puberty. That's my one body-joy in life. I also got an eye-lift and some fat grafts--which means they extract some fat from your stomach and inject it into those marionette lines around your nose and lips. That one procedure was responsible for erasing at least five years from the mirror's reflection.

But there are so many areas left to address. Underarms, stomach, upper thighs--I have enough body zones in distress to keep a plastic sugeon busy until retirement. By the time all those are done, I'm sure I'll be ready for a facelift.

Is this a byproduct of the fact that I live in LA? America, please give me your feedback. Are you okay living with body areas that are far less than subpar?

My denouement came recently, when a down-on-her-luck homeless woman started haunting a particular corner in my Southern California seaside village. Okay, overall, she looked terrible. But her arms were way tighter than mine. (Of course, she might have been twenty years younger than me, but only looked sixty).

But the arm thing pissed me off. Where was the justice in that? What did I do to deserve a body from hell?
Is it just me? Does anyone else suffer from middle-age body blues? Aargh!

Any input would be most appreciated.