Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Has Anybody Else Felt FAT and WEAK Muscles When Bloated?

I've tried to describe the "sensation" that I feel in my body but it has been tough to articulate it.
I'm hoping others on here who suffer from IBS can relate and help explain what is going on in my body so I can better describe it to my doctor and have better insight to treat the symptoms.

What first got me years ago to begin seeing a GI doctor was that despite the fact that I would go to the gym and my weight for my height and size should have made me out to be thin�.I felt very fat in my stomach, or "bloated."
Not only that, but it seemed that when I was having days/periods of time were my stomach was bloated, the rest of my body looked and felt distorted/weak.
When my stomach is bloated, my arms, my chest, all of my muscles look a lot smaller, they feel weaker, and flimsier.
The few times that my stomach is not bloated, my muscles have felt contrastly different.
When stomach has been flat, my chest, my arms all have felt all more "solid" and firm, they have been much better defined.

It is like I have two different bodies.
One is where I look fat in my stomach (like I am overweight and pregnant) while the rest of my body looks flimsy and weak (as if I have never lifted a weight).
Then the other body looks like the real me, a thin stomach and defined muscles.
So when I am experiencing IBS bloating�I'm getting a double whammy.
My body, which I work so hard on, no matter how much I run, no matter how little I weigh, and no matter how much I lift, looks fat and weak when bloated.

It pretty much feels like when I am having a bloating episode, that all of the "fluids/muscles/nutrients" in my body have been "drained" like water on the floodplain into my stomach.

Now I have noticed when I am having more regular bowel movements, this is less of problem.
The reverse is true without regular bowel movements.
Also�say I go to the gym�and I have a really intense, great workout.
I can feel a real strong "pump" in my body that can at the same time give my muscles a "pump" and flatten/reduce the bloating.

This is the sensation I have been having for several years.
This is the whole reason I inquired and found out I had IBS.
I've tried to explain it before and people have looked at it as I am some dysmorphic psycho�but I know and feel this going on in my body.

I wanted to know
1) Have any of you experienced this? Is this common with IBS?
2) Do you have any better ways of explaining or terminology of what I am experiencing?
3) Are there any specific treatments that are more effective in targeting these symptoms I have described?
-For my IBS symptoms I have employed