Worried about Loose Skin? All you need to know.

[Braxley]

I have read this forum with a lot of interest the last few months and daily I see threads with people concerned about loose skin after weight loss.
Everyone seems to make this far more of an issue than it needs to be almost to the point of being absolutely terrified to lose weight, the worrying needs to stop. Do NOT let this be a deterrent to your losing weight and making positive changes to your lifestyle. Being overweight looks worse than loose skin.

Lets be blunt, you have loose skin because you ate too much over a prolonged period of time. You put fat on and as a result your skin adjusted and stretched to accommodate it. No one is judging, its happened, we deal with it. Lets take a look at how we repair the damage.

Your skin adjusting back is going to depend on the following:

- The elasticity of your skin which does unfortunately decrease with age.
- How long you carried the excess weight for and how much weight you were carrying.
- Body composition, how much lean body mass you have compared to your amount of body fat.
- How quickly you put the weight on.

There are a number of factors YOU can do to allow your skin the best possible opportunity to re-adjust back to its original state. No one is claiming it will be "perfect", but you can maximise its potential to be close to that.

The road to healthy & tight skin

- Losing weight slowly and sensibly. Crash dieting and rapid weight loss will not give you skin enough time to tighten. You need to focus on slow, steady and consistent weight loss.
- Stay hydrated, make sure you are hitting the correct amount of water intake for your height/weight.
- Preserve/build muscle and obtain definition. This helps massively and makes you look far healthier in general.
- Balanced diet with all the right vitamins and nutrients. Fruits and vegetables are your friends.
- Omega 3 fish oil, great for all round well being and also helps tighten skin if used long term.

Creams

Personally I think the jury is out on the whole cream thing. You definitely won't notice instant results and there are a lot of scientific debate as to how well validated most of them are. However, I have used Bio-Oil on my biceps over a 3 month period and definitely did see some positive results there. How much of that was down to sticking to the above guide combined with that I don't know, however, if you feel that you must invest in a cream/oil then take a look at the suggestions on the forum.

Conclusion

The key to your skin tightening is consistency. There are no quick fixes for this and you will have to wait a significant amount of time before results become obvious, that said, results do happen. Once you are at your desired bodyweight in terms of bodyfat and LBM, wait at least a year before considering surgery. This will give your body plenty of time to accept its current condition and your skin should have tightened up drastically. If you are still unsatisfied then there is plenty of support out there for surgery.

Last but not least, there have been inspiring transformations on this forum in which people have lose hundreds of pounds and ended up with only a low volume of loose skin being visible. They did this by losing weight properly and sticking to the guidelines, you can also achieve good results if you are consistent and make the right healthy choices.

Good Luck!

* mods may want to take a look at stickying this because we do get a lot of loose skin questions here. If anyone else has anything to add in then please post below and i'll try factor it in so we can make this as complete as possible for everyone and refer people to this for the same questions*

[tfpriest]

Loose skin brah checking in.

I'm 6'0 and was about 320 at my heaviest. I've been down to about 190 and recomped over a couple year period, bouncing around between 190-215.

My add to this thread having personally pursued most of the options over a several year period (making me more qualified than most to talk about it) is this:

There are more contributing factors than the OP specifies, and it's all very individualist in nature. A lot of it depends on how you genetically store fat. Someone who stores a lot of fat on their upper arms for instance is probably going to be prone to a lot of loose skin on their upper arms if they get down to a 10-15% body fat level.

For me, I stored a lot of fat on my stomach, but luckily not a ton on my chest really or butt, so all my extra skin is focused in my stomach area, where my belly button has shifted down about 3-4 inches. I've worked hard to put on some decent mass after cutting so hard for a long time, and I think once obesity reaches the stage mine was, no amount of exercise or "consistency" will resolve it, and I'm a young guy too, the cut and recomp took period over the time period of me being 20 years old to 25.

Here are some pics of me. I've tried to put everything in a collage so a person can get a real idea of what to expect.

[maltanarchy]

Loose skin brah checking in.

I'm 6'0 and was about 320 at my heaviest. I've been down to about 190 and recomped over a couple year period, bouncing around between 190-215.

My add to this thread having personally pursued most of the options over a several year period (making me more qualified than most to talk about it) is this:

There are more contributing factors than the OP specifies, and it's all very individualist in nature. A lot of it depends on how you genetically store fat. Someone who stores a lot of fat on their upper arms for instance is probably going to be prone to a lot of loose skin on their upper arms if they get down to a 10-15% body fat level.

For me, I stored a lot of fat on my stomach, but luckily not a ton on my chest really or butt, so all my extra skin is focused in my stomach area, where my belly button has shifted down about 3-4 inches. I've worked hard to put on some decent mass after cutting so hard for a long time, and I think once obesity reaches the stage mine was, no amount of exercise or "consistency" will resolve it, and I'm a young guy too, the cut and recomp took period over the time period of me being 20 years old to 25.

Here are some pics of me. I've tried to put everything in a collage so a person can get a real idea of what to expect.

Is the bottom row your current pics? So, have you beaten the loose skin or are you going to have permanent loose skin?

[Braxley]

Great post tfpriest, genetics does play a part also. I should have put more emphasis on that in original post - shame I can't edit. You are looking in very good shape though, how long have you been at that current weight?

[FatBro]

At my stage i am willing to get loose skin if it means losing all this extra fat. At least you can hide your skin with a t shirt homie.

[joeturner]

Is the bottom row your current pics? So, have you beaten the loose skin or are you going to have permanent loose skin?

very curious for this answer, as your bottom row looks EXACTLY like where I'm at now. I was 470-147-185 now, but with my lower section looking exactly like your lower section, and im at my wits end! sure when i hit 147 that sorta went away, but so did EVERYTHING as i was anorexic and damn near a concentration camp survivor...

im eating way way way under what my recorded maintenance calories are right now, but cant lose that last bit of skin fat/flap! and am SOOO dreading sugary because i dont have the time and/or money

any/all advice welcome please help!

[TooBusyMirin]

very curious for this answer, as your bottom row looks EXACTLY like where I'm at now. I was 470-147-185 now, but with my lower section looking exactly like your lower section, and im at my wits end! sure when i hit 147 that sorta went away, but so did EVERYTHING as i was anorexic and damn near a concentration camp survivor...

im eating way way way under what my recorded maintenance calories are right now, but cant lose that last bit of skin fat/flap! and am SOOO dreading sugary because i dont have the time and/or money

any/all advice welcome please help!

Eating less isn't going to make you lose your excess skin, your body can't use skin as energy...

[joeturner]

Eating less isn't going to make you lose your excess skin, your body can't use skin as energy...

yes, but part of me eatign less is my ignorance in determining if my 'loose skin' is truly 'loose skin' or the more common 'stubborn subcutaneous belly fat'

maybe you can help me toobusymirin? looking at the bottom row of pics above, would you call that 'loose skin' that hast to be solved by surgery, or would 'eating less' help someone with that problem?

[maladili]

Good info

[NOSCOP3]

Good info

This person is intentionally raising post count, saying 'Good info' in all their posts.

[Rman2013]

Reason Iam bumping this thread is people keep opening topics on loose skin and I think this will help answering thier questions..

[unleashthelion]

TFPriest still had a good amount of fat to lose in that bottom row of photos. He ended up getting surgery over winter, right? How has he been?