Loose skin thread

[bullrider_IL]

Think there are a lot of posts about loose skin after large fat loss. Here are two great posts I found from the tons of threads on it:

How to Tighten Loose Skin After Weight Loss

As you lose fat and your loose skin begins to appear, the first rule is: don’t panic! Because it is a living organ, your skin will slowly return to a shape that fits your new body. But since that process can take up to two years, here are steps you can take to make your skin tighten more quickly:

Tip #1: Don’t Lose Weight Too Quickly

In addition to weight loss, age, poor nutrition, dehydration, excessive sun exposure, and smoking can all affect the elasticity of the skin.
Crash diets and excessive amounts of time spent exercising can rapidly shed both muscle and fat, resulting in a double-whammy on your skin--the supportive underlying muscular structure that holds skin against your body is lost, as is the fat that keeps the skin stretched out. Quick and dirty tip for not losing weight too quickly: Aim for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week, and make sure your weight loss program includes weight lifting so that you do not lose lean muscle. Check out more weight lifting and strength training tips here.

Tip #2: Stay Hydrated

Attend to your hydration needs. Water is a crucial component of maintaining skin elasticity. From both food and drink, you should be taking in at least two liters of water each day. A wonderful resource for learning more about proper hydration is this article from Nutrition Diva: How Much Water Should I Drink?

Tip #3: Eat Properly

Two necessary ingredients that keep skin plump and elastic are collagen and elastin. Protein-rich foods such as cottage cheese, milk, legumes, tofu, beans, seeds, nuts, and fish all contain collagen and elastin forming components, as well as oils to help maintain healthy skin. Quick and dirty protein tip: For optimum absorption, squeeze 100-200 calories of these protein sources in immediately after your workout. For more on what to eat when working out, see my article on what to eat before and after exercising.

Tip #4: Take Care of Your Skin


Nourish and care for your skin. Daily exfoliation can help to remove dead skin cells and increase skin circulation. A hot bath with sea salts and minerals can improve skintone. Skin tightening creams with herbal formulas and ingredients such as aloe vera, hyaluronic acid, yeast extract, soy protein, vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin A can help to hydrate and increase collagen and elastin formation in skin.

Stay away from harsh detergents, such a sulfates in soaps, shampoos and dishwashing liquids, limit your sun exposure and stay away from tanning booths, and limit your exposure to hot and chlorinated water—all of these things will decrease skin elasticity. Quick and dirty tip: If you swim for fitness, use soap and shampoos that are specially designed to remove chlorine.

When to Consider Surgery for Loose Skin

Skin can only be stretched so far before it looses some of its ability to snap back. If you’ve had a 9-month pregnancy, then you’ll be able to tighten your loose skin. But if you’ve carried a hundred or more extra pounds for many years, you may be a candidate for plastic surgery to tighten and lift loose skin. This fix should only be used in extreme cases, and I should warn you: my clients who have undergone this operation have actually gained more fat afterwards while they were rehabilitating from surgery!

Bottom Line

As mentioned earlier, elasticity of your skin will naturally decrease with age. Though you can address issues such as not losing weight too quickly, staying properly hydrated, eating the right foods, and caring for your skin, you simply have no control over your age! Quick and dirty tip: Rather than letting age stress you out, you should focus on the things over which you have control—like exercising and eating right—and you’ll find that you always look good.

Whether you have a kangaroo pouch, an orangutan chin, or elephant legs, you can use the tips in this article to tighten loose skin or prevent loose skin in the first place.

There are 12 things you should know about loose skin after very large weight losses:

1. Skin is incredibly elastic. Just look at what women go through during pregnancy. Skin has the ability to expand and contract to a remarkable degree.

2. Elasticity of skin tends to decrease with age. Wrinkling and loss of elasticity is partly the consequence of aging (genetic factors) and also a result of environmental factors such as oxidative stress, excessive sun exposure, and nutritional deficiency. The environmental parts you can fix, the genetics and age part, you cannot. Advice: Get moving and change the things you have control over... Be realistic and don't worry about those things you don't have control over.

3. How much your skin will return to its former tautness depends partly on age. The older you get, the more an extremely large weight loss can leave loose skin that will not return to normal

4. How long you carry extra weight has a lot to do with how much the skin will become taut after the weight loss: For example, compare a 9 month pregnancy with 9 years carrying 100 excess pounds.

5. How much weight was carried has a lot to do with how much the skin will resume a tight appearance. Your skin can only be stretched so much and be expected to "snap back" one hundred percent.

6. How fast the weight was gained also has a lot to do with how much the skin will resume a tight appearance. Your skin can only be stretched so quickly and be expected to "snap back."

7. How fast weight is lost also has a lot to do with how much the skin will tighten up. Rapid weight loss doesn't allow the skin time to slowly resume to normal. (yet another reason to lose fat slowly; 1-2 pounds per week, 3 pounds at the most if you have a lot of weight to lose, and even then, only if you are measuring body fat and you’re certain it's fat you’re losing, not lean tissue).

8. There are exceptions to all of the above; i.e, people who gained and then lost incredible amounts of weight quickly at age 50 or 60, and their skin returned 100% to normal.

9. There are many creams advertised as having the ability to restore the tightness of your skin. None work – at least not permanently and measurably – and especially if you have a lot of loose skin. Don't waste your money.

10. If you’re considering surgical skin removal, consult a physician for advice because this is not a minor operation, but keep in mind that your plastic surgeon may be making his BMW payments with your abdominoplasty money. (Surgery may be recommended in situations where it's not 100% necessary). Surgery should be left as the ABSOLUTE FINAL option in extreme cases.

11. Give your skin time. Your skin will get tighter as your body fat gets lower. I've seen and heard of many cases where the skin gradually tightened up, at least partially, after a one or two year period where the weight loss was maintained and exercise continued.

12. Know your body fat percentage before even THINKING about surgery. Loose skin is one thing, but still having body fat is another. Be honest with yourself and do that by taking your body fat measurement. This can be done with skinfold calipers or a variety of other devices (calipers might not be the best method if you have large folds of loose skin. Look into impedance analysis, underwater weighing, DEXA or Bod Pod).

1. Drink water, water and nothing but water, i drank 4L a day no caffine, no tea, just water...
2. Eat healthy for your skin: I found it very very hard to sit down with a bowl of salad, so what i done is i mixed up alot of vegies in my meals, so alot of stirfrys packed full of vegtables, if i had a burrito i would have 1, on a wholewheat tortellia packed full on with a heap of veggies. Aim for minimum 2 servings of fruit and 3 servies of vegies a day, with a piece of protein no bigger or thicker then the palm of your hand
3. Take care of your skin: alot of you guys may find this part a little "gay" but its worth it, every night in the shower exfoliate your skin and your entire body. Every morning and night after a shower (1 shower twice a day) rub your whole body in Pure Vitamin E oil, the good stuff is thick with a glue tecture.. Also at the same time, rub your whole body with a good cocoa butter, these 2 steps will help you to also get rid of those dark stretch marks. I had alot of stretch marks and the vit oil turned them into a very white light unseeable unless upclose colour... I really need to point the out for poeple to see them.
4. Take your vitamins: Every day i would take with breaky 1x Multivitamin, 1 hour later a vitamin E tablet (dont take them together) and then at lunch take 2x Omega 3 fishoil tablets. Then at dinner time have 1 multivitamin tablet and an hour later another fishoil tablet. These are all very good for your skin, circulation and blood flow with is all good stuff..
5. Skin firming lotion and tan up: I was out tanning myself everyday using skin firming tanning lotion it does exactly what its called, firms the skin
6. Hit the weights: alot of use already proberly know, doing resistance training helps to keep the skin tight to the muscles therefore not having hanging skin.
7. Do it sooner rather then later: At age 25, skin starts to loose its elasticity, so you need to loose it soon as possible, if your in your 30's still dont stress, check out some of the guys on Biggest loser australia aged 50+ dropped 60+kgs and had no loose skin, so dont think that just cause your overweight your gonna have droppy grooseloose skin. Although if you loose 150 odd kgs, yes you will have loose skin, but hell it would be worth it after looseing that much

I am going to keep updating this while I try several of the methods listed in these articles to shed my loose skin as well!

[bullrider_IL]

Also-

Just found this out:

A girl I know had a baby a couple months ago. She was really skinny before baby, then had big baby/loose skin/stretch marks. So I asked her what the Doctors had her do because she said she didn't want the surgery for skin removal. She said the Doctors had her do the following:

Wear Waist trimmer belt to hold skin in for 6-8 hours/day
Drink lots of fluids
Cocoa butter
Skin firming lotion

Said she has had great results for 2 months, loose skin is nearly gone. So I am considering trying the trimming belt along with what I am doing now. I am currently doing:
Cocoa Butter 2x/day
Skin firming lotion 2x/day
Tanning outside 30mins with tanning lotion (don't like laying outside all day for tan lol)
Drinking a TON of water
Da proteinz post-workout and 2 other scoops/day

[Hayley238]

I love this thread. I did a search before asking this exact question and this post was thankfully at the top of the list.

I have on question though. In the original post, amongst the third quoted section it says that the multi-vitamin and vitamin E tablet should not be taken together. Do you know why?

I already take a multivit and vitamin E but always in the morning and at the same time. I'm now wondering if this is bad.

[misfit28]

Just repped, as I am currently dealing with this issue as well.

I was overweight my entire life, and now am at my lightest weight as an adult (have lost 110 lbs. since last March). Major loose skin, though

It would probably be much worse if I hadn't done most of the things in your first post: Eat clean, over a gallon of water a day, lift heavy weights