tl,dr; lost 11kgs and 6 inches off my waist, face now looks worse. does this get better in time?
hi everyone. i started IF around October 2021 as when i got weighed at the doctor’s, i was at 69kgs which is overweight for my height of 5’5. since then i’ve lost 11 kgs, which in itself is amazing! i feel very proud of myself. however, losing weight is actually just a side effect of my main goal of reaching a 25in waist. i started at 31in, now i’m at 27in(i could reach 25 if i suck it in hard enough lol), so i only have a little bit to go.
my problem now is my nasolabial folds that seemed to suddenly crop up overnight. they’re not wrinkles, it’s like sagging baby fat on my cheeks. i spotted them 3 days ago. ever since then, i stopped sleeping on my side in hopes that it was just sleep wrinkles, but it hasn’t gone away. i get good 6-8hrs of sleep every night, i’m well hydrated, i still keep a good diet, i have a regular skincare routine that includes spf and tretinoin, and i don’t feel any emotional stress- meaning this has to have been a side effect of weight loss. this has really disheartened me, and now i want to stop my journey to return to where i was before.
is this just a case of some parts of my face losing fat before the others? do i still have to trust in the process until i reach my goal? will my age help my skin return to its previous state? or should i simply stop fasting now? any advice/experiences/reassurance would be really really helpful. thanks in advance everyone!
The same happened to me a few years ago, after a drastic weight loss due to stress mostly. I actually did not notice it myself, but a doctor friend offered to treat me with fillers and I was super surprised because I hadn’t looked at my face before that - yeah, it’s the weight loss but it’s nothing to be alarmed about - it gets better after you adjust to the new weight. I even had issues with my shoes - they were bigger after the weight loss and that was also a new discovery for me back then :)))
There are massage techniques and facial exercises you can do to stimulate blood flow and tighten/strengthen up facial muscles.
Do a search on youtube there are tons of videos on the subject. I have tried a few and they definitely have a small face firming effect.
This happened to my boyfriend following significant weight loss. Like you, he lost fat in his cheeks. It made him look older. It didn’t go completely away for him, but I noticed it improved when he gained some of the weight back.
>nasolabial folds
The fact that you know a term for something like that is bit of a red flag that you might have some kind of body dysmorphia problem, in my opinion.
Looked it up on google and man, why do people waste money on something like that. Unless you get paid for your looks, why care?