Loose skin ( stretchy skin ) is something that has always crossed my mind when trying to loose weight. The fear that clothes still wouldn’t look good on me after loosing weight because of massive amounts of loose skin. And I am deathly afraid of going under the knife to remove any excess loose skin, especially since I’ve heard the recovery is long and sedentary. I’ve seen Before and After pics on here where it seems like some people avoided it and don’t have any, even after loosing a lot of weight. My question is how? How do you avoid having loose skin as a result of weight loss?
From the medical research that I’ve seen it’s rapid gain and genetics that cause loose skin. If you gain rapidly and or have major stretch marks you’ve lost some elasticity. Everyone has some stretch marks, but some (like myself) look like a minefield of stretch marks (deep ones too).I had and still have many areas of loose skin, even post having some of it removed (no sense of feeling 10 years in).
You’ll find a million creams and snake oil to fix stretch marks, but mostly aside from fading them there isn’t much you can really do once they occur. You can prevent them while your gaining weight to a much better extent. There is some research that microneedling (no ink tattoo essentially) can be somewhat effective ($$$).
That being said, moisturizing your skin is good. Also you will look and feel better even with any loose skin, and most of the time you can hide it really well with clothing.
We won’t get better harboring anger over the things we did in our past, being better than you were yesterday is a better outlook.
Although I don’t have answers you need good luck with your journey. I feel the same way and I’m just hoping time at a lesser weight plus some muscle bulk will take up the slack in a more appealing way. All the best 👍🏻
Mostly genetics and age. Remember that many of us have experience with enormous stretching of belly skin from pregnancy even if never overweight. Mine bounced wonderfully several times but sadly not completely the last time. I had a friend though, whose skin just stayed where it was after one pregnancy! No elasticity at all. She did get tummy tuck and said best decision of her life.
It’s your body, but I’d say don’t let the fear prevent you from trying for a healthy weight. Looks are not the only advantage of keeping at a good weight for your height.
I hope someone with actual experience will chime in, but from reading this subreddit almost daily for a long time I have 2 bits of advice. Those who seem to lose the skin are also younger, so age makes a difference, but that is not something you can control.
The second thing I read is the importance of a “clean” fast, that means no cream/milk in your coffee, no flavored seltzer water, no Diet Coke, no zero calorie gum,… basically avoiding anything other than water, black coffee, unflavored teas and sparkling water, electrolytes/salt with no added flavors. This will increase your chance of reaching autophagy (getting your body to clean up useless cells, including extra skin cells). A good book to get out of the library on the importance of a clean fast will be “ Fast, Feast, Repeat.”
Good luck and happy fasting!
Let me offer a real solution Im not seeing in any of the other comments.
You cant make your skin less loose but you can stretch it back tighter by adding muscles.
Men can add a lot of muscle in their chest backs and shoulders which will pull the torso skin tighter addressing a lot of the stomach flappiness.
Women fear gaining muscle but its a joke. Even the most ripped women wont get that big unless they are joicing steroids.
I live in Hawaii where a ton of women athletes live and train and not one ever got big that wasnt juicing in my experience. These are hardcore ironman weight lifting swimmers.
You can lift heavy and often and fill that skin back up to tighten up.
Ive been through the journey and at my leanest post 100lb weight loss my stomach loose skin was not noticeable in tight tshirts and just a little wrinkley around belly button with shirt off.
Of I hadnt added twenty pounds of muscle to my chest and back I know it would have been way worse. Lift.
watch some Dr. Jason Fung vids/ read his book, the obesity code… where he talks about autophagy and how, with fasting, the body will utilize and break down the excess proteins and connective tissues resulting in less loose skin as you lose weight. Try to optimize autophagy in your fasting routine. Good luck.