12 Best Tips For Loose Skin After Weight Loss
Once The Fat Is Gone, You Are Often Confronted With An Equally Frustrating Cosmetic Problem; Loose Skin.
Do You Have Loose Skin after Losing Weight?
What do you do about Loose Skin?
Loose sagging skin on our face, stomach, arms, and other areas is very distressing to many who have lost weight.
In the past, effective skin tightening required plastic surgical procedures like facelifts and tummy tucks.
However, in the past few years, many new non-surgical and laser skin tightening methods have been developed.
Often using a combination of different methods, substantial skin tightening can be achieved without surgery.
Many skin-tightening advertisements can be misleading, so you need to be an informed consumer and understand the technology if you are going to achieve the result that you desire.
Tight, firm skin requires good elasticity.
Elasticity means the ability of the skin to snap back or tighten after it has been displaced or pulled away from the body.
Good elasticity depends on healthy collagen and elastin fibers that lie very deep, near the bottom of the dermis, the deep layer of our skin below the surface.
Collagen and elastin fibers act like small rubber bands that hold the skin tight against our body, and pull the skin back when it is stretched or pulled.
An unhealthy diet and lifestyle destroys collagen and elastin in the dermis and causes your skin to loosen and sag.
Stretching caused by pregnancy or rapid weight loss after dieting destroys collagen and elastin in the dermis resulting in sagging and loss of skin tone.
Laser and non-surgical skin tightening methods work by stimulating the growth of new collagen and elastin in the dermis.
When you heat collagen and elastin to 66 degrees centigrade, the collagen and elastin fibers shrink or tighten, and are remodeled with new collagen and elastin formation.
The effect of this tightening and new collagen and elastin formation is that the deep dermis contracts and becomes firmer and the skin is tightened.
Elastin and collagen lie very deep in the skin, the challenge is to get enough heat deep down in the skin to remodel the elastin and collagen without burning the surface of your skin as the heat passes through the more superficial layers.
Another method applies heat to the deep layers from underneath to achieve laser skin tightening.
New laser liposuction technology like SlimLipo uses a small laser cannula placed beneath the skin to melt fat. The heat also causes contraction and skin tightening or firming of the overlying skin.
There are many non-plastic surgeons and dermatologists who advertise laser and light services who are not experts at these techniques.
You need to ask the right questions and investigate.
These new technologies can be dangerous and harmful in inexperienced hands.
Everything You Need To Know About Loose Skin And Weight Loss
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com
If you’re extremely overweight or if you’ve been extremely overweight in the past, then you know that getting rid of excess weight is only one of the challenges you face.
Once the fat is gone, you are often confronted with an equally frustrating cosmetic problem; Loose skin.
I receive a lot of e-mails from people with loose skin or from overweight people who are concerned about having loose skin after they lose weight.
Just recently, I received this email from a reader of my syndicated “Ask Tom” fat loss column:
“Tom, I began a fat loss program using your Burn the Fat Program and it worked so well I got down to 15 1/2 stones (from 19).
However, this has caused me a problem: Excess abdominal skin. I didn’t crash lose this weight, it came off at the rate of about 2 lbs. per week just like you recommended.
Now I’m unsure of whether to carry on, as my abdomen has quite a lot of excess skin – I feel like I’ve turned into a bloody Shar-Pei! (You know, as in the dog!)
Does everyone go through this?
Will the skin tighten up?
I was overweight for more than 12 years. Am I going to end up needing surgical skin removal?
Can you offer me any advice? I’m a medical student in the UK and my colleagues seem determined to proffer surgery as the only option.”
My answer included 12 things you should know about loose skin after very large weight loss:
12 Tips to Address Your Loose Skin Problems
- Loose Skin Tip – Skin is incredibly elastic. Just look at what women go through during pregnancy. The skin can expand and contract to a remarkable degree.
- Loose Skin Tip – The elasticity of skin tends to decrease with age. Wrinkling and loss of elasticity are 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.”
- Loose Skin Tip – 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).
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – There are many creams advertised as having the ability to restore the tightness of your skin. None are likely to work – at least not permanently and measurably – and especially if you have a lot of loose skin. Don’t waste your money.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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.
- Loose Skin Tip – 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).
Suppose, for example, a man drops from 35% body fat down to 20%. He should be congratulated, but I would tell him, “Don’t complain about loose skin, your body fat is still high. Press onward and keep getting leaner.”
Average body fat for men is in the mid-teens (16% or so) Good body fat for men is 10-12%, and single digits are extremely lean (men shouldn’t expect to look “ripped” with 100% tight skin on the abs unless they have single digit body fat and women low teens).
Except in extreme cases, you are unlikely to see someone with loose skin who has very low body fat.
It’s quite remarkable how much your skin can tighten up and start to “cling” to your abdominal muscles once your body fat goes from “average” to “excellent.” Someone with legitimate single-digit body fat and a ton of loose skin is a rare sight.
So… the key to getting tighter skin is to lose more body fat, (and build more muscle), up to the point where your body composition rating is BETTER than average (in the “good” to “great” category, not just “okay”).
Only AFTER you reach your long-term body fat percentage goal should you give thought to “excess skin removal.” At that point, admittedly, there are bound to be a few isolated cases where surgery is necessary if you can’t live with the amount of loose skin remaining.
However, unless you are really, really lean, it’s difficult to get a clear picture of what is loose skin, what is just remaining body fat, and how much further the skin will tighten up when the rest of the fat is lost.
Need help getting rid of that last bit of body fat? Click here to find out how to do it the natural way: www.burnthefat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men, and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide. For information on Tom’s Fat Loss program, visit: www.burnthefat.com
Loose Skin Tips, Tricks & Techniques
- The skin can expand and contract to a remarkable degree.
- Wrinkling and loss of elasticity are 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.
- How much your skin will return to its former tautness depends partly on age.
- How long you carry extra weight has a lot to do with how much the skin will become taut after the weight loss.
- 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.
- 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.”
- Rapid weight loss doesn’t allow the skin time to slowly resume to normal.
- There are exceptions.
- There are many creams advertised as having the ability to restore the tightness of your skin. None are likely to work – at least not permanently and measurably – and especially if you have a lot of loose skin.
- Surgery should be left as the ABSOLUTE FINAL option in extreme cases.
- Give your skin time. Your skin will get tighter as your body fat gets lower.
- The key to getting tighter skin is to lose more body fat, (and build more muscle), up to the point where your body composition rating is BETTER than average.