excess skin - can it be avoided?

hi all.

 

i have been counting calories since january, and lost 27 pounds by eating about 1300-1500 cals a day and walking. want to lose about 95 more, then i will be at my healthy weight.

i am slightly worried about the possibility of having excess skin after that (i am 33, ie not very young anymore).

are there any things to do or avoid to have normal skin after the big weight loss?

i would think body scrub, firming creams (i do both-any tip for good brands?), maybe not losing too fast? ate massages useful? i do not xpect to have skin like a 15 years old but guess i do not want any excess skin thingys...

I'm glad you asked, because I'm wondering the exact thing.  I've only lost 20 since January, and I can already see a bit of excess skin just beneath my navel.   I can pull it, and it's very elastic.

And along a similar subject, is there a way to get rid of the stretch marks from being big?

Yeah, from what I understand there is no way to avoid excess skin. What happens is, your skin has lost all of its elasticity and will not go back to the way it was before the weight was put on.

The only way to not have the excess skin is through a tummy tuck. Stinky I know, but this is what I have heard.

Everyone is different in the way their body reacts to weight loss, some people can have a problem with excess skin, and some dont. Those creams and potions dont work either, I have tried them before haha. All you can do is work out and that might help a little bit. I had a baby in august and everything else is going back to where it is supposed to be but the excess skin on my belly. Losing wieght is a battle either way you look at it, you want to lose weight then you are scared because then you are left with excess skin, but the way I see it is there are things that you can do about the skin, like having it removed if that is an option or work out as much as you can.  I take my extra skin in stride, you won a battle against somehting that could eventually ruin your health, look at it as battle wounds and you won the fight, thats what I say about the saggy belly and the strech marks that I have from having a baby, he is worht it!

Leopardrayne

Strech marks are forever, I had them from when I was big years before i had my son, and i tried the strech mark creams religiously, they dont go away but they do get lighter.

yep, people say the stretch marks can go lighter.

 

hmm. i do hope i have elastic skin:-) i WILL continue my battle, that is for sure, some excess skinn will not discourage me )and i am not going under the knife for that, i am just not the type:-)

if you lose too fast, you will have loose skin. sadly, if you're a lady, your chest will be much less firm than it once was as well. :(

but the elasticity will come back over time. it may take a year or longer, but your skin will slowly tighten up. There are some home ingredients that can speed the process - make a scrub with ground coffee, vitamine e  oil, and ground citrus peel, mixed with a little olive oil and liquid soap - the caffiene and natural oils will help your skin heal itself faster.

I lost 40 lb last year, and my skin is starting to firm up again. I'm 36. I use the above combination a few times a week, and it seems to be working nicely.

good luck!

THANKS!

re caffeine - do you use ground beands from a coffe you had, or how is it done? sorry if i sound stupid, i know there are some potions with caffeine but do not know how to prepare a homemade one.

as for the chest-i pretty much know this is gonna happen and am sort of prepared. life is not easy:)

my 2 cents?
I think, depending on the amount of weight lost and how long you were heavy, some loose skin is inevitable.
I had been heavy/overweight my entire life. I flew past 200lbs at the age of 17, and stayed up there for nearly 10 years.
In the last year, I've lost damn near 100lb, fairly quickly - but with lots and lots of exercise built in to very carefully watching what I ate, and my loose skin has not been as bad as some that I've seen... I am young, but I attribute my skin managing to hold a fair bit of firmness to the lots and lots of working out (YOGA! RUNNING! SWIMMING! BIKING! YOGA! ELLIPTICAL! YOGA!).
I have a soft tummy with firm muscles underneath, but am still holding 140lbs on a 5' 4" frame - but I'm super fit and healthy now, and am not planning to lose more than 5 or 10 lbs more, and very slowly on just-below-maintenance calorie intake. I have some arm skin flaps, but I attribute that to my Portuguese grandmother, since both of my *always* super fit sisters both have those, too. My least favorite is the flappy skin on my upper-inner thigh, but everyone promises me that it's completely unnoticeable unless I'm in my bikini (!! :o) ) and grabbing it to show above-referenced sisters!
Is that helpful? It was kinda cathartic, anyway - good luck, and let me know if I can help

thanks - you sound vey motivated - good luck with your weight loss, and good bye to excess skin-maybe:)

A couple of years ago I saw a woman on television who was quite thin, but due to the birth of her baby, her stomach was a mass of loose skin.  You would never have thought it to look at her, but when she lifted her shirt, you were shocked.  Now that I'm losing weight - hopefully - I worry about that as well.  But in the program, she began seeing a massage therapist who specialized in excess skin.  The therapist believed that the skin could be worked back into elasticity, and you know what?  A few weeks later, the woman could raise her shirt and show off a belly to  be proud of.  I've never forgotten it.  Definitely, definitely look into it.

Don't loose hope, best thing you can do is drink lots of water.  The more hydrated you are the more elasticity your skin will have.  I personally gained 65 pounds with my first child and it was a marker point I had never been at in my life.  My son was premature and actually only weighed 5.5 lbs so as you can imagine it was not the baby :)  Anyway I did diet and managed to lose all of the weight I had gained and a little more and had no excess skin in the end at all, I did however end up with stretch marks on the belly and thighs which I use Strivectin on (tube is not in front of me at the moment so spelling may be off) and it seems to be diminishing the more severe ones pretty nicely.  Although they will never go away having them for 8 years before I tried it I think it has helped immensley.  So do your best to keep hydrated inside and moisturize the outside.

lift weights and build muscle while dieting  will help you immensely as you have another 100 lbs to go the lifing and wight training will restructure your body ..five and ten lb weights are just fine  ..

thanks danilaz and everyone else,

it was nice reading your responses. i am always drinking enough water (or rosehip tea etc.) and now am planning some more exercise, so that these things - added to a bit of cosmetic ghelp - might be helpful.

even if they will not help, it is better to lose that weight and have less than perfect skin