A Few Words About Loose Skin

(Thanks to a reader for the question!)

Well then. Loose skin. I want to let you know that I'm not a doctor, and I can only tell you about my experience with it. Your results might be much different than mine.

A few things.

There is a supplement called Selenium which I have started taking recently, it's supposed to promote skin elasticity. Try to find the one without yeast or bad stuff in it. I found it was cheaper at walmart.

When you lose a lot of weight under your skin sometimes your skin needs time to catch up to your rapid weight loss. I'm going to tell you straight up that I only started noticing 'loose skin' at 70-80 lbs lost. So if you are in your twenties and are losing less than that you probably shouldn't worry.

You need to remember that I only started 'working out' and barely, recently. So to avoid any loose skin I should have just wroked out through this journey. Ah well, hindsight eh?

& I have to specify, by loose skin I don't mean that hanging stuff that some really obese people have or older people who lose a lot of weight. Since I am in my early twenties and wasn't obese my entire life, my skin has bounced back quite a bit. It puckers around my stomach a little and I can tell it's loose around my chest, thighs and arms, but you can't tell just by looking at me.

To be honest I'm really self concious about it. Like very.

So I did some research and it turns out your skin has 2 years after losing a lot of weight before it's shrunk back as much as it will without surgery. So I basically have a two year window to lift weights and do sit ups before I'm stuck with my loose skin. A little scary, but I'm trying and working towards it because I'm embarassed.

Now whether or not you will get loose skin is determined by a few things, namely your age. As everyone knows, the older you are, typically, the less elastic your skin is. It is also determined by how long you have been overweight and how overweight you were.

A good way to help prevent loose skin is to hydrate and drink a lot of water.

A little word from Prawn on loose skin:

Being significantly heavier than C- loose skin became a near phobia of mine right around the 70 pounds mark. Hearing horror stories of people needing surgery, or looking disgusting after such amazing levels of weight loss was almost enough to want me to stop the diet. Upon spending a few hours researching the condition I noticed some trends in the information people had given out.

Have you ever noticed in the show "Biggest Loser" how very few of the contestants have any loose skin nearing the end of their weight loss? This begs the question, why. Well this is because skin like any other part of our body is an organ. Like our lungs or our liver it is a constantly adjusting part of us. To avoid loose skin we need to keep that organ in good shape. Now loose skin is actually fat. As we lose weight our body isn't able to properly process through and eat at all of it especially on diets that only target food. So by exercising we are able to burn through those fat cells and keep our skin tight. Losing weight too fast is also a factor in weight loss. The downside of this diet is that people often see results at a rapid rate and as such this factor is unavoidable.

There are other options, but they are less effective in combatting loose skin (besides expensive surgery). The term "brushing" or skin brushing is one I found over the course of my research. The act of taking a brush with firm brissles across one's skin. This action increases circulation to our organ (skin) which increases its productivity so to speak. More circulation, less skin.

In closing: you should not allow fears of loose skin stop you from starting today! You should just give the diet a try. If after losing 20-30 pounds you decide that this diet is for you and you want to continue with your significant weight loss (Or for those looking to only shed a few pounds congratulations you're already there) maybe re-asses your priorities when it comes to loose skin vs. the need for exercise. 

xoxo