How To Prevent Saggy Skin During Weight Loss
Naturally, a concern of many guests is preventing excess or sagging skin after losing a sizable amount of body fat and weight. One of the key things to keep in mind when working toward your weight loss goal is to shed the pounds gradually.
The general recommendation is to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, which translates to 4 to 8 pounds per month, said Lizbeth.
Our skin is made of elastin and collagen fibers, enabling it to stretch without tearing. Weight gain causes your skin to stretch tight like an over inflated balloon. Over time the elasticity of your skin weakens, and isnt able to snap back when you lose weight quickly.
When you go slowly, you burn fat while building muscle. And as our experts have explained, losing weight steadily can increase your metabolic rate, rather than slowing it. This heightened metabolic rate actually helps you to shed pounds that will stay off in the long term.
Cardio and weight training are both required if your goal is to lose weight, get lean and toned, said Lizbeth. Cardio is more effective at burning calories and weight loss, while weight training is more effective at building lean muscle mass.
However, if youre just doing cardio, youll risk losing lean muscle mass, she explained. This can result in saggy skin and also impact your metabolism.
Building muscle can help to avoid excess skin. Replacing the body fat you once had, the muscle will take its place and help to fill out your skin.
Intermittent Fasting For Loose Skin
One of the best ways to lose weight is through intermittent fasting and it can also help tighten your skin. Fasting will not only lower your daily calorie intake but youll also release fat-burning and muscle-building hormones in your body.
Another benefit of these hormones is theyre great for strengthening the integrity of your skin. This will help to reverse the loosened skin on your belly.
One of the ways intermittent fasting is great for loose skin is it naturally increases catecholamine levels . This helps to increase the blood flow to your extra stomach skin which will naturally help tighten it back up.
With intermittent fasting, you can expect to not only burn off more fat but also preserve your lean muscle when youre strength training . This too will help fill out your loose stomach skin.
Fasting naturally improves your bodys insulin sensitivity . This promotes fat burning from stubborn areas such as right underneath your loosened skin.
Ideally, its best to fast for 12-18 hours daily. Id recommend starting off at the lower range and building your way up to at least 16 hours. Some people go so far as following an eating every other day fasting diet.
It can be kinda hard at first to get used to intermittent fasting. Start off on the lower end and work your way up. Your stomach will continue to shrink and it will become easier.
Factors That Influence The Loss Of Skin Elasticity
Several factors contribute to loose skin following weight loss:
- Length of time. In general, the longer someone has had overweight or obesity, the looser their skin will be after weight loss due to elastin and collagen loss.
- Amount of weight lost. Weight loss of 100 pounds or more typically results in a greater amount of loose skin than more moderate weight loss.
- Age. Older skin has less collagen than younger skin and tends to be looser following weight loss (
17 ).
In a controlled study, skin elasticity, along with texture and hydration, increased significantly after 12 weeks of taking a liquid collagen supplement. The drink also contained vitamins C and E, as well as biotin and zinc .
Collagen hydrolysate is also known as hydrolyzed collagen. It comes in powdered form and can be purchased at natural food stores or online.
Another popular source of collagen is bone broth, which provides other health benefits as well.
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The Loose Skin Problem
Shedding off your extra pounds is crucial to reducing your risk of contracting diseases and long-term illnesses. However, although youre much healthier than before, you may still feel a bit self-conscious about your body because of the excess skin resulting from your weight loss.
The skin is the largest organ of the body, which protects it from harmful environmental elements. Since the innermost layer of your skin consists of collagen and elastin, it can expand during weight gain to make more room for increased growth.
During pregnancy, the skin expands, but it usually retracts months after the delivery of the baby. However, the skin can only expand for a certain amount of time. The thing about skin is that the collagen and elastin fibers it contains will become damaged if it remains significantly stretched for an extensive period.
Since youve been a specific weight for a long time, your skin wont be able to retract as it should, which results in excess skin hanging from your body. The greater the weight loss, the more pronounced loose skin youll have.
How To Avoid Loose Skin When Losing Weight
3 mins
Samina Siddique
After a long and challenging journey, you’ve finally found a workout you love and a diet that syncs with your lifestyle while helping you shed those extra pounds.
However, if the changes in your diet and lifestyle are too overwhelming for your body, the results might be slightly less appealing than you had hoped.
Your skin may not have enough time to bounce back from the loss of weight, leaving you with saggy or loose skin in some prominent regions like your thighs, arms, and stomach.
So, why doesn’t the skin spring back?
How to avoid loose skin when losing weight and accomplishing your goal?
Are there any products that might help?
This article will discuss all these points guide you on the prevention techniques you can use.
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Where Does All That Skin Go See For Yourself
Franklin Santana, a 29-year-old who lives in the Bronx, had gastric bypass surgery in October 2011, and before the surgery, he weighed 395 pounds. Two years later, as of late last year, he was down to 170. To the public, he seemed like a trim, even skinny, guy. But underneath the clothes, he said his sagging skin reminded him of a deflated balloon.
Im wearing a fat suit I feel like Im a thin person inside wearing a body thats twice the size of mine.
To me, it looks gross, said Santana. You know how a pumpkin looks, at the beginning of October? And then, at the end of October, its all sad and saggy and deflated. I guess you could say it looks like that.
Fantana had done his research before getting the surgery done, and he knew that hed probably be saddled with loose skin after it was over.
Deborah Olmstead, who first had weight loss surgery done in 2001, knew to expect it, too she just didn’t know how awful it would make her feel.
“I was not really comfortable even looking at myself in the mirror, with all the excess flesh,” said Olmstead, who lives in New York state and had cosmetic surgery in Manhattan, led by Wallach, to remove the sagging skin in 2004. “You’ve done all this work, you’ve made this big, massive change that you see on the scale, but you don’t necessarily see it in your clothing, or the way you feel about yourself.”
How To Avoid Loose Skin After Weight Loss
Having a goal to lose weight when you know you should is always a good thing to pursue. Youll feel much better with each pound that you lose. Youll begin to have more energy, fit into your clothing better, and have fewer body aches and pains.
However, if you have a lot of weight to lose, you may be leaving something behind loose skin. This loose skin can certainly diminish the improvement in how your body looks from all your hard work.
It can also be very uncomfortable if not painful to carry around all that skin. It can make it hard to workout. You can get rashes, irritation, and other undesirable body effects.
Although loose skin is something that you cant guarantee wont happen, there are some effective techniques of how to avoid loose skin after weight loss, which well share with you here.
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What Are The Surgical Options
Surgery for removing excess skin, also called skin excision or body contouring, should be performed by a board-certified plastic surgeon. These procedures involve large incisions, so patients are generally put to sleep using general anesthesia.
The extent of the procedure, and the recovery time needed, depends on the body parts involved. Common surgeries for skin excision focus on the abdominal area , the upper arms , thighs, breasts , and face and neck. Some patients opt for a full “lower body lift,” Dr. Malin says, which tightens the skin around the thighs and buttocks with an incision that runs around the waist.
Surgeries that involve larger incisions, especially those around the midsection, may require several days in the hospital. On the other hand, a patient undergoing an arm lift could be sent home that same day.
“The recovery time for an arm lift includes compression garments and limited activitylifting no more than 20 pounds, for example,” he says. Most skin incisions take six to eight weeks to heal, and doctors and patients should follow up closely with each other during this time.
Doctors also won’t perform more than one or two skin excision surgeries at one time, so someone who’s lost weight all over may need multiple surgeries, months or even years apart, to remove all of the excess skin that’s bothering them.
Types Of Extra Skin Removal Procedures
Excess skin can be removed using a variety of methods. Most people require a combination of surgeries to get the desired appearance. Your doctor can advise you on which operations will be most beneficial to you.
The procedures for extra skin removal include:
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What Is The Best Skin Tightening Non
Non-surgical skin tightening procedure is ideal for all of those peoples who have mild skin or those who couldnt bear the circumstances of surgeries.
However, at the same time, non-surgical skin-tightening procedures are not ideal for some patients who are either facing medical issues or women who are pregnant.
You must consult your doctor to get a more accurate details. After the consultation, anyone can proceed to the next step based on it.
There is three common and useful non-surgical skin tightening procedure you can apply on your body, including Radiofrequency, Ultrasound, and Intense pulsed light treatment.
All of these treatments are good enough to tighten your skin after weight loss.
How To Tighten Up Loose Skin After Weight Loss In 2022
Gradual weight loss is superb, especially if you get to your desired weight and body shape. When the weight goes down slowly, the skin usually acclimates as the body adjusts.
The skin takes time to alter the collagen production to adapt to the new shape. You may still have a few stretch marks here and there, but that is about it.
However, it is not always candies and roses with significant weight loss since loose skin after weight loss is a thing that many experiences but never speak about.
So many ask Will I have loose skin if I lose weight?
The answer is most probably, especially if it is a dramatic fat reduction. This piece addresses how to avoid loose skin after weight loss by offering remedies to counteract the extra skin that remains behind.
So, are there any natural remedies or surgical treatments that can help?
Keep reading to find out how.
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Identify: Skin Or Fat
First of all you need to identify whether the excess skin is actually that, or whether it could be a thin layer of stubborn fat.
If you can pinch more than a few millimetres of skin then you probably still have some fat cells that need to be lost before the skin will appear firmer. Our bodies hold on to stubborn types of fat – in men its usually areas such as the lower abs and lower back, whereas in women it can be stored on the thighs, backside, abs and hips – which, as the name suggests, is more difficult to lose.
In order to burn fat, your body produces a chemical known as catecholamine. These travel through your blood and attach to receptors on fat cells, catalysing the release of the energy stored within the cells so it can be burned off.
What you think is excess skin may actually be stubborn fat cells stored within the skin, in which case you will need to keep training to reduce it before the skin can look firm. The best way to do this is through HIIT training, which maximises fat burning during and after the workout, and also through strength training.
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Who Might Get Loose Skin
After losing weight, loose skin can seem like the final hurdle.
First, we hope youâve taken a moment to congratulate yourself. Weight loss can be tough â and losing a large amount of weight is a journey you can only truly understand if youâve been through it.
However, after the hard work of losing weight, loose skin can remain in places where you once had excess fat – such as stomach, thighs, chest, arms, and neck â which can range from a barely-noticeable few millimetres to several highly visible inches.
Factors That Influence Skin Loosening During Weight Loss Include The Following:
- Age: As you get older, your skin becomes less elastic.2
- Amount of weight you lost: Weight loss of 100 pounds or more typically results in a greater amount of hanging skin.
- Genetics: Genes influence how much firmness your skin retains as you get older. Some people are just more susceptible to sagging skin than others.
- How long you’ve been overweight: If you’re overweight for a long period of time you’re skin may not be able to fully contract back into its smaller shape down when you lose weight.
- How quickly you lose weight: When you lose too much weight too fast, such as with weight loss surgery, your skin’s elasticity doesn’t have time to catch up. The result is loose skin.3
- Nutrition and water intake: Your skin may not be as healthy or firm if you aren’t getting balanced nutrition, vitamins, and minerals and staying hydrated.4
- Smoking: Smoking can speed up the normal aging process of your skin.
- Sun exposure: Your past, present, and future exposure to the sun can damage your skin.
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The Elasticity Of Your Skin
Did you know that skin is the largest human organ? As your bodys most protective layer, your skin is comprised of the proteins elastin and collagen. The fibers of these proteins are what give your skin its firm strength and elasticity. This is what helps your skin to stretch during weight gain without tearing.
Slow and steady is the key to permanent weight loss.
However, over time and with increased weight gain, these protein fibers become weak and often damaged. As such, when significant weight loss requires the elastic and collagen fibers to retract to their original state, it is difficult for them to do so.
Skin stretches to form the shape of your body since its an elastic organ, explained Lizbeth. Your skin may not contract back to its smaller shape if weight is lost too quickly.
This inability for the skin to contract as well as it once would have, due to the weakening of the fibers over time, is what leads to excess or saggy skin during weight loss. Often, the more weight that is shed, the harder it will be for the skin to revert back to normal.