Sagging skin/cellulite/stretch marks without surgery

mezzanine16

Hi!

I notice that when people lose a lot of weight they have hanging skin/stretch marks/cellulite
Many people seem to get surgery to remove the skin.
I was wondering if any of you were able to get rid of hanging skin (or avoid it all together) with strictly diet and weight training.
Same with people who had cellulite, did it disappear and become less visible?
Tips would be appreciated!

Thanks ☺️

middlehaitch

All of the above are down to genetics.

Also contributing are age, amount of weight gained and lost, how many times one has gained and lost, nutrition, and activity.

Things that may help.

Lose at an apropriate rate.
Fast loss means your nutrition is not optimal.
A slower loss, a better nutritional profile, hopefully, which will help with delivering enough collagen and elastine to the skin for it to rebuild.

Protein.
Both collagen and elastine are proteins. Get adequate protein to get good collagen and elastine production. 0.8-1g per lbs of lbm or mid range ideal BMI.

Cardio.
This helps with circulation. Good circulation helps with cell turnover and delivers all those good nutrients to the skin.

Weights, resistance training. Helps give a better substructure for the skin to hang off.* HGH is stimulated to a certain degree, this can help with skin regeneration.

*(I think it would be close to impossible for a woman who lost a lot of weight to fill the skin with muscle, but having muscle with tone under the skin can make the outward appearance of the skin less flaccid looking, better supported.)

Creams, massage.
These make the epidermis look good, and us feel good, but few OTC lotions and potions (prescription may) affect skin regeneration. The actual action of massage (applying creams, etc,) does help towards circulation which helps in cell turnover etc.

Stretch marks are scars. They can fade overtime, but will always be there. VitE (maybe VitA too) creams could be helpful but I don’t know the effective dosage.

It can take up to 2years and beyond for your skin to catch up, as much as it will, with your weight loss.

Cheers, h.

AnnPT77

H., as always, has lots of good advice above.

I'd add - and this is just my opinion - that a very large fraction of people who lose substantial weight in actuality have less of a problem with loose skin than people just starting on weight loss (or part way through weight loss) seem to fear that they will have themselves.

I'd suggest reading posts in the "Success Stories" forum about people who've lost substantial weight. Many of them are honest about loose skin, including showing pictures in swimsuits or the like. I think you will be pleasantly surprised, in many cases, by how moderate the issue really is.

It's true that some people decide to have surgery, but from reading posts here it seems to me that it's a minority. Skin does shrink, but it can take some time after weight loss. For one thing, until most fat is gone, the remaining fat tends to conspire with gravity to keep skin stretched out. My loose skin (after losing about 50 pounds at age 59-60) kept shrinking at least well into my 2nd year of maintenance, and perhaps slowly beyond that. I had been obese for around 3 decades before that weight loss. Now, heading into year 4 of maintenance, I don't think I'm significantly saggier than other women my age who have always been at a healthy weight. Certainly, people who newly meet me are often visibly surprised if I say I was recently obese, even if they're meeting me when I'm dressed in close-fitting clothing, swimsuit, sleeveless tops, etc.

There's almost certainly a genetic component, but I agree with H. that a healthfully moderate weight loss rate, good nutrition, exercise, adequate hydration, etc., are your best bets. Skin is an organ. The things that keep other organs healthy also keep skin healthy and as willing as it can be to be elastic and recover.

mezzanine16

Thank you!

bendeka

I would look into Intermittent fasting and Dr. Jason Fung if I were you. He wrote Obesity Code. He says with fasting the only proteins that you lose is loose skin and that he never has problems with his patients having any sort of loose skin.