Saggy skin, stretch marks, and all the things no one talks a

MinnieInMaine

How your skin reacts all depends on your genetics, how long you were overweight/obese, if your weight has yo-yo'd a lot, etc. I'm not happy about my saggy belly and arms right now but, as others have said, I'm much more proud of them than I was of my body when I was almost 80 pounds heavier, that's for DAMN sure!!

Up until a few months ago, I'd been overweight/obese for my entire adult life (nearly 20 years) so I can't expect my body to magically firm up because I want it to. I know the 2 year rule...it won't be pleasant at times but I'll have to keep reminding myself to be patient and that being fit with a bit of flab is WAY better than being obese and unhealthy.

For those of you who are slathering on the lotions, remember that the body also hydrates from the inside out so be sure to drink plenty of water and don't skimp on those healthy fats!

Maggieq87

Is anyone willing to share pics of their bellies, post 2 year "snap back"? I'm really curious because my bell haaaangs and It has since i was really young..like 12, maybe before.

Stacivogue

Usually, saggy skin only happens in extremely obese people and stretch marks only occur in people who lose alot of weight VERY quickly (the unhealthy way).

Or when you have a baby. Just saying.

lelliebugh

I am 5ft 9 and weight 292. I know I am going to have skin and stretch marks. Luckily when I reach goal weight and maintain for 3 months if I decide to have surgery I am blessed to have parents who have agreed to pay for it. I have been overweight all my life and partially it is my parents fault. Trust me I know I am the one with the control or lack there of actually when it comes to food. But the new wardrobe, the surgery, its all a bribe to help me do this. They show their love in ways such as that. I am so glad to hear that I may not have to opt for surgery. Thanks for this topic. You all are inspiring to me. I am doing this for me and my future.

AudgePaudge

I've noticed my stretch marks are fading, but I do have really saggy skin. I'm afraid it will never go away for me

Nteeter

Im on my way to losing at least 100lbs so this is good info. To bad I hate moisturizers, make me feel slimey or waxy and I dont wanna smell like a coconut either Who knows once Im skinnier maybe I will care more about my looks and "moisturize".

annacataldo

I've been overweight my whole life, and got to 325lbs. Im currently 232lbs (so 93lbs total lost). I have another 60 to go. . Im 5m10" tall.

I have excess skin..something that I feared, but something that I've come to realize, id rather fit into normal clothes, do activites I want to do, not be limited, than to be this 300+ lb person that is miserable..yea the skin sucks, and hoping it will shrink up..but im prepared for the fact that it might not.

They say that it can take a couple years after all ur weight loss to finish tightening. In the mean time, to try to help ur skin along, u can drink as much water as u can (half ur body weight in ounces of water a day, or a bit more), you can do strength excercises, use vitamin e, c, a lotions, and try to eat as healthy as possible so ur body gets plenty of nurishing vitamins that help with skin..

Im starting to see what id call wrinkely skin on the tops of my boobs when I lay certain ways, I notice this same wrinkley effect at the very top of my inner thighs, directly under my breasts on my abdomen area (still breast area kinda), on the fronts of my upper arms where my arm meets torso, and straight down the middle of my lower stomach under my belly button. And then other than that I have the loose skin everywhere except my face/neck/lower legs/lower arms. I have very little stretch marks, but notice them on the tops of my shoulders which if I tan a bit they don't stick out as much and then directly on my mid-side near the lovehandles, but not very bad in either location. But..even though it looks as if I probably will be left with alot of skin, im not letting it worry me..I will like it better than the weiht I was..I may not beable to ever wear a bikini, but that was never my goal anyway..

Also age plays a factor in the tighening of skin...if ur younger then u have higher chances of success, if ur alot older then gravity is already against u (but doesn't mean it definetely wont happen)..I've heard its in genetics too. I, by the way, am 26, so im not a lucky young person..yet..

annacataldo

I heard that people usually only get saggy skin when they drastically lose their weight. I'm guessing if your losing it slowly your body can react with it and not have that happen.

I've lost slowly. 81lbs in 9months, eating all my allotted calories/eating back excercise calories, haven't tried to rush anything..and I have alot of excess skin...

Jessamin

I've lost juuuuuust about 150 pounds in about 10 months. I always had a LOT of stretch marks so they don't really bother me any more now than they always did. They're not really that noticeable, except for a few on my shoulders (!!) and boobs.

The sagginess is kind of bumming me out a little bit. It isn't even terribly bad, but it's there. Especially around the ol' underarms, arms and thighs. I am doing what I can to keep it minimal and hoping that given time. considering I'm young, it'll tighten up. If it doesn't it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

sarabig2fit

from my heaviest weight i've lost 100.. but my most recent weight lost venture i've lost 70. i'm not noticing my skin shrinking really andi'm getting super worried about it. i know that lifting weights will help a lot so i need to start focusing on that.

i'm scared that i'll have a lot of skin left and i really don't want to have surgery for it..

Murlin54

GNC sells a product/supplement that is suppose to boost collagen. A friend of mine bought some because she has problems with collagen production apparently. I haven't asked her if she could tell any difference with it but I was considering getting some myself. I think I will try to research it a bit. I wonder if it could help with the sagging skin.

withchaco

I have lost around 60lbs so far, which is a significant amount for someone my height (5' 1.5"). I have about 12 more pounds to go.

I think my stretch marks are disappearing. I used to have a lot of them on my upper arms near the armpits. I looked just now, and I don't have any on my right arm. My left arm still has some, but not as much as before, it seems like.

On a possibly relevant note, I had a scar on my face from a dog bite from 2003 or so. For the past few years, the scar looked exactly the same (like an elongated bump, the size of a single orzo grain). This morning, I noticed it was completely GONE. I didn't know it was possible for old scars to vanish without surgery. This may have been caused by eating healthy and exercising.

The only place where I got saggy skin is between my butt and my thighs, and it's not that bad.

Jain

Usually, saggy skin only happens in extremely obese people and stretch marks only occur in people who lose alot of weight VERY quickly (the unhealthy way).

I had stretch marks at age 12. I went from a very short kid to average hight for my age and ended up with stretch marks as a result. And my DH has some & he's never been obese.


Now I am obese and have a very saggy belly. I very much doubt that it will 'bounce back' at my age, but I'd much rather be fit with a bit of loose skin than the way I am now.
If it gets me down too much I could always resort to surgery.

uk_ja

No one is the same and the results will different. I went from 320lb to 180lb over the course of 18 months and I have spent 9 months at 180lb so far. The skin is slowly reducing but I would rather be 180lb with lots of hanging skin that 320lb

When I first hit around 180lb from 320lb
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/xanthath/Weight photos/Picture001.jpg

Last month and this week
http://i461.photobucket.com/albums/qq337/xanthath/Weight photos/P90XDay1-Day30.jpg

davendeejones

Top weight 350ish hard to find a scale that accurate back then...Now 261....already see the saggy skin in my face, arms, thighs .I have made mention to my friends to stay back cause those arm flaps can cause serious damage if i pick up speed...lol...I do the gym at least 3 times a week and have a weight workout to go along with the 45min of cardio ...i read that muscle pulls the skin toward it...???...we shall see...I don't lift anything under 100lbs...squat/calves machine -175 lower back machine- 160 anything lower body 150 and up...upper body not that strong yet...i do the show me your muscle pose in the mirror....I see the definition in my upper body (neck, shoulders, biceps) and then i see massive flap of skin hanging down off of it. when i was fat (fatter) my skin was tight and i could wear sleeveless shirts, as i live in Florida, but now there is no way i can wear them. i have mixed feelings about all of this stuff... as a fatter person I was never unhealthy (laugh, but even my doctor commented on it saying she couldn't believe my numbers) good sugar, good cholesterol, good BP, I attribute it to not yo yoing and dieting, i gained my weight with both kids (100lbs each) lost a little between but when the second came around and the weight came again i gave up...husband never said anything about it so i didn't do anything about it...anyway, I know no one wants to be fat or unhealthy and neither do i ... and everyone here says they would rather have the saggy skin... i, personally, don't like getting slapped by my own arm every time i brush my teeth! Don't get me wrong, I plan on continuing this journey and saving my pennies to have it all removed at some point....just wondered if anyone else had mixed feelings?

susanswan

I didn't have any kids, thought my stomach was safe. It wasn't. I carried my weight all over, but always had a smaller waist and bigger hips and thighs. I lost 70 pounds slowly, and that didn't save me. NO stretch marks on my arms either, but they are very saggy. My doctor said gaining up to 205 later in life is what did me in. I had that weight for maybe 5 years. The skin didn't really start to sag on my arms until I got closer to my goal weight (135) Maybe around 140ish. I'd still rather be smaller than risking my health. I did work out with light weights and all during my weight loss and have built up some muscles, but not big enough, plus I'll be 55 this month. If you have stretch marks, your skin is already ruined and the marks will fade, but the skin is already broken there. As for places without stretch marks like my arms and stomach, the are like deflated balloons. I'll keep working towards exercise which is good for you regardless of how your skin responds. I'm still very proud of the 70 pounds I've lost!

Bentley2718

On the contrary, on MFP people talk about these constantly, including giving you useless advice on how to get rid of it.

First, you'd have the stretch marks whether you lose weight or not, so they're not really a weight loss issue.

I got a bad biological/genetic hand. I've done all the stuff people say helps with extra skin (e.g. exercise, weights, "give it a couple of years," etc.) and I still look nasty. I dislike it, and it makes doing some things I love to do more difficult (i.e. pole dancing, where you need to use your skin to grip the pole). BUT...and this is a very important but, even my nasty, irritating, pisses me off, extra skin is better than being morbidly obese. No one gets diabetes, heart disease, etc. from extra skin (at least not that I know of). My extra skin doesn't give me back spasms the way being really heavy used to. When I've got clothes on, no one can see it, while no amount of clothing hides being morbidly obese. Basically, I wish I could be one of those women who lost a lot of weight and can now rock a bikini, but I'm not, and, without major surgery I never will be. Life goes on. I'd still rather have the extra skin than the 90 or so pounds of fat I lost.

btnyegurl

Stretch marks and other scars will always be the bane of my existence but you just have to try and move past it. You are working hard for the body that you deserve, so what if it shows how difficult the journey was?

MB_Positif

I've lost almost 50 (lost a few before joining MFP)...I don't have any sagging skin, probably because I lost the weight slowly, giving my body the ability to reshape. When someone has quite a bit of weight to lose, some sagging skin may be inevitable, but taking it slow is the way to go. When people lose too rapidly I think they have more of a chance of having the sagging skin.

chevy88grl

I have some saggy skin on my lower belly (you can only really see it if I bend over). It has been nearly 2 years since I lost the weight and while my belly is smaller, the skin isn't changing at all. I have come to accept that there's only so much you can do to your body and expect it to bounce back. I had 2 kids in 2.5 years AND I went from 120 (or possibly less) pounds to 203lbs in that same period of time. Now, I'm down around 145-150lbs and I accept that my skin just isn't going to go back to "normal". I'm older (36 years old) and it just doesn't have the elasticity anymore. Everyone else looks firm and tone, but my belly. I'm okay with it. I don't need a perfectly flat belly nor do I need to look perfect.

I do have stretch marks, but they have faded over time and the same color as my skin now. I do moisturize my skin everyday after I shower - not because I think it is some miracle cure, I do it because it makes my skin feel better.

hedwighigh

I don't have many stretch marks but I do have loose skin around my naval. My belly button looks like it's frowning and my breasts sag because I went from a DD to a high B/low C.

I feel like moisturizer is helping my breasts and I've been doing Jillian Michaels' DVDs (so far 30 Day Shred and Ripped in 30) and the skin on my stomach has been improving and that might be helping my chest too. I don't think it'll ever be completely flat but there is improvement.

PoleBoy

My saggy belly and moobs are *slowly* improving, but I doubt I'm ever going to be modelling underwear

Dogwalker1989

I lost 98lbs originally and had lose skin on my stomach, top of my thighs, arms and back.

I've given up on ever having a flat stomach, but to be honest that doesn't bother me too much - it's more the arms that do.

2 years have gone since then and it hasimproved a little, but that might be partly because I'm 27lbs heavier (10lbs of which was intentional).

Some people are lucky and there skin shrinks back. But I didn't really expect mine to as I've been overweight/obese since I was 4 till I was 22 and above 200lbs from aged 12 onwards. So my skin wasn't just stretched for a few years then stretched back, it probably developed this way.

XXXMinnieXXX

I've lost 55lbs slowly and still got saggy arms... I hate them. Guess there's not much I can do as I cannot afford surgery. I've got another 70+ to loose and worry about what they'll look like then x

WhitneyAnnabelle

I've lost 85 pounds, and the only extra skin I have is on my stomach (it's basically just like having a little pooch). My arms also aren't as tight as I'd like them to be, but when I do a lot of push ups, they usually get better. My stretch marks are invisible, which is probably mostly due to the fact that I lost the weight in my early twenties. I guess my inner thighs are a little stretchy, too, but I look a hell of a lot better than a lot of people I know who haven't lost 85 pounds, haha. I sound like a jerk, but hey, I earned it

LisaMariaCallow

I lost 30 lbs last year; I did it slowly (2 lbs/wk over 6 months) & I work out 5-6 days a week (cardio and weight training) I'm also a freak about moisturizing my skin (I'm a cosmetic manager/makeup artist so it's my job!!) I don't have any saggy skin and the only stretch marks are on my lower abdomen from pregnancies. I'm maintaining my weight loss and am working on continuing to tighten everything up.

Christina_3192

I have had stretch marks since I was 13, have them on my breasts, and hips. Which weren't from being over weight as I was maybe 110 pounds lol.
So stretch marks happen regardless of weight, just depends on how elastic your skin is.

My skin doesn't stretch well, I always get them whenever I grow, and unfortunately from gaining 40 pounds some grew longer on my hips and gave me them on my inner thighs -.-".
Losing weight has kept em from getting any worse, and cocoa butter really is helping fade them into silver faster.

I don't mind them too much when they are silver/white. I just hate them when they are purple/look like angry worms.

I feel lucky that I haven't noticed any loose skin. Two years ago when I lost a lot of weight I didn't get any so I'm hoping that I can avoid it now, even though I am trying to lose about double from last time.
I am trying to do a lot of strength as I shrink to avoid it.
If it happens though, whatever, I'll take health over my vanity any day.