Extra skin?

Pandasarecool

Is it possible to have a lot of extra skin in the belly area after losing only 30 pounds? My tummy looks OK when I am standing up, but when I am sitting down it's got lots of rolls, and when I bend over or do a plank, it gathers into the middle and hangs there. I am 132 pounds, 5'7". Is this extra skin, or is it fat yet? Will it go away eventually?

originalcookiemonster

Bump... I wanna know too. Lol.

SocialRopes

i call mine extra skin just to make myself feel better

Scorpioangel

I need to do some dry brushing then! I hate the extra skin!

brimarie95

I have the exact same thing with almost the same weight loss. I think it is mostly skin and only time is what will change that. I just keep telling myself that by next summer, it will be much tighter. I also think that because of other areas of my body having loose skin, I look way more flabby. I am 5'6" and 142 lbs after losing almost 35 lbs. I love how I am looking in my size 6 pants, but when the clothes come off, ewwww. I just keep working at it, knowing that this will change eventually and everything will tighten up eventually.

Pandasarecool

anyone know how long it will take to go away?

Pandasarecool

bump

MzStarrQueenB

Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day













http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/8987-serious-diet-support-group

MzStarrQueenB

i call mine extra skin just to make myself feel better

:laugh:






http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/8987-serious-diet-support-group

lucy5599

Bump

APawli1224

I started out at 310 I am down to 259.. I have lost 51lbs so far and let me tell you.. You are happy you only had to lose 30lbs because my body is looking horrible.. The saddle bags, stomach, inside of my legs, even above my calves a bit.. It is getting crazy and I still have 79lbs to lose and I am lifting weights everyday.. I hope it goes away but after all is said and done I am looking into a full body lift because this is bad

I_wanna_live

Google dry body brushing!!! It has many benefits and one of them is that it tones and tightens skin due to weight loss and aging:) I do it daily.

No offense, but this sounds like something Dr. Oz would be selling. Has their been any real research done on this?

Illona88

After losing weight, your skin needs about 6-12 months to catch up and stretch back to your current size.
Just wait a while and see what happens.

It helps to drink loads of water and to use a good body lotion or body butter.

AbsoluteNG

anyone know how long it will take to go away?

Depends a lot on age. You're 18 so that's really good for you. The younger you are, the more elastic your skin will be and the older you are the less elastic your skin will be. Every year after age 30, your skin will lose elasticity. This is the reason why 70 year old men will have sagging wrinkled skin, new born baby will have clean smooth skin, and women in their 30's complain about wrinkles in their eyes. To get a good idea on time frame, pregnant women can take up to 2 years for their skin to adhere back to their body but that number greatly depends on age. Being 18, I think your skin can adhere back in about 8 months. Just exercise regulary, eat a balanced diet, and make sure your skin isn't dry.


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Pandasarecool

anyone know how long it will take to go away?

Depends a lot on age. You're 18 so that's really good for you. The younger you are, the more elastic your skin will be and the older you are the less elastic your skin will be. Every year after age 30, your skin will lose elasticity. This is the reason why 70 year old men will have sagging wrinkled skin, new born baby will have clean smooth skin, and women in their 30's complain about wrinkles in their eyes. To get a good idea on time frame, pregnant women can take up to 2 years for their skin to adhere back to their body but that number greatly depends on age. Being 18, I think your skin can adhere back in about 8 months. Just exercise regulary, eat a balanced diet, and make sure your skin isn't dry.


.

Thanks! Do you think rubbing lotion on my belly would help a bit?

AbsoluteNG

anyone know how long it will take to go away?

Depends a lot on age. You're 18 so that's really good for you. The younger you are, the more elastic your skin will be and the older you are the less elastic your skin will be. Every year after age 30, your skin will lose elasticity. This is the reason why 70 year old men will have sagging wrinkled skin, new born baby will have clean smooth skin, and women in their 30's complain about wrinkles in their eyes. To get a good idea on time frame, pregnant women can take up to 2 years for their skin to adhere back to their body but that number greatly depends on age. Being 18, I think your skin can adhere back in about 8 months. Just exercise regulary, eat a balanced diet, and make sure your skin isn't dry.


.

Thanks! Do you think rubbing lotion on my belly would help a bit?

Only if your skin is dry. You'd benefit more from lots of cardio, strength training, and any food that's good for the skin. Protein being the obvious but the typical western diet already includes lots of that. You'll need to make sure you're getting enough vitamins that's good for the skin and there are a wide variety of them.


Vitimins C, E, and A which are typically found in fruits and vegetables. If you can't get them all, take a supplement.
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/features/skin-nutrition


Edit: No more then 10 to 15 mins of sun exposure a day, so basically no tanning. Some sun is good for the skin but no reason you should be out there getting more then 15 mins. I just read that in the article and it reminded me of a friend I had who tanned regularly and destroyed her skin by the time she was 25.


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AbsoluteNG

I just wanted to say that if i had to rate which factor being the most important to reducing extra skin, it would be cardio with a balanced diet being a strong second. Cardio increases the rate at which blood carries nutrients to the rest of your body. So the more cardio you do, the faster your skin will rejuvenate.

smilesalot1969

i used to be 284lbs and a uk size 26, i am now 160lbs and a uk 10/12 (i'm 5ft 10)
loose skin does happen BUT except in really extreme weight loss cases it often snaps back pretty well. BUT and i say BUT.. it takes time and i mean a long time
. i've had to eat really well, moisturise with a vitamin E or shea butter cream or body lotion. Body brushing is fab it gets your circulation going and helps too. Weight training on top of all this and just lots and lots of time.

However if its hanging in rolls or is more than an inch thick when you pinch it you still have fat there to lose because just skin isnt that bulky. Also i wear a tight sports crop top over my bra quite a lot especially at night and it helps prevent the breasts from sagging and gives the skin a chance to snap back.
This isnt something that will fix in a couple of months and it looks awful while youre still losing but a couple of years down the line and mine is dramatically better i have barely any and i'm 43
Give it time and TLC

AbsoluteNG

Google dry body brushing!!! It has many benefits and one of them is that it tones and tightens skin due to weight loss and aging:) I do it daily.

No offense, but this sounds like something Dr. Oz would be selling. Has their been any real research done on this?

Check out this link... it explains the benefits. From there you can also do some more research on it.
http://www.wbnsema.org/blog/32-the-benefits-of-body-brushing.html

That's a pretty website but no one on there is even a doctor. If there was an M.D. supporting dry brushing then you could have maybe some credibility to dry brushing but the only people on that sight are business women. The most credibility will obviously be in scientific research journal papers. I tried searching but have yet to find any research on dry brushing. The most that I've come up with is an opinion from a doctor in the link below. He says it's mainly hogwash. I'll keep searching the net for journal papers but it doesn't look good for those who believe dry brushing works in any type of health aspect for the skin. You're much better off doing cardio and eating the right type of foods.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400878/Is-Dry-Brushing-My-Skin-Healthy.html

anemoneprose

I just wanted to say that if i had to rate which factor being the most important to reducing extra skin, it would be cardio with a balanced diet being a strong second. Cardio increases the rate at which blood carries nutrients to the rest of your body. So the more cardio you do, the faster your skin will rejuvenate.

This is the first I've heard of this notion... can I ask where you came across it?

Just thinking that, while it makes a kind of sense, presumably that effect would only last for as long as you did the cardio, and maybe a few minutes afterwards.

What I've read is that skin can only take so much damage, having been stretched (and scarred, if there are stretch marks) beyond its limits.

And that a lot of stretch marks in an area is both a sign that skin is unlikely to 'shrink back' optimally, and an impediment to the skin returning to shape (as there is deep-level scar tissue to work around, now).

Would love to hear differently, of course

AbsoluteNG

I just wanted to say that if i had to rate which factor being the most important to reducing extra skin, it would be cardio with a balanced diet being a strong second. Cardio increases the rate at which blood carries nutrients to the rest of your body. So the more cardio you do, the faster your skin will rejuvenate.

This is the first I've heard of this notion... can I ask where you came across it?

Just thinking that, while it makes a kind of sense, presumably that effect would only last for as long as you did the cardio, and maybe a few minutes afterwards.

What I've read is that skin can only take so much damage, having been stretched (and scarred, if there are stretch marks) beyond its limits.

And that a lot of stretch marks in an area is both a sign that skin is unlikely to 'shrink back' optimally, and an impediment to the skin returning to shape (as there is deep-level scar tissue to work around, now).

Would love to hear differently, of course

I don't think there's any research on skin elasticity and how cardio affects your skin but there are some on muscle soreness. I just applied the same concept for muscle soreness to skin elasticity. Granted I could be wrong but it makes a lot more sense to me when compared to dry brushing. Also, the affects of a HIIT workout can last for a good 2 days and not a few minutes after a workout.


Delay onset of muscle soreness paper by way of cardioacceleration
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296978


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AbsoluteNG

I found something interesting, not directly related to skin elasticity but I think it's close enough. The professor basically said both cardio and strength training is good for keeping you young. He didn't rate which one is better then the other.



http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/can-exercise-keep-you-young/

The researchers were surprised by the magnitude of the impact that exercise had on the animals’ aging process, Dr. Tarnopolsky said. He and his colleagues had expected to find that exercise would affect mitochondrial health in muscles, including the heart, since past research had shown a connection. They had not expected that it would affect every tissue and bodily system studied.

Other studies, including a number from Dr. Tarnopolsky’s own lab, have also found that exercise affects the course of aging, but none has shown such a comprehensive effect. And precisely how exercise alters the aging process remains unknown. In this experiment, running resulted in an upsurge in the rodents’ production of a protein known as PGC-1alpha, which regulates genes involved in metabolism and energy creation, including mitochondrial function. Exercise also sparked the repair of malfunctioning mitochondria through a mechanism outside the known repair pathway; in these mutant mice, that pathway didn’t exist, but their mitochondria were nonetheless being repaired.

Dr. Tarnopolsky is currently overseeing a number of experiments that he expects will help to elucidate the specific physiological mechanisms. But for now, he said, the lesson of his experiment and dozens like it is unambiguous. “Exercise alters the course of aging,” he said.

Although in this experiment, the activity was aerobic and strenuous, Dr. Tarnopolsky is not convinced that either is absolutely necessary for benefits. Studies of older humans have shown that weightlifting can improve mitochondrial health, he said, as can moderate endurance exercise. Although there is probably a threshold amount of exercise that is necessary to affect physiological aging, Dr. Tarnopolsky said, “anything is better than nothing.” If you haven’t been active in the past, he continued, start walking five minutes a day, then begin to increase your activity level.

anemoneprose

Both those articles are interesting, thank you for sharing them. (I'm all for DOMs just going away, and am 100% pro extending my life:) About skin particularly... I'm not sure it's possible to extrapolate (well, it is, you have , but I don't have a biology background.

I do know that most doctors are pessimistic about much of anything making a difference, other than time (minimally) & some kind of body lift, which is only recommended for people who've lost in the 100s of pounds. Or, just building up enough muscle to fill in a space. (The irony there is that the most-often recommended way of shifting body composition involves cut and bulk cycles, which cause further stress to skin.)

I have heard about lasers maybe having a *temporary* (if expensive) tightening effect

About dry brushing, I agree