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Major fears of loseing weight ? HELP

33Jones
33Jones Posts: 12
edited January 24 in Motivation and Support
Soooooooooo I have always been on the chubby side but within the last 2 years I have stepped into the "fat" zone.... I have gained about 60 pounds in 2 years and I have honestly have not done much about it. Off and on I will start a new "diet", work out, and then it happens I look in the mirror at my tummy and I think ...hmmm "If I lose about 50-80 pounds what will my skin do will it just hang there? Will it snap back .... will I still have stretch marks ..." I do not want to deal with any kind of surgery but I just do not understand how my body will adjust to the fat being gone. Am I making any sense of do I just sound stupid ???

PS: I will be 23 in July, I am 5'3 & I am 231 right now .... my avg weight has always been about 155-165
(and I do not look like most people who have gained weight its not distributed equally around my body it tends to be more my stomach and upper arms maybe that's why I do not see my skin snapping back from that.)

Replies

  • SteelySunshine
    SteelySunshine Posts: 1,092 Member
    You are pretty young so there is a good chance your skin will just shrink back to what your new size is. There is no guarantee that this will happen, but your age is a definite advantage here. Other things that will help a lot are exercising, lifting in particular and going losing weight a bit slower like a pound to one and a half pounds a week. Faster loses almost always result in saggy skin, it can still shrink, but it will take some time. You might end up with stretch marks, but if you don't have them now I don't think you will get them from losing. I am not a expert in that area at all, but I heard that cocoa butter will help reduce them if you do get them.
  • happydaze71
    happydaze71 Posts: 339 Member
    lets put it another way,, do you like being overweight? Are you making excuses to stay that way? You are worried about loose skin, but when you look in the mirror now, are you liking what you see? If so, why worry about losing weight? And if not, why stress about loose skin?
    If you're not happy with the way you are then the only answer is to do something about it....
    When I was younger, I was huge, I worried about all the same things and made a million and one excuses not to lose the weight even though I truly hated myself and the way I felt.
    I was young enough my skin would have got its act together.
    Now I'm 42 and my skin ain't so happy, especially the boobs which are still big, but 'empty', and the skin cant seem to hold itself up, its gross, and who knows if I'll ever be able to afford a boob job..... BUT I used to let this stop me from losing weight, now I am like whatever!!!!!!!
    So I get my *kitten* in the gym and I smash out a weights session, I go and do classes and I eat clean.
    Yes, I worry and care about loose skin, but I am not letting it stop me from reaching my goals..... If I have to wear my boobs as a handy belt later on, so be it! hehehe
  • castelluzzo99
    castelluzzo99 Posts: 313 Member
    I've had 3 kids. I never had lots of stretch marks, but a few. As you lose the weight, they will fade.

    About the stretched skin, well, it depends on how much it stretched. I gained 50 lb with my first, and I didn't have too much problem with extra skin (though I never lost the last 8 lb before getting pregnant twice more).

    Then the other day, I saw this video that totally blew my mind (and made total sense, based on what I know about nutrition). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DTDQJ5ifV4

    Too bad I don't have skin stretched out enough to test it on myself! But maybe you could contact the guys in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and ask them how it turned out for them. Because they were both pretty overweight (more pounds than you say you are).

    Good luck!
  • UsernameStillLoading
    UsernameStillLoading Posts: 299 Member
    That's why you tone...not just lose (at the same time). It's a longer process but it doesn't leave you saggy. You're young so your skin is still elastic.
  • pkw58
    pkw58 Posts: 2,038 Member
    At age 53 i lost 46 pounds and no saggy skin... But i lost it over about 7 months, adding walking and daily yoga . Just made sure very day i did at least 10 minutes of yoga and 20 minutes of walking. ( i do as much as i can now)

    Dnt forget water and making sure you get enough sleep! It is all important ..
  • sewingdiscontent
    sewingdiscontent Posts: 112
    I freaked out abt sagging skin about half way through my loss, but then I read about how if the "skin" fold you can pinch is thicker than 4-6 millimeters, it's actually still filled with fat. I kept going. The melting skin look went away with the fat.

    Even if it had stayed, I wouldn't care. My boobs are a sad shadow of their former selves and my *kitten* has fallen like a bad souffle- but I look good in clothes, I can run now (the souffle shall rise again!), and I feel healthy and confident and strong. My body is a wonderland, yo!

    (And so is your own.)
  • DawnieB1977
    DawnieB1977 Posts: 4,248 Member
    I've lost 63lbs over 22 months and while my stomach isn't perfect, it isn't horrible either. I lift weights and do lots of abs work which I'm sure has helped. I'm 35 and I have 2 children - my eldest turns 4 in June and my youngest was 2 a week ago.

    I'm 5'6 and started at 220 after baby no.2 and am now 157.

    I still have a bit to go, but it does take time. Like a previous poster said, I look good in clothes, and I definitely look better now than at 220lbs! I have also kept my boobs and still have my hourglass figure.
  • Brummig
    Brummig Posts: 94
    I totally agree with sewingdiscount. I have lost over 70lbs (from 198 to about 125), and I am 5ft, age 42. Yes, I do have some loose skin and stretch marks, but they have improved over time, and with lots of toning work. Sometimes I look at my naked body and am a little disappointed, but then I remember how much more disappointed I was when I was 70lbs heavier (and I would never look at my naked body - too embarrassed!). I love buying clothes now, and it's a lot easier buy clothes that disguise the loose skin than trying to find something to hide the enormous boobs I had before! Change is scary, but it was so worth it - I love the body I have now!
  • Gabrielm80
    Gabrielm80 Posts: 1,458 Member
    Skin is something I am dealing with right now. The things I am doing is using body scrubs in the areas I want to shrink down. Lossing dead skin of the problem areas helps. Taking nice hot baths with plenty of bath salts, using my wife's coco butter she had from being pregnant, and toning muscle as I lose weight. Most important thing is avoid crash diets. Loss it slowly. Figure out how much you have to eat to only loss 2 pounds a week and stick to that goal. But your young and your skin is an organ like your heart. It will feed on being healty so eat good fats not bad. Drink plenty of water. Your skin is alive and will react I promise. Even people that have issues it gets fixed over time. The longer you wait to loss weight the longer the sag might take to bounce back. Because of that there is no better time than now
  • tennileb
    tennileb Posts: 265 Member
    why do you want to loose weight?

    Yep your skin might not be as tight as it once was...but gravity and age will do that eventually weight loss or not ;)

    There will always be reasons not to loose weight, what's more important is why do you want to loose weight? I've had a huge list of why not to loose weight: too much work, I'll get saggy, It's a holiday (is national perogie day a holiday), I don't have time, I'll be embarrassed if I can't eat what everyone else does......but why be healthy: I want to live to be 80+, I want to look sexy for my man (and myself), I want the energy to keep up with people, I want to be fit enough to try new activities, I want the ego boost of a random stranger hitting on me, I want to not just live to 80 but have a good life at 80 and not be in a hospital bed....
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