another loose skin and stretch marks thread.

Wow mate, I am touched by your reply. Also thanks for signing up JUST to reply aswell, I'm sorry for what you went through, it sounds very tough. We are quite similar actually. In your first picture I can barely see your stretch marks. I am now using the cocoa butter cream for them aswell. I also have been told alot recently (and read online) that majority of girls won't care about stretch marks, I think it may of been mentioned in this thread too. I'm also the same, one minute I'm like yeah if a girl has a problem with my stretch marks, I'll find someone else but then not long after, I'm the opposite and think I'm doomed forever because of them. I have a couple that have faded-ish, on my sides. I literally have them everywhere though :-/ so I am too oneday considering laser surgery, I think It's expensive but still worth it at the same time. Thanks for the creams/treatments you listed, I will find out more about them. It's appreciated. And chin up mate (-: I will look out for your reply, also have a good Birthday.

Cheers bud

I tried to edit my first post to add another pic which shows the stretchmarks on my stomach in a more natural light, as you can see they are visible, kind of silver:

http://imageshack.us/a/img9/997/pbxk.jpg

like others have said they start to fade usually within a year, maybe 6 months or so if I remember.

Also I hear what you are saying about most people saying they will not be bothered by them at all, but I don't know about you but I find that hard to believe. Maybe we are to harsh to ourselves I don't know, everyone says to look at them like battle scars and to be fair you could probably say that for your arms, but the ones on your stomach, to me they represent my shame. Its like I am wearing my shame from getting overweight and that shame will never go away no matter what. I understand women get them mostly from being pregnant, and without trying to sound like its acceptable for women to get them and men not to, having these marks on my stomach make me feel less masculine for having them if you know what I mean.

Another thing I read was that girls are probably way more worried about how they look to even notice our marks, again I still think they will notice though

In the pictures I have a spot on my belly, it sounds ridiculous but that was actually from an ingrown hair because I was shaving my belly thinking I could get loads of hair to hide the marks! Spot wont seem to go away now haha. So laser treatments aside I thought two options, try and get hairy like a gorilla or put in a monumental effort and get abs/six pack. I guess if you were really toned and showing abs you can say the marks were from hard work, only then I think you could call them battle scars.

I was focusing too much on my bad stretch marks I almost forgot about some of the others I have on my legs, hips, biceps, triceps, shoulders. Maybe there is a positive from that, if I forgot about those little ones, then surely if we could reduce the worst ones to be less noticeable like the others we can keep them out of our minds. Sometimes, or should I say most the time it is pretty hard to get positive, and stay in a positive mood about them, I dwell on them way too much.

All I can say really is try not to let them get you down and be more positive, but then I am been a hypocrite because as much as I try they get to me all the time. Why does life have to be so cruel, I've seen some people who are like 30 stone and not a single mark on them!

And yes I guess you could say we are very similar, my marks looked almost identical to yours when I first got them, its a blessing they don't stay red or purple forever.

My stretch marks have faded in colour so they are still there but less noticeable.

Loose skin is when you can pinch quite a lot of skin and still be around 5mm thick. Any more than that then there is still fat.

I lost 14.5 stone in 23 months and maintained for the last 4. My back and sides have gone tight but I still have loose skin either side of my belly button. Above and below there still some fat but is also loose. One way is to lie flat on your back. when I do it, I can feel under my ribs. That is because the skin is heavy and gravity pulls it downwards. If it was tight or had more fat underneath that that wouldn't happen.

From your pics, you look like there is just fat and that will go.