Losing weight and gaining excess skin?

Hi,
My personal experience won't cheer you up but I lost my weight after 50. I think the younger you are the better off you will be. If you have stretch marks, they shrink back down but the elasticity is gone already. I've watched the Biggest Loser and some women look phenomenal at the final weigh in and some have flabby arms. Yes, it is disappointing, but. Flabby arms or fat arms? I'll take flabby. At least you can know that you are doing the best thing possible by getting a handle on your weight problem now so you'll be around for your little ones. Take up weight training and exercising. It doesn't have to be daunting. I love my Joyce Vedral videos for weight lifiting. I do mine with 3, 5, and 8 pound dumbbells and you can increase or decrease to suit you. She is my hero. She didnt' start working out until she was 39 and was a competition body builder. Now she is 60 years old and still cranks out the exercise videos. 4 years ago I went from 205 pounds down to 153. A size 16 down to a size 8. Years ago when I used to weigh that same weight I was a size 12! Doing her exercises transformed my pear shaped body into an hourglass! I had never had a body like that ever in my whole life! Google her and you can find her website. You can exercise at home when you get a few minutes to yourself. Much more time efficient than going to a gym and less intimidating, too! Good luck. Remember you are beautiful! Susan

I think a lot of it has to do with how quickly you lose the weight. Losing 1 or 2 pounds per week I think is a slow enough rate that your skin will have time to become adjust without having any large flappy bits. I look at it as an added bonus for losing weight at a gradual pace ;o)

A friend of mine dropped 120 pounds rapidly and had to have surgery to remove the excess.

I agree with losing the weight slowly. If you lose it too fast, you will likely have excess skin. You have to lose at a gradual pace, not only to keep it off for good but to give your skin time to readjust - just as getting too big too fast will give you stretch marks and damage skin elasticity, getting small too fast can have the same negative affects. Stick to a healthy weight loss plan, use cardio to shed the pounds and add in strength training to keep your muscles in check and some toning to help with problem areas (inculding your skin). All of these will help keep your body working FOR itself and will help to eliminate any concerns with problem areas and excess skin!

I've heard of some creams, or lotions that help with it too. I just can't remember what they are called.