Your body after weight loss

caimay149
caimay149 Posts: 65 Member
in Motivation and Support
Hey guys,

I came across this article today.

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/11/what-no-one-tells-you-about-dramatic-weight-loss.html

Mostly, I'm looking at this sentence: "...bodies that have lost 50-plus pounds simply don't look like bodies that have maintained a steady weight since reaching adulthood."

Now, I'm fortunate in that I carry a nice amount of muscle, so I have a 'shape' despite being overweight. But I'm 199, want to get down to 149. Will heavy lifting save me from the fate of the woman in the article? Or is loose skin, stretch marks and sagging to be expected with a big loss, no matter much lifting you do?

Replies

  • maddyk91
    maddyk91 Posts: 193 Member
    You're young and your drop isnt absurdly dramatic, but doing some lifting probably would help any sagging you *might* see, though I doubt you'll see much. It really varies on the person. And the younger you are, the more easily your skin bounces back. But stretchmarks will go away with all of the creams out on the market now.
  • joshpass
    joshpass Posts: 82 Member
    everybody is genetically different but for the most part, unfortunately, you will get loose skin. I lost 160 and I have loose skin. It really sucks. I bust my *kitten* at the gym but i have loose skin around my ab area so I'll never have abs that show because of it. and when I bend down or sit, the loose skin just bunches up and I look fat. It really sucks that the 5-10 years that I let myself go, and i have to live with the loose skin side effect for the rest of my life, unless I get surgery...which I will never be able to afford.
  • Mrs_Bones
    Mrs_Bones Posts: 195 Member
    I don't have the experience of losing 50 or more pounds, so what I'm telling you isn't from personal experience. My understanding, is that the more weight you have to lose, the more likely it is that you will suffer with loose skin. Also, it depends on how quickly you lose the weight. I was told, though don't quote me on this, that your skin is able to firm up but that it isn't an overnight process. So if you lose weight slowly and weight train, your skin slowly firms up along with your progress so that lose skin isn't really ever an issue. However, if you go on some sort of fad diet, for example, and drop 50-pounds in the span of a month or two, your skin doesn't really have any opportunity to gradually reshape itself. Someone with more expertise in this area may gladly come along and correct where I've gone wrong, but this is my understanding up until this point.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    caimay149 wrote: »
    Hey guys,

    I came across this article today.

    http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/11/what-no-one-tells-you-about-dramatic-weight-loss.html

    Mostly, I'm looking at this sentence: "...bodies that have lost 50-plus pounds simply don't look like bodies that have maintained a steady weight since reaching adulthood."

    Now, I'm fortunate in that I carry a nice amount of muscle, so I have a 'shape' despite being overweight. But I'm 199, want to get down to 149. Will heavy lifting save me from the fate of the woman in the article? Or is loose skin, stretch marks and sagging to be expected with a big loss, no matter much lifting you do?
    Totally individual. Some people will have those things and others won't.

    All you can do is the best YOU can do.

  • joshpass
    joshpass Posts: 82 Member
    that is true. if you loose it slowly, eat right, drink water, etc, you have a better shot of not having the loose skin. hopefully you will be one of the lucky ones! :)
  • caimay149
    caimay149 Posts: 65 Member
    joshpass wrote: »
    everybody is genetically different but for the most part, unfortunately, you will get loose skin. I lost 160 and I have loose skin. It really sucks. I bust my *kitten* at the gym but i have loose skin around my ab area so I'll never have abs that show because of it. and when I bend down or sit, the loose skin just bunches up and I look fat. It really sucks that the 5-10 years that I let myself go, and i have to live with the loose skin side effect for the rest of my life, unless I get surgery...which I will never be able to afford.

    wow, 160lbs! I guess I'm looking at 50lbs, so it might not happen....in any case, I'm going to take weight training seriously to do the best I can to avoid it!
  • dsexton72
    dsexton72 Posts: 6 Member
    I've only seen this drastically when someone has had gastric-bypass surgery or something like that. Rapidly loosing weight and a lot of it would have this side effect. But everyone is different. Slow and steady wins the race, as they say. :)
  • shaynepoole
    shaynepoole Posts: 493 Member
    everyone is different - if she is unhappy with how she looks, that is her. I lost just as much and I love it (some loose skin, saggy boobs and all)

    So you really can't use this article/her experience as a gauge of what you see in the mirror.

    Also, you are not looking at a 160lb weight loss like she did - you are looking to lose 50lbs, which is a lot less and the change is not as drastic

    plus the article doesn't really go into detail about her diet changes and exercise routine. So you can't look at this and say "this will happen to me"





  • maddyk91
    maddyk91 Posts: 193 Member
    joshpass wrote: »
    everybody is genetically different but for the most part, unfortunately, you will get loose skin. I lost 160 and I have loose skin. It really sucks. I bust my *kitten* at the gym but i have loose skin around my ab area so I'll never have abs that show because of it. and when I bend down or sit, the loose skin just bunches up and I look fat. It really sucks that the 5-10 years that I let myself go, and i have to live with the loose skin side effect for the rest of my life, unless I get surgery...which I will never be able to afford.

    you lost over three times the weight OP wants to lose. (which was a great loss, btw!! truly amazing!) but really isnt helpful in determining if she will have loose skin, unless you remember having loose skin at 50lbs down?
  • devil_in_a_blue_dress
    devil_in_a_blue_dress Posts: 5,214 Member
    Eh, listen - what you should take from this article is that weight loss shouldn't be seen the end all/be all goal of your life. You *might* not end up with the exact body your dreamed of. But I don't know many people, fat, thin, formerly fat thin that have the exact body they want. The journey (can't believe I am using that word) is what matters - have goals that primarily center around health and fitness. Celebrate what you love about your shape -- at any weight -- and worry less about what you don't love. I have seen this galleries before, I do understand why she has issues with her body, but when I look at her, I don't think anything terrible about how she looks - she's lovely. A lot of it is psychological. She feels bad -- but that doesn't mean her result *IS* bad. So much of it is how you view yourself, your goals, and bodies in general.

    Also, results vary. It doesn't detail how she lost the weight. Slow weight loss with exercise tends to yield a firmer body. Maybe she did that and is genetically predisposed to loose skin/sagging. It sucks but is the reality for a lot of people. It's NORMAL. It shouldn't discourage weight loss, especially if you have other risk factors for disease that being overweight/obese can contribute to.

    I lost 50 pounds. I still have cellulite, my lopsided boobs are more pronounced since I lost weight, there is some saggy skin on my tummy. But I love my body. I loved it when I was fatter too - it does so many amazing things, it's strong and capable.

    TL;DR: Don't fear the unknown, focus on what you already love about yourself, and set fitness/health goals.
  • xcalygrl
    xcalygrl Posts: 1,897 Member
    It's all individual, and you won't know how you'll look/what you'll have to deal with until you get there.

    I lost most of my weight before I was 19. (64 pounds lost at the moment, trying to cut my body fat percentage now after a bulk cycle.) I'm now in my mid-20's.

    I have stretch marks because I was overweight for several years, and I gained some of that extra weight quickly. My stretch marks are only on my lower abdomen, but they have gotten lighter (IMO).

    I have some loose skin, but it has improved drastically the longer I maintain my weight loss. I also lift heavy, which might be helping as well. (It's hard to say which helps more: time or lifting heavy.)

    As for sagging, my boobs sag. I lost a good bit of volume in my boobs though. Boobs are primarily fat and mammary glands. If your's are more fat than mammary glands, you may lose a good bit of volume and see sagging. But you may also have more mammary glands than fat, in which case you won't lose as much volume as you lose weight. (This is determined by genetics.)
  • baba_helly
    baba_helly Posts: 810 Member
    itsfuntobenormal wrote: »
    But I love my body. I loved it when I was fatter too - it does so many amazing things, it's strong and capable.

    TL;DR: Don't fear the unknown, focus on what you already love about yourself, and set fitness/health goals.


    These are very wise words. I have lost 91 lbs so far and plan on another 15-25. I'm 22. I have loose skin on my arms and thighs and a little bit on my stomach. Is this my "ideal" body aesthetically? Not by a long shot. Is this my "ideal" body in every other way? Yes. I can run, I'm strong, I can climb stairs and hills without needing to catch my breath. I can go to a wedding and wear a dress and high heels and feel confident. I'm smaller and I am presenting a better version of myself to the world. I'm still working on my confidence but I find my social anxiety improving at least a little bit every day.

    Yes I have loose skin but I would not trade it for the alternative of being 100+ lbs overweight and struggling every day with simple tasks and with having any amount of confidence. As others have said there are things you can do to help minimize loose skin, but short of building a time machine and never gaining weight in the first place there is no foolproof method to avoid it.

    For what it's worth I really enjoyed the gallery. The most important thing to me was that I could tell her confidence was growing in each photo and she began to develop her own style. I guarantee she has setbacks but compared to how life used to be, a little loose skin is a completely fair trade off. Focus on what's important to you emotionally and physically and let the aesthetics follow naturally.
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,219 Member
    Stretch marks never go away. They fade with time though. So, if you have them now at 199 pounds you'll still have them at your goal weight.

    You might have loose skin and you might not. I have a bit of loose skin on the lower part of my stomach (got pregnant twice while obese, so it was expected). I can tuck the skin in and nobody notices. Strength training helped fill in the other parts that could have loose skin. Honestly, it's not even worth worrying about because the benefits of weight loss surpass having loose skin.
  • MityMax96
    MityMax96 Posts: 5,778 Member
    usmcmp wrote: »
    Honestly, it's not even worth worrying about because the benefits of weight loss surpass having loose skin.

    That is how I would view it.

    I would encourage weight lifting, with a steady weight loss plan in place...
    Not drastic.....
    Huge drops in weight, quickly I think are the worst combinations.....
    slow and steady will allow the body to "shrink" up the skin as you lose.

  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    The article is spot on. But they're talking about people who lost a lot of weight. With 81 pounds lost, I can relate to it though... my body just doesn't look at all like the image I had in my mind when I decided to lose weight. Heck, my stomach makes it look like I still have 20 pounds to lose, which isn't true at all... but it's all that loose skin. And yes it's depressing at times... but honestly still much better than the alternative.

    With 50 pounds to lose though, who knows. You could be fine. Heavy lifting helps staying toned but I don't think it helps that much with loose skin (didn't do a thing for me).
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    Lifting will help you maintain muscle, but I don't see how it would help with loose skin. Diet is more likely to help with that. Stay hydrated, use lotions, make sure you eat enough fat. Stretch marks are a hard one. They are scars so muscle tone won't be of much help there either.

    Time, youth and skin health are your best tools.

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