Loose Skin: 50lbs loss at 60+, 4+ years maintenance

sl1200mkII wrote: »

Massive courage and congrats on the cut and even more for keeping it off! Could you help with some advice on two questions?

With your skin type, do you know if the loose skin would have been there if the weight loss was slower (spread out over another year or two?

Do you know how much loose skin there would have been if you lost 30 rather than 50 pounds?

Thank you for your bravery!

I don't have any scientific basis for my opinions, but I have opinions, and will share them.

I don't think there would be less loose skin from slower loss just from the speed of loss as such. I suspect that cumulative stress has negative affects on overall health (so maybe negative effects on skin health), and that fast loss is a higher contributor to systemic stress than slow loss is. (The stress of calorie deficit may increase systemic stress from other sources in life, would be my guess - that's what I mean by "cumulative".)

Because different fat areas deplete at different rates, in a slower loss scenario, it's possible that the body areas where loss happens first might have some skin shrinkage happening in overlapped time with ongoing fat loss in other areas, so one might arrive at goal weight with a little less loose skin at that point because of some already having shrunk - I don't know. Getting to goal weight faster may mean that more of the loose skin is all present at once, rather than in phases, is what I'm trying to say.

BTW, I don't think I lost "fast", other than a brief period where I ate too little on first joining MFP, because MFP underestimates my calorie needs. Losing slower than I did is a fine, perfectly reasonable option, but an average of a pound a week for a year isn't super fast, IMO. (I did lose a bit faster than that at first, when still pretty heavy, and slower when close to goal, by intention.)

Personally, I don't think I would have less of what most people would call "loose skin" if I'd only lost 30 pounds. I was still pretty over-fat, frankly, at 150-ish pounds. At that stage, there was more subcutaneous fat (those 1/2" or more rolls and folds, with squishy fat still in them). That tends to keep skin stretched out. I don't know whether it would ever get redistributed and let the skin shrink, because I didn't do that so lack relevant experience.

In my experience, it's the very thin wrinkles that will shrink, the ones that look more like wrinkles in midweight fabric like a soft denim or corduroy. I think that thin-wrinkles stuff is true "loose skin", and the slightly thicker folds are not just skin but remaining subcutaneous fat.

I do think I'd have less loose skin now if I hadn't just finished slowly (re-)losing 10+ pounds over the last few months. I expect that skin to shrink if I stay at this lower weight, and I expect some of the slightly thicker rolls to deplete and shrink, too, if I lose a few more pounds. It just takes time.

I'm not an appearance motivated person, in general terms. Even so, speaking for myself only, I very much prefer my appearance at this weight (maybe +/- 10 pounds is OK) vs. how I looked at any heavier weight. I think I look healthier and just overall better - better color, vitality, visible muscularity, etc. I used to lumber and shuffle around, now I'm much more spry and nimble, which I think is a positive for appearance (but doesn't show in still photos at all).

Furthermore, I *feel* much, much better in many ways, not just pain reduction but also subjective sense of general well-being and even mood to some extent. My health markers are very good, and were formerly quite bad. I move more in daily life, which I have to believe is good for me. (For example, I didn't realize I was budgeting/limiting my trips up and down the flight of stairs in my house when I was fat, until I found my thin self running up and down those same stairs many more times per day as I got lighter.) I can do more things, more easily, than fat Ann could (despite my being athletic while still obese).

My life is better at this weight, period, than it was at my starting weight or even weights in the 140s-150s.

This is only loosely related here, but goshdangit, it's my thread, and I can do what I want. Both these photos are from today. They relate to one of my pet peeves.

Photo 1: This is my arm, relaxed:



Photo 2: This that very same arm, mere moments later, flexed good and hard:



Ladies - anyone, really - DO NOT hold out your relaxed arm as in photo 1, and assume that anything hang-y is fat or loose skin. It's not. I guarantee, *some* of the hang-y bit is muscle. How much of muscle, fat, skin - that varies individually. In any case where I've ever had a woman do this in real life, and hold onto the "flap" of "fat and loose skin" right up to near the bone as she flexed hard . . . some - usually lots - of that hang-y stuff got firm when she flexed. That part is MUSCLE. Please don't hate it when it's relaxed: It's supposed to be more slack then!