Ok, so you’ve lost the weight and now have loose skin, or you’ve heard stories about loose skin after weight loss and are looking for more information about remedies or help with overcoming this. Following through on your weight loss goals are only half of the battle.
When you loose weight your skin is still in the shape it was when you had the extra body mass and as such it still has the room that it needed to house that extra body mass. As you loose weight that body mass disappears much quicker then your skin can react to the change and compensate by tightening up. You’ll have to keep in mind though that your body won’t just snap back into shape as it would seem. You are going to have to also work extra hard after weight loss to achieve tighter more toned skin.
The amount of Loose skin you’ll have depends on many different factors including your age, how elastic your skin is, and the amount of weight you actually loose. You age is a big factor in the amount of loose skin and how well it will tighten up after weight loss and exercise. The older you get the more your skin is affected in a bad way (a way that is harder for your body to repair then in younger people) that will leave your skin loose and unable to be repaired. Other factors that contribute to loose skin after weight loss are how fast you lost that extra weight, how fast you gained it, and how long you’ve been overweight. The longer you’ve been over weight the longer your skin has had time to stretch and get used to being stretched.
Now that we know about loose skin after weight loss and how it is caused we can talk about ways to try and help your body repair and get back to normal. First thing we should cover are the “products” or miracle creams. These do not work so just ignore the ads as they are met only to pray on your self esteem so don’t waste any of your hard earned money on these products they just do not work.
Before you consider surgery, you need to exercise and give your body time to heal and repair itself. The body is an amazing thing and with a little help from you, it can go a long way to healing itself including tightening of the skin.
Surgery, although it does work to some extent is after all, surgery, so proceed with caution when considering this method. Yes it is the quick fix but let your body try first. Give yourself a year of maintaining your target weight and exercising and if that doesn’t work you can consider other methods of loosing loose skin after weight loss.
So, have you picked up the hidden message yet? No? Well, its exercise! There are a multitude of things you can do, the easiest and most common are; walking, walking, is a great way to help your body burn the left over body fat in your skin. Maybe walk to the store some time or walk around the block once a day, another excellent way to tighten you skin and tone your body is swimming. It is most important to loose as much body fat as possible so exercise, exercise, exercise and your skin should react!