For those of us that are wondering what our skin will look like, this woman put it out there. She lost 170 lbs and wanted her "After" photo to be in a bikini. The magazine balked. I think she's right, and I appreciate a real woman photo.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/juliegerste...3223934_2902185

I looked a bit like that and had a tummy tuck, but the tops of my arms and thighs are saggy. Sadly, it has to be said that generally when you lose a lot of weight after being very big for a long time, your skin doesnt go back easily. Very few of us will ever have perfectly tight skin

Jo xxx

Although it amuses me to watch Shape fall over itself backpedaling, the picture kind of baffles me too. She's only 28 and she lost the weight over four years, plenty of time for her skin to retract. However, I remember from my days reading the magazine that its "success stories" generally involved women who had less than 100 pounds to lose. Oh--I also remember an older woman who lost a significant amount of weight doing it the low-fat way, but switched to low carb, lost even more weight ... and Shape wouldn't do a follow-up story on her (this was the early 2000s).

Thanks for posting this story!

I think that she's amazing for her willingness to show her reality!
I know that I'm not willing to show mine.

Yeah, four years is a fairly slow weight loss, so seems like skin might have a time to recover at her young age. I haven't lost as much weight as she has - but I'm also much older! And I have no more excess skin now than I did when I weighed close to 400 pounds. Of course I'm still fat enough that I still look like cr*p but my skin isn't worse off - there just seems to be a bit less of it! Of course I've been stalled for about 5 years now so I guess my skin has had time to adjust, but I don't recall it ever being terribly baggy.

I do admire her honesty in displaying herself like that. She could have worn a shaper one-piece bathing suit and looking amazingly awesome! But she was willing to show the world the real her.

I don't even read these sorts of magazines though - they just disgust and depress me. Years ago (late 90s/early 00s) I knew a woman who lost a ton of weight on an LC diet and got invited to be a "success story" for one of these women's magazine. She thought it would be a great way to trumpet the benefits of LC so accepted, and had a long interview and a photo shoot. *EXCEPT* when the magazine came out, in every reference in the story and in the quotes from the woman who had lost weight "low carb" had been changed to "low fat". The headline read something like "XXX loses an amazing 80 pounds on a low fat diet!"

She was FURIOUS, but there was no legal recourse as I recall. And of course to us TDCers 80 pounds is not really amazing, just the tip of the iceberg.

Man that takes guts. Good for her to deny them her story. They don't deserve to have it.

Awesome story..the photo brought tears to my eyes...we will all have "war-wounds" I guess it's all how we choose to wear them.

WOW! What a story! What a photo!! What a WOMAN!!!!!!!!