I am back, not new but back again, for like the 100th time. Some of you might remember me. Sorry if you do! LOLOL

I have a couple of questions that I need to ask. One that is very important to me. I'm not a vain person because I have never had anything to be that vain about, but here it is. When you lose weight, I have 134 pounds to lose. I'll lose more than I will end up weighing if I get it done correctly and I pray that I finally do. At 57 I can't have that many more chances. Anyway, after I have lost this 134 pounds, how bad will the loose skin be? I have watched these programs on TV about them having to have excess skin removed just everywhere. I can't afford to do it, and its not a possibility with my insurance situation, so am I looking at losing this weight and then swimming in skin for the rest of my life?

Second, what is your favorite way to cook your meat. I am a fried person, so is this still a good way to do things?

I hope you can accept me back and if you have advice for me, please by all means add it. I should add, I know a lot of folks are going to say with the right exercise, I probably won't have "as much" loose skin. I can't do much exercise. My entire right side is a source of constant pain. I have 3 disks that are herniated in my back, so I have to be careful with that. I have plantar fasciitis in both feet (have had shots for it, not working), I have a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder, and my sciatic nerve is all messed up on that side. They have told me if they could just cut my right side off, I'd probably feel pretty good! LOL Just FYI here.

Thanks for any help.

Hi dunroven. Good on ya for keeping on returning. It's not how many times we get knocked down. It's how many times we get back up. Loose skin goes away if we stay true to low carb healthy fat for a good long while. Just string those OP days together. If you have 134 pounds to lose, I wouldn't think about loose skin at this point. You can deal with that later.
Yes, fry your meat, in butter and olive oil. Healthy fats are good. Do you follow the Atkins books? They'll explain it all.
Don't worry about exercise. Just get your eating plan in order and practice it so you're being really devoted to it. Then in a few months, if you want you can start gentle walking or stationary bike, whatever. Give yourself time to stay committed to the eating plan, first and foremost. Good luck.

I think I'm getting to the point that I'm looking forward to starting instead of dreading it. You have given me new hope about the idea of loose skin. I really had almost talked myself out of ever trying, because having that hanging loose skin, to me, would be worse than being fat. I just don't think I could ever be happy with it being like that, so I'm now going to give it a shot and see what happens.

Thank you so much!

Of course you can join here. Welcome!

Loose skin. No one can really tell you how much loose skin you will have at the end. There are a lot of different factors. All I can do is give my experience as a woman who has lost 100+ pounds. I don't have a lot of loose skin. There is a little on my arms. It is only really visible when I do a bicep flex pose. I have also noticed that with time and a little weight training, it is becoming less and less prominent. Also I have pretty strong leg muscles, but when I sit there is a small bit of sag in the thigh muscle. Totally not visible when I stand and really most people probably don't even notice it when I sit. I carry most of my weight in my butt and thighs so if you have naturally thinner legs this might be a non-issue. I felt comfortable wearing a bikini in Mexico at about 97 pounds lost if that gives you an idea.

Though I don't really subscribe to her beachbody exercise plan and shakeology diet, I do like her plus size exercise modifications. I can't find the video where she explains in more detail the fat loss process, but this one does a pretty good job. It really helped me not to freak out during the weight loss process. Puckery skin followed by looser and tighter skin is all part of the process when we lose a lot of weight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ton5hrWr2yk



One thing that you have to look forward to is feeling better. I think loosing weight is really going to help relieve some of your physical problems. I would be excited and looking forward to that. The great news is you don't have to do any exercises to lose weight.

Advice: Find a LCHF plan and stick it to 100% with no cheats for at least 90 days. You will most likely loose a good amount in the first week or two followed by around week 3 nothing. Don't freak out. This is totally normal and your body is adjusting to the loss. Also if you start feeling really crappy after a few days, know that this is totally normal. This is your body detoxing from the all the addicting sugar and moving into fat burning mode. If you can white knuckle through the sugar and carb cravings for the first couple of weeks, those cravings go away. If you can stay away from it for 90 days, most of those sweet treats won't taste good to you anymore. Focus on all the yummy things you can eat and not what you can't.

Last piece of advice: Get involved with the community here to get support. Keep a journal. Follow the journals of other successful people. And know that weight loss is not linear and is a practice in patience.

Welcome back! I have 100+ to lose, and am focusing on that part right now. I was worried about loose skin, but the weight loss is so gradual that I don't see anything yet. I am just going to stick to the plan, and see what happens. Look at it this way - stay on plan, lose all the weight you want to lose. See how you feel. See how much loose skin you have. It might not even really show, like ReneeH2O said. Odds are, you are going to feel so much better, both health wise and mentally, that you will look back at this and laugh. We are here for you! It's not easy, but we are all worth it!! Good luck and stay strong

Even if you never need to lose weight, at some point in your life, you'll have loose skin. But lose it over time by eating right, rather than scary bariatric surgery, and you can minimize the baggy look.

I'm 65. I've lost 33 lbs since starting LCHF. And I'm a little loose everywhere. But, even at my age, it's tightening some.

I know it won't be taut; as I said, I'm 65. But for me, it's better to have some loose skin here and there than to have achy joints and higher blood pressure and worsening blood lipids and blood glucose that's creeping up.

For the cost of some loose skin, my joints feel better, my blood pressure is back down to dead teenager territory (106/70) and my bloodwork is stellar. And that's all in addition to the weight loss.

Whoops - missed second question: I fry my meat and fish in butter. Well, I don't fry bacon in butter, but pretty much everything else, unless I am grilling. My daughter toasted lo carb bread, and we zapped it in the bullet to make breadcrumbs with the chicken, but not necessary.
I do like getting brats from our local butcher, removing the casing, and baking them. I take two for breakfast each morning to eat on my commute. It's easier to bake them, because I usually do 10-12 at a time.

Perhaps you can allow yourself to be surprised when you get there! You might also enjoy loose skin as a reminder to your future self that some time in the past you made a wonderful decision and gave this gift to yourself today. Then again you might not have loose skin at all. No one can predict the future very well, especially others futures.

Well, I'm started today, not a great start because I wasn't prepared for it yet, am now and will really do better tomorrow; had to go shopping, but I was hungry and needed lunch, so I bought a pouch of pepperoni and have been snacking on it off and on all afternoon. I know its probably not the best choice in the world, but its getting me through today. My husband got clearance to drive, and basically sit for the next 2 weeks. Then he gets his stitches out. So he's going to work tomorrow and I'm going to have the day to fry chicken, and bake bacon and make deviled eggs (all this after chores that I still have to do for the next 2 weeks) and then I'll be able to have a few things on hand to eat. Oh, and I do have a green pepper and a cucumber and some salad fixings for his diet, so I'm going to eat those veggies as well, and I think they would be okay for a snack, wouldn't they? I'm going to be asking questions, cause even though I have read the book over and over, I'm now to the point of second-guessing myself as I didn't do it right the first time, so I'm just needing someone to affirm or disavow what I'm doing.

Thanks for the welcome everyone and Thud? Loose skin for me would be a terrible reminder and I'd not be happy at all about that. NEVER, EVER in a million years. So if I have it and it doesn't go away at least to a partial extent? I'll eat myself back into that loose skin. I won't have let it be on me like that. I just can't handle that.

If you are doing Atkins, familiarize yourself with induction foods. Mostly meat and eggs (you're good, there) and leafy greens with vinegar and oil.

That's the first two weeks.

One more suggestion, if you will indulge me. It is disempowering to tell ourselves what we cannot handle. Better to tell ourselves "We'll see how it goes when I get there."

Because, really, you will feel so good in your skin when you can move more easily, think more clearly (the effect of carbs on our brains is devastating) and feel 200% more healthy.

The beliefs and worries that you have today may not exist, 134 lbs from now. But if you insist on holding on to them, they surely will.

A person whose words I really appreciate says that "You can never get enough of what you don't want." Look for what you WANT, not what you don't, and life gets better and better.

I do understand totally about the idea of being happy with what we get, but you see, I have a problem with that loose skin and facing my husband. If it turns out that way, as uncomfortable with him as I am now, I'll never go in the same room with him where he can see me undressed. I just can't do it. I need to not be an elephant in the room, swinging trunk or packed trunk, either way. So if I can't lose the loose skin, I'll get fat again, on purpose. Its me. Its how I feel about me.

I am 53 years old. I've lost 250 pound over the past 2 1/2 years. I have loose skin. However, it is nothing like what I saw on those "biggest loser" type shows. Those shows are all about rapid weight loss, massive exercise, and eating like a mouse. When they reach a reasonable weight they have lost a bunch of muscle and still have more fat than the average person their size. I didn't lose weight that way. Slow, steady, and eating a reasonable amount of food each day gave me better results. I was worried about loose skin, too. I thought my belly might be hanging to my knees. That nightmare did not happen. I have just a little wrinkling around my navel, a small apron around the front, loose skin on my inner thighs and small 'bat wings' under my arms.

My lose skin is getting better over time. It slowly recovering with each additional pound of fat lost. I've read that it can continue to tighten for up to 2 years after the initial loss. So I'm hopeful that it will get even better over time. But let me tell you where I'm at now... I've gone to our community pool this summer and I go in without a shirt. When I look around and see my peers, I look pretty darn good. I don't have a basketball sized belly poking out. My tiny apron and thighs are hidden away under my swimsuit. I'd be lying if I said that I don't care about the lose skin. I do want it to get better. I think it will. But I like what I have now 100 times more than being the biggest guy in the pool.

My wife accepted me as a very large man. She likes what she sees now even better and I hide nothing from her. Staying obese to avoid lose skin is, IMO - just another of the 1001 reasons we use to justify continuing to eat the junk that we don't want to give up. Lose the weight. If you don't like it, you can always gain it back. But I don't think you will want to.

Thank you for that. I needed to hear it. I am not saying I won't lose the weight. I am going to try with all my heart and soul, but I am saying that I will see when I get there what I look like. If I feel like a disappointment, then why not be a fat, happy disappointment. Folks I have a lot of that being a disappointment in my life, and I am at a point where I can't take having him look at me and see more ugly than I am now. Its not him, its me. I know that. But I can't change it.

I do know that those shows cause such fast weight loss that no one's skin could shrink to keep up with them, I have a pretty good apron now. I'm really scared about it not coming back. I absolutely do not wear shorts now, except as pajamas to walk around the house in before I get dressed, but if I don't look okay to me in those shorts when I get the weight lost, I won't wear them. I have had a lifetime of being embarrassed, I know you all know that feeling too, so I'm not thinking I'm the only one here, but I do know how I feel. I feel like a disappointment now. I just want to be told I look good, just once in my life by someone who might mean it. You know? I can't stand the thought of getting there and not looking better. We'll just see. I appreciate all your help folks, but this one thing is not going to change for me. Its too ingrained and I'm just scared over it.

Can I tell you though, I did have a small victory tonight.

First here was my day:

Breakfast:

2 eggs with about 2 ounces of turkey breast.

Lunch:
I was on the go and ate the small package of pepperoni.

Supper:
I had purchased a 10-pound bag of chicken hindquarters, and I took 2 of them, so actually 4 pieces, and fried those in canola oil in a cast iron pan where I had cooked steak a few nights ago. It still had some of the fat from the steak along with soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. It was nearly dry till I added the canola oil, but oh my goodness were those pieces of chicken great! Crispy skin, no breading of course, and that was my supper, oh plus about 6 little cherry tomatoes.

After supper tonight, hubby and I had an argument. Came into my office to work (medical transcriptionist from home) and I brought an old friend with me, a 6 fun size pack of simply caramel milk way. Okay, just gonna knock these back and I'll feel better cause I deserve it.

I opened the package, took one out and then looked at it and said to myself, "Self, what are you doing? Are you really wanting to sabotage yourself on the first day??? All over an argument? No, I don't deserve this punishment, I deserve to lose weight!" So I put the little bugger back on my desk and I haven't touched it. I'm going to touch it though. Gonna take it back to hubby's candy stash and keep my hands off of it.

Yay for me, a victory, small though it may be!

My apron, bat wings, and inner things were much worse 6 months and 25 pounds ago. The lose skin still had extra fat weighing it down and causing it to sag. As I've lost more weight and given the skin more time to recover it has sagged less. At my age I doubt that it will tighten up completely, but the way things are going, I think I will be happy enough with the results. I doubt that I will go the surgery route. I may change my mind later. but I'm going to give it a couple of years before I even consider it. IMO, I'd have to have a good reason for doing it -- more health related than appearance.

I hope it works for you Khrussva! You are an inspiration to me and I hope you will stay with me through this journey. Everyone says, yeah, its all about getting healthy, but sometimes, it isn't, you know? Sometimes you need someone to tell you that you are pretty, or at least not ugly. Haven't had that before, and for good reason. Now I want the good reason. I really actually want it all I guess. Good health and good appearance. Its important to me.