I think my greatest fear about losing a lot of weight, is that I will have tons of loose flabby skin just hanging. I know I could never afford to have surgery to correct it, so that would not be an option for me.

What I need to know is if there is a way to prevent it, other than not to lose weight. Or should I just start a savings for the day I reach goal and need surgery?

Anyone else have this fear or know of ways to prevent it?

Hi DeeX

OK, here is what I know from the research I have done....

1st of all, make sure you are taking good care of your face. Lotion your face with a quality facial lotion 2x daily. I use Mary Kay or the Oil of Ole' products. Make sure you clean your face and defoiliate before you apply lotion. Stroke your face in the right direction to support the facial muscles instead of tearing them down. Also learn how to do facial exercises to help build the muscles back in your face. The lotion helps keep the skin supple and the exercises encourages the skin to stay tight.

Next make sure you are doing some weight lifting. Some sources believe that when a muscle group is worked, it triggers the skin to tone. Lotion your body as well to help keep the skin supple. I hate putting on lotion, so I use the Oil of Ole' mosturizing body wash. It has worked well so far.

Third, take some supplement(s) that help the skin to maintain or regain it's flexibility. I take Colostrum which is "suppose" to help maintain and improve the skins flexibility. As well as increase engergy etc etc.

Also, it is also believed that the slower you loose the weight, the less flab you will have. The skin has more time to adjust. In another board I participate in, people have said that the flab will decrease with time. Some plastic surgeons refuse to do surgery until you have maintain your weight for a year. This is for a couple of reasons: 1) if you start regaining the weight after the surgery you can get into trouble quickly, 2) it is felt that it takes a year for the skin to adjust.

Forth, if all else fails, the national burn center will sometimes pay for the operation to remove the flabby skin, as long as you donate the skin to the burn center for use on burn patients. I call that a win/win situation. I am not sure what the guidelines are for qualifing for this program, you may want to keep it in mind.

I am doing what I can to minimize the flab, understanding that my sister who has never weighed more than 110 pounds in her life has flabby arms and legs<g>. I figure that 1 year after getting the weight off, I will decide what to do then.

Keep your chin up, don't let it sag

Dee

I too, share this fear.

I'm not afraid of affording the surgery. It's the surgery itself that scares the hell out of me!

Some low carb plans are a lot higher in carbs than others, and thus the weight loss is slower.

This might be a better a better approach.

I echo the need for weight training. I'm not talking lifting weights in aerobics, or circuit training. Proper anaerobic lifting of weights is a really good way to get toned.

Don't worry, you won't turn into a beefy body builder overnight - thats very hard to do. By lifting weights - men and women tone and grow their natuarlly sized muscles. Everything tightens up!

LC_Dave

Thanks so much you two for the wonderful information! I am going to start using your advice on the lotion tomorrow morning, and I will get on a weight program as soon as I get some weights!

With lots of hard work, perhaps I wont have much to worry about, and push come to shove, I can always check out the donation of flab to a burn unit, we do have one not to far from me!

I've seen this question posted often, and when people who have lost a lot of weight answer, they all give different answers. Most of all, it seems to depend on the condition of one's skin. If your skin is resilient, you won't have the problem. If it's not, you may. Exercise definitely helps, but.....

I hope no one will let the fear of loose skin stop him or her from losing weight. Those of us in the Triple Digits Club, especially, MUST lose weight for health reasons. Lose weight first, worry later

How much is surgery to correct this? Gosh...and the pain. I wonder if age is a factor as well?

Thanks for the info though.

you know i have the same issue along with what i am going to look like.

i have a friend that went crazy after loosing weight. she is way out of control. she lost weight, got out of a failed marriage and went men crazy. she did have surgery (weightloss). i don't want to go that route. but to each his own.

i pray that i remain sane. i have heard of people still believing they are overweight even after loosing.

I lost 133 pounds a few years ago and the only loose skin I had was on my tummy which was easily concealed with clothing and spanx!
This time, it's looking like it'll be the same.

My biggest fear is I'll stay this size and die long before I should. I really couldn't care less about loose skin any more.

BTW, you're not that heavy, you mght have some bat wing arms (which tighten up with pilates) and some tummy sag or apron, just lose, do ab-tightening exercises and strength training.

I worry about losing alot of weight and have the skin sags too-I watched the shows on tv about the stomach surgery and then the people having surgery to cut off the extra skin-so far I have lost 90 pounds and have another 80 to go and right now my arms are a little flabby but am trying to do arm exercises and my lower stomach is getting flabby-but with that area I can't wait for the fat to go away and just have the skin left-I will deal with that when it happens! No matter what I just have to lose the weight, I have a 5yr old and I want to still be alive and able to move around when he graduates high school! To me that is the motivation I need, that and I don't want the school kids to make fun of him because of MY weight, like they did to me about my mother.

First, sorry to burst someone's hopes, but burn units don't use skin from living donors. This myth has been circulating for ages and it's not true. A number of times I've seen posts from people that have actually called and asked and the response is always that this is a fallacy. If they need that much skin, they use an organ donor that has died.

Second, the amount of loose sagging skin you get will have more to do with genetics, age, amount of weight lost and number of times you've gained & lost that weight than it will to do with pilates, skin brushing, supplements, weight training or lotions. Not to say that those things won't make a minor difference, but if you are going to have bad problems, they won't make a big difference.

In my experience, you can tell *now* how much trouble you'll have with loose skin. How loose is it now? At my top weight, my skin was destroyed already. My bat wings were huge & floppy. My stomach already had an "apron" of skin & fat. If your skin is already loose & floppy, it's not going to improve with losing weight. If your skin feels tight and taut, even if it's over a lot of fat, you probably won't have much trouble.

But don't let skin concerns stop you from losing weight!

thanks, i've got the dunlap going on. i remember in college when i first started seeing a little bump of it. i was like "what's that?". i was a thick shapley girl and was proud of my curves.

my curves are now a box. i remember running into this guy that liked me, but i wasn't feeling him. he said "oh my gosh, what did you do?" "you use to be so fine!"

well...then people were asking if i was preggers, and after a while, i'd just say "yeah".

i wasn't at all ! heck wasn't even dating. so sad.

then my cousin's son's mother left my baby cousin at 2 weeks old. she just left, couldn't handle being a mother, so i raised him from 5 months to 5 years old. i used to hear women say, oh it's fat from the baby. so when i was with the baby i'd assume my fatness was excuseable because i had the baby with me (although he wasn't mine and i didn't "have" him). but noone
really said much of anything, like it was acceptable.

at 35 i want kids, but my obgyn says loose weight first. but i think i will wait a while before the kids cause i do want to enjoy my new body when it comes together.

and besides i want to be a "hot" mom. not the one i was portraying to keep people off my fatness !

dayum i was so sad back then. 26 young and soooo ugjhhh !
dang i ahven't been candid about this EVER !

I've got some loose skin, and I'd really like to get surgery when I get to where I'm going. Don't know if or when I'll be able to afford it, but I hope it's in my future.

My biggest fear, however, is stoked by this thread - look at the date it was started - 2002. Now look at how many of the people who posted in it actually got to their goals.

My fear is falling off and not getting to where I want to be. That's why I worry about right now and not some distant point in the future when I may or may not have way too much excess skin, uncomfortable attention from other people - whatever. I worry about now because I don't want people coming on here in 5 years seeing that I never did what I set out to do.

-j.

That's what the TDC is for.

-j.

WOW. I was thinking the exact thing. One of the coolest thing on this forum is that so many people that have achieved their goal, STILL come here to encourage and advise. They give us hope.

I've lost 50 pounds so far. The skin everywhere seems to be snapping back -- except the skin on my stomach and breasts. The lower abs, especially, just look hideous.

But, my abs (and my whole body) looked much, much worse 50 pounds ago.

My fear is that I get frustrated, quit, regain to an even higher number, have ehalth complications, yoyo for a few more years, and eventually die young due to what my weight has doen to my body.

I can live with saggy abs.