15 Hard Ways to how to get rid of flabby skin after weight loss?

Losing weight is a momentous achievement and ought to be celebrated for sure, but for some having to contend with loose skin as a result of losing a great deal of weight can be disappointing. You may feel like you’ve won in one area and lost in another, but this is not necessarily the case. In fact, there are some natural ways that you can increase your skin’s elasticity and tighten the areas in need over a matter of time. Your results, of course, will depend on how much weight you’ve actually lost, the length of time your skin was stretched out, and your age.

1. Monitor your weight loss. It may be time to curb your weight loss just for a bit to allow your skin to get adjusted to the loss. As you maintain your weight, your skin has more of a tendency to shrink to your new size. If you continue to lose weight rapidly, your skin will continue to lose elasticity.

2. Increase your water intake. Drinking a lot of water not only improves your overall health, it also will help your skin to become tighter, smoother, and look more radiant. Be sure to drink at least 6 glasses of water per day. If you can drink more than that, even better. Hydration is wonderful for your skin and certainly helps with the elasticity of such.

3. Participate in weight resistance training. According to Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise, strength training strengthens muscles as it creates a layer of muscle underneath the skin. As a result, your skin will become tighter. It is recommended that you perform strength training three times per week every other day in order to really benefit your muscles and skin. Weight training is especially important if you have dropped your caloric intake significantly, as when you lose fat, you often lose muscle as well. Rebuilding your muscles will help tighten the skin.

4. Moisturize your skin. Use a moisturizer that has vitamin E in it, so that your skin will stay moist, as this allows for new skin cells to grow. Moisturizing also helps with minimizing wrinkles. You can even use coconut oil on your skin. Coconut oil is a natural moisturizer and has antibacterial properties to soothe the skin. It is often used in commercial and DIY body lotions, but it can be used on its own as well. You can find here more fantastic everyday uses for coconut oil, or read about these fruit oils for skin care.

5. Belly Toning Exercises. Chances are your belly has some stretched skin if you’ve lost a lot of weight. Tightening the tummy area is much more possible if you take time a few times per week to exercise that area. Commit to belly toning exercises such as crunches, air bike, leg raises, sit ups, side bridges, and pelvic thrusts. You don’t have to spend a lot of time on these exercises either. Simply spending 15 to 20 minutes three to five days per week will help tighten your tummy area. You can find here 8 simple exercises to get a flat tummy, and if you have loose skin on your arms, check these 6 simple exercises to get rid of jiggly arms.

6. Get massages. Who doesn’t love a massage? Head to your favorite masseuse to get weekly or biweekly massages, as they are known to help increase blood circulation that is helpful to your skin. As nice as they are, you don’t necessarily need a massage therapist to massage your skin, as you can do it yourself or have your partner do this for you. You can add to the massage your favorite essential oils diluted in a carrier oil and inhale them to reach new levels of calmness. If you are interested to learn more about essential oils you can find useful information in my e-book Magical Aromatherapy. This book will help you to discover the power of essential oils and the most effective ways to use them.

7. Limit your sun exposure. Too much time in the sun will have a negative effect on your skin’s elasticity, so limit your time sun bathing. This goes for tanning beds as well, as the rays can dry out your skin and damage the skin cells at the same time (you can also watch this video to see what the sun really does to your skin). Also, limit your time swimming in chlorinated water, as the chlorine can dry out and damage skin cells. Spending a short amount of time sun bathing and swimming is alright; just be sure to shower afterwards and apply a natural moisturizer that has vitamins and aloe vera included.

8. Sea salt scrubs. There are some researchers asserting that sea salt scrubs will help with blood flow to the skin and help tighten the skin over time. There are a number of sea salt and mineral scrubs available on the market to choose from. Simply use them in the shower each day as you wash and see how your skin looks and feels after a couple of weeks. Read my article how to use sea salt for your skin, including sea salt body scrub.

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9. Visualize tight skin. Visualization is a super interesting tool to use to get your desires to come true. No, it’s not like magic, but there is power in envisioning your desires manifesting. Even some professional athletes use visualization to help improve their games and performances. The way it works is that when you mentally see something, you tend to take more actions toward making your desires come true. When you see your skin tight, you’re more apt to do things like exercise, eat healthy, and follow through with other helpful tips. You have full permission to daydream and take some time each day and visualize yourself with tight skin.

10. Be patient. When dealing with stretched, loose skin, it is important to be patient as your body adapts to your new size. Additionally, keep in mind that depending on how much weight you’ve lost, your skin may not be able to return to its original elasticity. Make a decision to accept this now just in case and affirm that you are pretty awesome even with some loose skin.

It is understandable to become frustrated when you’ve lost a lot of weight and now have to be concerned about loose skin. Fortunately, others that have gone before you have tried all sorts of methods to tighten their skin and happily pass that information on. Keep in mind that what works for one person may not work for you. You can try various ways to tighten your skin and see what is helpful for you.

Additionally, understand that elasticity reacts differently at different ages and stages in life. For the young mom who just gave birth and is contending with loose skin, it may only take a little bit of effort to tighten up the skin and keep it moving. For the 50 year old who has just dropped 75 pounds in a short amount of time, it may take a bit longer for the skin to tighten and it may not get back to its original state due to age. It is important to realize this and accept it wholeheartedly. Reward yourself for losing the weight and accept your skin’s condition in the process of tightening it.

If you have loose skin on your arms and want to tighten and tone it, try these simple exercises for jiggly arms:

11: Check If It’s Really Skin

Sometimes the extra ‘skin’ is actually extra fat that has to be lost to create the tight look

Most people who I have seen who I have worked with who complained of having excess skin still had some excess body fat to lose in order to get the look they were trying to achieve. The first thing you need to do is to check to see if it’s really skin and not fat. If you pinch the area and it feels almost paper like when you squeeze it, then it’s skin, but if there is a bit of a resistance when you pinch it, that means there is usually some fat that still needs to be lost. Keep in mind that fat loss for health reasons and fat loss from a cosmetic point of view are two diametrically different goals. A loss of only 10% of your body weight among those who are categorized as obese or overweight confers tremendous benefits in terms of reduction in chances of developing diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. That being said, the only way those fat stores between the skin can be lost is by dropping your body fat levels even lower. Most people don’t realize how low our body fat levels may have to be reduced in order to have a really tight appearance and what’s even more daunting is the fact that in order for this to work you have to not only lose the excess body fat but also be able to sustain a low body fat level for a significant period of time in order for your skin to adapt. How long depends on your age, lifestyle and skin elasticity. My experience with individuals ranging from their twenties to their fifties is that it can take weeks for some, months for others and years for most but only when there is a dedication to consistently good nutrition and a weight training program focused on increasing muscle mass.

12 Build Muscle

the more muscle you build the tighter your skin will be when you lose weight and the more likely you will be to keep the weigh off!

We hear the term ‘muscle’ today and immediately the image of an outrageously musclebound man or woman comes to mind. Unfortunately, this stereotype prevents most people (women especially) from achieving their goals as the look that the general public associates with weight lifting is that of the bodybuilders you see in the magazines or online who use anabolic steroids. Without drugs and a balanced training system building muscle mass won’t make you look like you are wearing a gorilla suit, a fact that anyone attending a reputable drug tested bodybuilding contest can attest to. Building muscle is in fact as close to a miracle aid as you can get if you are losing weight as without a weight training program most people will end up with significant amounts of excess skin if they lose a sizeable amount of weight. Let’s say you don’t have much in the way of muscle mass to begin with and you are striving to lose weight. You drop your calories and or partake in aerobic based training routines and you lose 10-20lbs over the course of several months. The aerobics you did would not have increased your skeletal muscle mass (and may have decreased it- see my article Rethinking The Need For Cardio) and so if your skin was taut to begin with, the loss of fat tissue under it would indeed leave some degree of loose skin. You aren’t going to be mistaken for a Greek gods or goddesses as you will only be a smaller version of yourself. A version wearing a set of skin that is a size or two bigger than when you started off, leaving a loose look that most aren’t very pleased with.

Now as long as you spend the rest of your life with a reduced calorie intake (which studies show is rather unrealistic long term for most) and doing aerobic exercises you might be able to keep your weight down and you may have some tightening of your skin over time, but it will take a very long time if it ever happens at all. This is the experience most people tend to have when losing weight. On the other hand, if you started a program of weight training to build muscle while also watching your diet to see to it that you lose weight the outcomes will be very different. For one you won’t lose weight as quickly as the person doing aerobics and keeping their calories low, as you are not only losing fat but also building muscle at the same time. A pound of muscle tissue is far denser than a pound of adipose tissue and so small increases in your muscle mass can reduce how quickly the numbers on the scale go down even though the increased muscle mass means you’ll burn more calories at rest and thus are more likely to burn off more body fat if your diet is controlled.[6,7] To the rapid-weight-loss-fixated it may sound counterproductive but it’s a superior method in every way possible. Not only will the increased muscle mass serve to tighten up your arms, legs and abdominal regions so that when you lose the fat you will have some toned muscle showing through instead of just being a smaller version of yourself, but the area under your skin that was once tightened by fat stores will over time be replaced with muscle tissue. Not as much muscle tissue as the fat that might have been there previously but enough to reduce the amount of time required for your skin to adapt to the reduction in size.

13: Take Your Time

Take your time! losing weight is more of a marathon than a sprint and the faster you lose it the more hanging skin you may have to deal with.

An artist beginning a sculpture looks at the stone, wood or whatever medium he or she is going to use and does their best to plan out how they will realize their final vision. Most people seeking to lose weight tend to be a bit more myopic, focusing only on losing weight as quickly as possible without much care for the consequences of rapid weight loss. The nearly communal obsession with rapid weight loss is often the very reason people end up with hanging skin. If we keep in mind the idea that our skin’s elasticity is finite, it becomes somewhat clear that the faster you lose weight the less time your skin would have to adapt to the reduction in adipose tissue under it that was keeping it taut in the first place. I have seen people lose as little as 15 pounds within the span of a couple of weeks from combinations of starvation diets and extreme amounts of aerobic type exercise and have hanging skin as a result, while I have worked with others who have lost over 50 pounds over the course of a year (with a program of sensible diet and high intensity weight training and zero steady state aerobics) who had consistently less loose skin than those around their same age who loss far less weight in a shorter period of time. It isn’t a message many are willing to embrace but when it comes to weight loss the slow and steady do win the race. The older you are the more important it becomes for you to take your time in losing weight. I have worked with competitors in their 20’s who have lost over 40 pounds within a three month period who had no problems with hanging skin and others in their thirties, forties and fifties who lost less weight to get into contest shape but took a while for their skin to adjust to the drop in body fat. Studies show that post-menopausal women especially tend to have a harder time dealing with loose skin than those who lose weight in their earlier years, perhaps due to the effects of estrogen on skin elasticity[1] and so it becomes critical that you take your time and understand that slower weight loss means faster tight skin afterwards. With the growing popularity of bariatric surgery patients routinely lose 50 to as much as 100 pounds within a very short period of time, a massive degree of weight loss that inevitably leads to hanging skin as there is no way our body could possibly adapt to such fast weight loss regardless of our age or skin elasticity. Unfortunately in these cases plastic surgery is the only recourse to deal with the remaining skin and it’s one reason why I always recommend individuals to stick with the slow and natural approach. It might take years instead of months but you are far less likely to have the problem with hanging skin if you lose weight the right way.

1 4: Stay Hydrated At All Times

Hydration is a bit of a funny thing- if your body doesn’t have enough water it does it’s best to hold on to as much water as possible and you get a bit bloated. On the other hand, if you always have a constant intake of water that meets your body’s needs your body does not retain water. Now you might wonder what hydration has to do with loose skin after losing weight and it’s actually very much connected. Most people don’t drink enough water to begin with and thus will be slightly dehydrated- holding excess fluid under their skin. That fluid pushes against your skin, and can reduce the degree to which your skin shrinks when you lose weight. Think about it- if you are dehydrated you can hold anywhere from 2 to as much as 7-10 pounds of excess fluid whereas if you are fully hydrated you won’t have that excess fluid buildup and your skin will have a much easier time adapting to your reduction in body fat. The key idea is that if you want your skin to adapt to a reduction in body weight you want to try to stay consistency at that body weight. The ups and downs brought on by water retention does nothing to help and proper hydration is also a critical factor in optimizing skin elasticity. So don’t forget that water is indeed an important component to your dietary program and avoid high sodium foods that can also make you retain water.

1 5: Be Patient And Accept Yourself

Learn to focus on what you have achieved and not one what is still left to be done!

Acceptance is a hard thing for most of us. We want the body of our dreams and after working hard to lose weight it can be difficult to look in the mirror and see hanging skin. The problem is that very often this very perception can be for all intents and purposes a bit skewered. Humans are by nature designed to be very selective in focus. If you walk down a busy street talking to your friend you can easily follow your friend’s conversation even if it’s a bit noisy, and if you are really involved in the discussion you may not realize that it’s a noisy street at all. This perceptual focusing is part of how our hardware operates but it doesn’t change reality. No matter how great (or horrible) the conversation, the fact that we stop being aware of the car horns, people talking and general hustle and bustle around us doesn’t mean that they cease to exist- it just shows where our focus is. Similarly if you work hard for months on end watching what you eat and how you train and keep your focus only on the hanging skin that you see, that skin becomes your reality. Your friends and family may be telling you how fantastic you look, you may be wearing clothes that you haven’t worn in years and you may have energy and a general feeling of health that you never had before but if your focus is solely on what could be better, then you can’t enjoy your accomplishments- and that is a tragedy that plays over and over for most people losing weight today.

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