if i lose weight will my skin tighten Will I Have Loose Skin?

1 if i lose weight will my skin tighten Will I Have Loose Skin?

People planning to lose a large amount of weight may be concerned about how they will look afterward. Will their skin turn out as baggy as their old “fat clothes”? Under normal circumstances, loose skin will shrink as you drop the pounds but in cases of large weight loss it is harder to tighten skin. With a sensible diet and exercise plan, and realistic expectations, you can help your skin to adjust to your new body shape. Besides, a little sagging skin is a smaller problem than the serious health consequences of carrying extra pounds.

If you pinch your skin, it immediately snaps back into place when you release your grip. Healthy skin is naturally elastic and will change shape to hold the form of the tissues beneath. However, any elastic material has its limits. If your skin has been stretched too far, it may be slow to recover. It is even possible to stretch it so far it is impossible for it to regain its previous shape without help.

The more time you skin has to adjust to changes in your body, the more likely it will do so. If you plan to lose weight, even a great deal of weight, a slow and steady rate of loss will give your skin more time to react and tighten up as the underlying fat is burned off. The more weight you lose and the faster you lose it, the less likely your skin will be able to adjust.

Our skin loses elasticity as we age, so people in their 40s will have a harder time with loose skin than people in their 20s. Excessive sun exposure can damage the underlying tissues reducing skin elasticity. Smoking and unhealthy eating, including crash diets, can also make it harder to tighten skin after weight loss. Sometimes we are simply victims of our genetics, and some people have skin which is less elastic than average.

Stay well hydrated during your weight loss program so your tissues have the best chance to adjust. Use moisturizing lotions to help your loose skin keep its elasticity. Exercise may help a little by building up muscle to use take up the slack from excess skin, but it doesn’t directly tighten skin. You may not be able to build up enough muscle to replace the fat volume lost. Finally, you can help by being patient and realizing it may take months for your loose skin to tighten.

According to Go Ask Alice, a health resource provided by Columbia University, health care providers recommend people wait at least two years for their loose skin to tighten up naturally before considering surgical options. In some cases, particularly after rapid weight loss or pregnancy, the skin has been so badly damaged it is incapable of recovering on its own. Surgery can remove excess tissue and tighten skin in these cases.

2 If I Lose Weight Will I Have Loose Skin?

People who have worked hard to slim down weight often worry about excess skin. Many wonder, if I lose weight will I have loose skin? or exactly how much weight loss will cause loose skin? These are reasonable questions because in some cases, the loose skin causes as many problems as the excess pounds that they worked so hard to lose.

If you have extra skin after maweight loss surgery, you know how frustrating it can be.

But there are some solutions that can help. There are exercises, surgical and non-surgical medical procedures that may help you tighten your skin.

Loose Skin After Weight Loss is Normal

To find out more about the problem of excess skin, I talked to Dr. Ninh T. Nguyen, MD, the former president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS). He explained that many bariatric surgery patients have loose skin after surgery.

Dr. Nguyen says that sagging excess skin is one of the most common problems that weight loss surgery patients face. “It can be one of the biggest hurdles,” he says. But he adds that it’s not a problem that patients will face alone.

Dr. Nguyen counsels his patients before surgery about what to expect during the entire weight loss process. He continues to see patients for the rest of their lives following surgery. If loose skin becomes a medical issue due to infection or if the patient is uncomfortable about the look of the skin, the surgeon will work together with the patient to figure out the best option for their particular condition.

3 Will my skin get loose if I lose weight?

Yes, but how noticeable it is will vary. Your skin will become looser because the levels of fat/muscle being lost will not coincide perfectly with the amount of skin you have. Think of it like wearing a shirt. As you lose weight, the shirt will get looser. You can fix this by taking the shirt in. Your body essentially has to take your skin in.

If you lose weight gradually, your body will have plenty of time to take the skin in and should adapt fairly well, providing the minimum possible amount of sag. If you lose weight very rapidly, then no matter how fast your body can work down the skin, you will still have some sag showing(Initially).

Note: Your skin has a limited amount of elasticity. It can only bounce back so far. The amount of elasticity is determined by a large number of factors, but most prominent to this question are time and size. The larger you are, the less likely you are to have “Snug” skin without surgery, the same with age. Depending on how much you have to lose, and how old you are when you lose it, you may look tight or you may look like a sharpei.

Note 2: Sometimes over time, the skin will tighten up a bit when you have excess skin, but this is different from person to person as far as amount of tightening and how long it will take.