Recently,a Friend and I were having a debate over significant WL and loose Skin.She says that ANYONE who Weighed over 300 LBS before losing has loose Skin.I disagree!I know quiet a few People who lost naturally,and some who had WLS.Every Person who naturally lost doesn't have loose Skin.The ones who had WLS does,but I think it is WLS being an unnatural means of losing Weight.My Friend is 5'1,and though she once admitted to previously Weighing 350,she now says 300.Almost every one of her Grandmother's had "poochy" big Belly's,so perhaps she is Genetically inclined to also have that "poochiness".Her Belly is her problem area anyway.A long while ago,I lost 100 lbs by watching what I ate,portion control and activity.I did not have excess Skin.In fact,I was solid/firm and well built.
I think you don't realize how little you can predict from your small sample size.
You can't spend much time on these forums without hearing about many, many, many women losing weight without surgery, often with starting weights far under 300 pounds, with lots of loose skin.
I lost my weight by doing everything "right" (eating clean, cardio, weightlifting), yet I was left with a great deal of excess skin.
Whether or not you'll have excess skin after weight loss is something that no one, not even a doctor, can tell you before you lose the weight. But age, genetics, and starting weight certainly play a role.
I believe it is a combination of genetics, type of diet, and rate of loss that determines if there is loose flesh (not skin) or not after large weight loss.
My personal feeling is that the loose skin people have after tremendous weight loss is a combination of skin and fat, and that if that fat was lost, the skin would return to shape. HOWEVER, I don't think its just a matter of losing weight, as the weight a person would need to reach to get rid of the fat under the skin is just too extreme, and the person must choose between 3 options. 1) deal with it. 2) loose more weight to the point of unhealthiness and 3) surgery.
My personal experience thus far after 100 pounds is that i do NOT have loose skin, with the exception of a little wobbliness in my arms (stupid batwings) and that is improving as I continue to lose. I feel that I happen to have a body composition and pattern of loss that allowed this to occur, and this is not the case for everyone, as we gain and lose in different places at different times. I just happen to shink as I go, which is awesome for me.
Hi Tarisaande! Congratulations on the weight loss; that's awesome!
I thought the same thing about excess skin -- that if I lost more and more fat, it would get better. So I took my bodyfat % down to 12.5% and the skin problem actually got much, much worse. There wasn't anything supporting or filling out the extra skin without the fat. I could hold out sheets of skin from my belly that looked exactly like sheets of tissue paper, that were so thin that you could almost see through them. You seriously could shine a flashlight through it.
When I went to see a plastic surgeon for a consultation, he told me I had yards of skin; enough to cover a table. No amount of fat loss could make it go away. On one hand, it made me sad but on the other, it gave me a tremendous sense of relief because I knew that I had done everything physically possible to get rid of it and it wasn't my fault.
Everyone's different and we all have a variety of factors that affect our skin. It sounds like you are one of the lucky ones! Keep up the fantastic work!!
I think it depends on the person. I've lost over 55 pounds now and only have 10 to go and still don't have too much loose skin. I have some wobbly bits, but they still have a considerable amount of fat in them. Even my biggest area (my stomach) which has shrunk considerably only has a hint of loose skin. I'm kind of shocked on that one! I think it really does depend on the person.
I've known many people who've had relatively small amounts to lose, and lost it very gradually and naturally - and still had loose skin. I also know a woman who had wls and lost the weight VERY rapidly, and has no loose skin.
I also know a woman (gorgeous) who has NEVER been overweight, so has never had to lose any weight - and her skin lost its elasticity when she began going through menopause. She was active too, not a couch potato, and her skin around her neck and upper arms became so loose and baggy, even people who knew her and knew she hadn't lost weight - asked her if she had lost weight, because they couldn't understand why else she would have so much loose skin on her face, chin, and upper arms (she called her underarm skin, "not just batwings - flying squirrel batwings".
Loose skin here--on my lower tummy (beneath belly button) and at the tops of my thighs. No surgery--and I run (5 miles) daily and do some resistance as well. I eat very well (fish, nuts, veggies, whole foods almost completely) and yep, still have loose skin. I am in my 30's. My thoughts? Loose skin is WAY easier to hide (and even get rid of via surgery) than obesity!
I originally wanted to write this to Meg yesterday, but then the server started having issues and ate my reply so. . .
Thank you for your description of your loose skin, as that is how I imagined it would look if it was really just skin and not also with fat underneath. I read so many accounts of people talking about loose skin when what they are describing is definitely more than skin I had started to wonder if it really happened that way.
I'm wondering about how much of my wobbles are remaining weight to lose, excess skin, and needing to increase my muscle in that target area. I really do think about it a lot and find it to be one of my modivators to keep exercising and calorie counting.
I have wobbles under my arms and think its because I don't put enough focus on my triceps (my exercise dvds give a little attention but I think I need to add more time outside of these dvds). I have poochies on my belly but it is reducing slowly. I have don't many many ab work routines (standing abs, floor sit ups, and core routines in cardio workouts). So, it's probably fat or skin there. I don't have wobbles in other spots so I'm thinking I may have some hope to reduce the areas with strengthening.
Any thoughts on low muscles development adding to wobbliness?
I read so many accounts of people talking about loose skin when what they are describing is definitely more than skin I had started to wonder if it really happened that way.
Yes, it does - both ways. I watched an episode of Big Medicine (following wls patients) that explained the difference between the two different types of loose skin (actually it's not really two types, but rather a spectrum).
Loose skin can be thin and easy to hide, or very fatty-looking (and everything in between). If you think of loose skin as a "bag" some of these skin bags are like bags made out of a thin material (easy to hide, and weighing very little themselves) or bags made out of a thick, heavy material (difficult to hide, and weighing quite a bit, even though they're techinically "empty").
That's because sometimes there's a great deal of fatty connective tissue attached to the upper layers of skin. This attached fat often doesn't respond well to diet or exercise. Yes, it's fat - but it's a type of fat that can't be easily accessed metabolically (a person's body may burn muscle tissue, even the heart, before it accesses this particular type of fat attached to the skin).
They showed a woman dressed (and partially undressed) who looked very much like she was just very fat from the hips down (and very trim from the waist up). Her body proportions were just extremely odd. Even with her clothes off, the loose skin looked more like just plain old fat in my opinion. But the doctors explained why that wasn't true - that while it looked like fat, it was actually loose skin and connective tissue - and they explained why no amount of dieting could make them any smaller (at least not without damaging her heart).
They showed the surgery - and it wasn't liposuction. There was no fat suctionining, although the skin they removed did technically have a layer of subcutaneous fat attached - but it was the type of fat that the body would only burn AFTER muscle (according to the doctors).
They removed nearly 65 lbs of skin. Even though the skin layer included a fair amount of fat, being it was fat that dieting and exercise couldn't remove, I think it's fair to consider it skin, rather than fat.
There's a related condition in which fatty tumors develop (fat encapsulated in scar or connective tissue). No amount of dieting or exercise will remove those tumors. There's even cases of people starving to death with these tumors intact (or so I've read) - because metabolism can't access them because of their encapsulation. It's like the fat is "locked inside" the tumor - and the description of it reminded me instantly of what the doctor on Big Medicine was saying about the fatty connective tissue attached to skin (some people have a lot of, and some people have a little of - and the type and speed of weight loss probably has less to do with how much a person has than genetics).
I think we want to be able to blame loose skin on the person in some way (so we can think that we can avoid it). You can do everything right (even never having the need to lose any weight) and still end up with loose, hanging skin. Skin loses elasticity with age, and some people lose a lot more elasticity than others. Losing rapidly can increase the amount of lose skin, and sometimes loose skin is thick and "fatty" looking - but it doesn't mean the person can diet it away.
Loose Skin..debate between Friend and I
