Will I get saggy skin?
 

Hello all.

I am really worried that I am going to get saggy skin once I lose all the weight because I am seventeen so it would just be awful if I stepped in a bikini on holiday, all nice and trim... with SAGGY SKIN? :?:

I have asked my mam about it and she is certain that I won't get any saggy skin and if I DO, it wouldn't be that bad. She explained that it's because I'm almost 100 lbs overweight but I haven't been overweight for years and I'm still young so I should still have the elasticity (sp?) in my skin.


What do you guys think?

Beth
xx

I would rather be in a bikini with saggy skin than sitting on the shore wearing capris and t-shirt.

Your skin will have more elasticity because you are young. Saggy skin really should be the last of your worries however if you have 100 pounds to shed. You will be lowering your chances for all kinds of yummy things like cancer and diabetes and heart disease.

No one, not even a doctor, can predict what your skin will look like post weight-loss. No one knows!

My perspective is, if you have no way of knowing whether it will happen, why worry about it now? You can cross that bridge when you get to it. Saggy skin isn't the best, but hey, its way easier to hide that in your clothes than fat, right? And you don't even know if you'll have it.

We have a great sticky thread on this: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36040

Thighs Be Gone
I know that the low chances of cancer and diabetes, etc, sounds better than saggy skin but I can't help being quite self-obsessed with my image. I do have 100 lbs to lose but I'd hate to get there in the end to find saggy skin and be disappointed. I have a boyfriend who loves me, no matter how I look, but I can't help worrying that I won't look good naked in front of my boyfriend at post-weight loss :o Do you understand what I'm trying to say, though? :)

mandalinn82
Thanks for the link! I will have a read once I post this. That's true, it is much easier to hide saggy skin in clothes, rather than fat! :yes:
Thanks for your feedback.

Beth
xx

Hey Baz, I think we all do understand what you're trying to say, and the truth is that you might have saggy skin and you might not. But don't let the prospect get you down, because it's still worth losing the weight either way. :) There's a "sticky" post in this forum about loose skin if you want to check it out.

Keep in mind that we all can gain the weight back if we get to goal, don't like how we look, and think we looked better fat.

The funny thing is ... no one has ever done that! :chin:

if you train with weights and do excercise and lose weight slowly you wont get loose skin rapid weight loss makes skin loose

Looloo - that's actually a misconception. I lost slowly and lifted weights. No matter - loose skin is still there. But as I said above, its way less of a big deal than it's made out to be.

Check out our Skin FAQ thread for more info.

Yeah looloo, I have to respectfully disagree. I lost weight super quick, 140 pounds in a year and don't have much loose skin to speak of.

There's no way to tell except to lose the weight.

Yikes! Sorry, I'm a Mother of a teenage son your age and the thought of them being naked in front of their girlfriend frightens me...So I'm trying to get past that thought...

So you don't mind being naked in front of your boyfriend at 100 pounds overweight, but will think you look bad at a normal weight with a little wiggle? That seems odd to me. Did you worry about stretch marks when you rapidly started gaining too? Did that stop you from doing it? No, you gained it anyway and let your skin stretch out, it did not concern you then...why now?

My husband of 20 years who loves me at all sizes sure doesn't seem to mind the saggy (43 year old) skin he see when he looks at me. Trust me, your skin is the least of your worries right now...focus on the 100 pounds you need to lose to be a healthy weight.

I had lost about 60 pounds, before the meads put a lot of it back on lol. I had no lose skin at all. Didn't even have any more stretch marks than I already had from having my children and that wasn't but a few.

Skin all depends on the person. You really aren't going to know until you have not only lost the weight but toned the body with exercise.

Remember, getting the extra weight off our body is healthy. Rather there is lose skin or not we are much better off without all the extra weight. If there is lose skin you might have to dress a bit differently. Example no bikini but a swim suit that shows less instead if that makes you more comfortable.

You are going to be so happy with yourself at a lower weight a little wiggle, if you have any, isn't going to be that important.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether you will have loose skin or not. At Christmas my mother was complaining how "lucky" I was because when I lose the weight I won't have as much loose skin as she does, because I'm younger, and haven't gone through menopause. I'm not sure it will work out that way, but it is true that the younger you are, the more elastin in your skin, so younger folks do tend to have less loose skin, but still there are no guarantees.

But what probably is true, is that the younger you are when you get it off, the less loose skin you will have than if you lose the weight later in your life. You may not be able to compare your amount of loose skin to some other person's, but you can pretty much guarantee that the sooner in your life you lose the weight, the less loose skin you will have compared to later on.

One thing to consider is that if you lose all the weight and don't like how your body looks, you still have several options. You could save up for plastic surgery to do the required "tucking" you could dress to cover what you're not fond of (even during nekkidness, there's always the option of semi-nekkidness with pretty lingerie), or of course, you could gain the weight back to fill out your skin again.

I think when I've worried about stuff like loose skin, it's more that I've just been afraid of change in general, and loose skin is just a handy reasons I could use to justify not changing. Really, when you think about it, weight gain is pretty darn easy, so if I'm afraid in any way that I won't like my thin life better than my fat life, getting fat again probably wouldn't be a problem. I really doubt that once I get there, that will happen (but it's always an option).

Although no one can predict how much elasticity your skin has or whether you will have saggy skin or not, what we do know is that your chances for saggy skin increase with your age and duration of being overweight. So if you lose weight now versus 5, 10, 15 years from now, your chances are better for having limited if any saggy skin.

Well, loose skin can be helped with certain exercises and diet, water drinking, blah blah...but I think it comes down to a few key factors:

- Your age
- How long you were wearing that weight
- How heavy you were when you started your weight loss
- What body shape you are and how you carry your weight

Me I have worn my weight for 7-8 years, I'm 31, my starting weight was around 340, I have other skin issues on top of this, I'm pear shaped and I wear most of my weight in my lower body. Am I going to have loose skin issues? Yes. I can already tell you where the problems are going to be, but I also think it is really hard to predict what I'm going to look like when I am 200 pounds because at this point I'm 278 pounds and my stomach is hanging horribly...and then some! lol Even when I get down to my ultimate goal I know that my body has to get used to this new me and I believe that our bodies tighten up and what not the more you maintain that weight and lifestyle. However, at the end of the day I will have loose skin and there isn't a cream or exercise or wishful thought that will make that not happen.

All I can say, is thank god for shapewear and sexy bras that LIFT and SQUISH lol. hahahahahahahaha

I highly doubt you'll have loose skin- the younger you are the less likely you are to have it! it's very true.. I'm 26 and I feel that I'm still young enough that since I'm losing it now I probably wont have a huge amount of excess skin- But I've kinda been a lucky exception because even at 306 lbs I never got stretch marks.. I've always been big so my skin has just been slowly stretching my whole life- SO I don't worry about it- but I can tell you one thing for sure a thin slightly jiggly body is much sexier then a huge fat body with rolls! I'll take the extra skin jiggles anyday!