Hanging skin prevention?
 

I've read about other people having hanging skin and am concerned about that with needing to lose 60 pounds. Is there anything I can do during WL to encourage my skin to contract tightly back?

FWIW, my weight is mostly evenly distributed but I think I store a lot of extra fat in my breasts and stomach.

There isn't much you can do, but try using cocoa butter, vitamin E oil, or Bio-Oil to retain skin elasticity.

To my knowledge there really isn't anything to prevent it. I do like dry skin brushing, which helps with several things and possibly with loose skin. Also drinking enough water and moisturizing do help the skin in general. I suppose the good news is that you have less of a chance of having loose skin with less weight to lose. I don't have any hanging skin with almost 100 pounds lost. But genetics plays a big role in these types of things. Now, my tummy isn't tight though, it's looser, but I anticipate there being at least a little tightening over the months and years to come.

It depends on the person's genetics, how quickly they lose the weight, and other things.

To be honest, I'm about your height and I went from 194 to 146 back in 2010 and I did not have any loose skin. Now I'm at 164.6 and my highest was 224 while pregnant and I still do not have any loose skin. I think it's something that usuaslly happens to people who loose 100+ lbs or people who lose weight too rapidly.

I did do things like skin brushing last time/this time, moisturize, get plenty of water, etc.

Moisturize, dry brush (google it), drink lots of water and cross your fingers. Age, genetics etc all factor in. Toning while you lose (building muscle weightlifting) will also help fill it out.

I'd wager It's not going to be a huge problem at the amount you have to lose, and even if you lose quickly, a lot of it will firm up over time when you maintain.

In the end it's a small price to pay for your health.

I will say this is a major concern for me. One thing that I have read that makes sense to me though - is that as you lose weight and end up with sort of defalting baloons of skin, wearing a support garment of some sort is important because you don't want to do additional damage from the extra skin hanging without fat to support it. So this won't "cure" or necessarily "prevent" loose skin, you can at least try to make sure you don't do any more damage if the skin starts getting loose until it has a chance to do its best job retracting. It may never retract all the way - but its worth trying to prevent it from getting worse.

I'm worried about this too, I have a couple of stretch marks where I never used to... I saw one on my boobs recently and have hardly taken my bra off since! I'm following most of the advice, I HATE water, so am trying to keep myself hydrated in other ways, unsweetened tea etc. I must go through 10 mugs of that a day. I moisturise without fail every time I have a shower. I try to get some gentle exercise every day (just walking, sometimes 1/2 mile, sometimes 6 miles) to keep the circulation going. One thing I have heard is that leafy green veg (spinach, broccoli etc) helps stimulate collagen production or something? It does something to keep the structure of your skin intact? I'm not sure what the nutrients are for that, but it's making me want to start drinking wheatgrass shots in the morning as I don't get enough salad down me. Might be worth a google to see if that helps in prevention :)