Ladies, especially post childbearing ladies, can we talk tummies?

Mine is just plain discouraging.

I think I'm about a size fourteen in the hips butt and legs, but I need all this room in front to tuck in my tummy. I can't really tell how much is fat and how much is loose skin-- it's fat and loose, I know that for sure. When I was more plus-sized, I had to get pants to accomodate my big waist-- now, my waist and hips are much smaller, but this big ole lower tummy pouf gets in the way. When I wear pants that fit nicely on the rest of my body, I have to either let the flap fold down which shows , or push it up and buy a smaller size-- hello muffin top. UGH.

My abs are quite strong, but I had four babies, all big, one if my forties, and some of it seems structural. My tummy is a lot smaller now, but the general shape is the same.

I am only 20, I have not ever been pregnant, and I have the same problem! You either have to learn to accept it, or start saving for a tummy tuck! I have begun saving over a year ago for this tuck, because at my age, and for who I want to be...an aggravating tummy flap that makes it hard to buy clothes is not an option.

It will get better.

I had 5 babies. Big babies. And my last one at 41. Believe me, I can relate.

It seemed my belly was the last thing to leave. It's still there, and in 10 lbs I will reconsider the tummy tuck. But it's gone down a LOT. I have stretch marks, I have loose skin, but I'm hoping that I can live with those two things, and a reasonably fit belly. All things considered.

thanks mescelestus and suzy'szoo...

I really don't see myself having a tummy tuck because I hate surgery and medical procedures in general-- I'm the health care field so I'm hyper aware of the risks.

I am HOPING that that once most of the fat is gone the flap won't be such a big issue.

All things considered, I really don't think I'm going to have a big loose skin problem. My arms and legs look pretty good-- and my lower tummy has looked pretty bad for a long time, so now at least it's smaller-- but it seems like the smaller the size I wear in jeans the worse my tummy looks.

On the bright side-- I thought I had permanently lost all abdominal tone, and now after working out for a year, my abdominal tone is pretty good.

I haven't had kids, but I was obese for a long time, and carried plenty of weight in my belly. I'm not an apple shape, but definitely had a big belly. (Because, you know, I was big everywhere.) My lower belly really is one of the fronts in the final battle here, and the bad news is that, of course, I have a lot of loose skin and flab. The good news is that as I get closer to goal, it's deflating and turning into a pretty easily disguised flap. Dressed in sort of mid/low rise jeans, there's only the hint of a bulge, and in the last five or ten pounds, my muffin top has radically shrunk. I actually look GOOD in jeans, and don't have that problem where to fit over the belly bulge, you get a bunch of extra fabric right at the top of the thighs, if you can understand that. I used to have the problem where getting pants or jeans to fit my legs, hips and bum gave me quite a pronounced muffin top, and getting them to fit my belly left them hanging everywhere else, but in the last size drop, that problem has all but vanished.

So hang in there! I mean, the damage is done, and I'm not going to be running around in midriff-baring tops and low-slung jeans any time soon, but I wouldn't anyway, you know? Everything you've heard about big changes happening once you get closer and closer to goal is proving to be true for me.

The only advice I have is keep going until you reach your goal and then re-evaluate the situation. It seems like we all have one area where the fat leaves last and so, the last 20 - 25 pounds can make a huge difference in how we look. I think sometimes people get frustrated at the lack of changes in their bodies and give up too soon.

Once I reached my goal, I couldn't tell what was excess skin and what was fat until a plastic surgeon sorted it out for me. All the puckered up, droopy skin on my hips and butt and thighs looked just like cellulite to me until he told me it was all skin ("yards and yards of skin"!) It flapped when I ran and floated around me in the bathtub. Since you're in the health care field, Uber, you may have better luck than I did in figuring out what's skin and what's fat when you reach goal. Regardless, many people have found that their skin tightens up and body continues to change for a while after they reach goal. Weight loss is a huge change for our bodies and it takes time to adapt.

I can tell you that if your problem turns out to be excess skin once you reach goal and you're not interested in removing it surgically, it should be pretty easy to camouflage with clothing. Once the fat layer is gone from under the skin, the skin itself is really thin. When I got down to the teens in body fat percentage, my excess skin was like tissue paper. I could hold it out in front of me, pinched between my fingertips, just like a sheet of paper. It was so thin that I could shine a light through it because at that point, it was just skin with no fat behind it. When you reach that point with your belly, it wouldn't be hard to find pants that fit because the skin won't take up much room.

So hang in there! Be patient because it will get better!

ETA: I was typing when Catherine posted and we said a lot of the same things.

Ahh, the "pot belly", the focus of my body dissatisfaction since age 10 (I'm 50 now). I had a little rounded belly as a little kid and as soon as hormones kicked in, that's the first place my body stores excess fat. So I never, ever had a flat belly, even as a college student with an eating disorder. The sort of good news is the last 20 years of being 100 lbs overweight removed my focus from the belly - I was now fat all over.

However now that the weight is coming off, I find myself waking up in the morning and doing the same "belly check" that I did in my teens and twenties and trying not to let the size of it set my mood. Luckily the perspective of age and big weight loss is I know my body won't end up perfect and that knowing this was the first place fat appeared means the last place it will leave.

Meg and Catherine, thanks for confirming that it IS going to have to let the fat go eventually.

Thanks guys for chiming in. Meg-- wow, I think I've really never seen true loose skin-- there is nothing translucent and tissuepapery about mine-- mine has a nice thick layer of fat attached to it!

Catherine, it's encouraging to hear that the tummy problem will improve as I start to shed the last 30-40 pounds.
The body image issue I'm facing right now is that now, I'm looking at my body and comparing it to "normal"... whereas for years as a morbidly obese person, I never thought about normal-- only "okay for a fat person."...

It's really hard for me to imagine the next stages, where I will actually start to get back to some weights that I remember weighing when I was younger and not obese.

LOL carye-- I love that about the "tummy check."

it is so encouraging to know that i am not alone in this! after loosing 145lbs, two kids, two c sections... my tummy is a MESS! i cannot have surgery due to some issues (and no money!) so i am hopeful, with time, it will naturally react. in the meantime, i wear a control top/bra to help... it tucks into my pants so it controls a lot of the giggle!

I went from almost 200 lbs to 130 lbs at 5 8. Then, I had a tummy tuck. Went off diet. Now back at 181-1 year later. Back on diet. Ladies, a tummy tuck is an extremely painful and invasive procedure. I'm not sure if I'd do it again. But, my stomach is still flat at 180 FYI. I don't want to test that and gain more... I'd hate to ruin the effects of it by weight gain.

I can relate, I've had two babies and unfortunately was not blessed with pliable skin. Even 35 lbs overweight my belly looks like a rasin (my belly button is in there somewhere). It actually looks better when I'm fatter cause after my first when I was about 15# lighter than I am now it looked even wrinklier and saggier. I'm not naieve, I know even when I get to my goal weight and tone up the skin will be there - saving for a tummy tuck. As much as I hate to admit that it ties up my confidence that much, it does - I'm super self conscious about it and won't even let my DH touch my stomach. Obviously my issues, not his but I'm definitely getting surgery. We're probably going to have another child, but after that it's the knife for me.

I have a saggy stomach w/ stretch marks and a baby pouch. I mentioned it to my hubby the other day and he said, it is fine, wear your pouch with honor, you earned w/ our 2 boys. so while I don't like it much, it isn't that huge and most of the times in jeans it can hardly be seen. Like the person above had the tummy tuck, I think that would freakin KILL! I had my gall bladder out a few yrs back and that incision was small and I was hatin' it big time. so for me the pouch stays...oh and btw once before when I lost a lot of weight the pouch was much much smaller....so no biggie.

I stare at mine in the mirror a lot. Too much, probably. I also play with it. Like, I smoosh it in my two hands & pull it up, to see what it would look like if it were tighter, and also if that would make my navel more attractive. Below my waistline, my belly looks fairly good. Above my waistline, that's another story. Some of it is probably loose skin. It floats in water & feels very empty inside. The right side has a slightly indented, Harry Potter style lightning bolt streak which is actually a particularly dramatic stretch mark. (I wonder why I got one there & not a symmetrical one on the other side.)

This is more than you wanted to know about saef's stomach. But anyway, I too feel dissatisfied with this body part.

I blame our era for fixating on the stomach & midsection as a major erogenous zone over the past 15 years or so. I wish it were still all about boobs, like in the 50s, or legs, or a swanlike neck, or something else.

I want to call the flat, defined ab look "the trophy stomach," and I doubt I'll ever sport it. I'm kind of puritanical about my spending & can't do it on something I consider a "vanity" -- I think I'd likely spend the cash required for a tummy tuck on a trip to Europe or a used car or paying down my mortgage. (Please note this applies only to myself & my own spending -- I heartily approve of others doing this & am only hard on myself, for some weird reason of my own.)

Sigh, this is so apt. I was trying on bathing suits last night. I have elephant trunk inner thighs (seriously), dangly, wrinkly upper arms and all I could notice in my bathing suit was my tummy. It just seemed so prominent.

(I've also never had kids)

I am there too and have replied on the other threads about this as well. I have only just reached my goal of weight loss and am working on getting better toned. I am hoping with what I am doing MORE of now than I was before it will help. I am doing more core training, uppers and running a heck of a lot more. I can feel it in my tummy as I run so I am hoping it helps too! lol

I am not gonna give up - just gotta keep going!