They lose this ginormous amount of weight and look fabulous at the end, TIGHT, toned, no excess skin. Yes i know they do a lot of strength/toning exercises and exercise in general which of course contributes greatly to body SHAPE but good grief, here i am almost at goal weight and pant size (pretty much within 10 lbs or so) and i have fat hanging around my knees, at the top of my thighs and an ugly spare tire around my belly button (that i can't tell if it's loose skin or a combo of stubborn fat and loose skin) that is ruining my shape and truly enjoying my new found appearance. i can feel all my ribs and hip bones, see my veins and dainty wrists yet have FLAB in strategic places and i compare myself with the biggest loser contestants and don't see any of that

Susie

Many of them do have quite a bit of extra/loose skin. I recently watched every single episode they have on Netflix, and you can see many of them have the skin issue. Not to mention it's TV and while it's a reality show, there often times isn't a lot of reality involved.

I listen to Jillian Michaels' podcasts and she mentions in several episodes that many of the contestants end up with loose skin and quite a few have undergone surgery for it after the season ended.

Danny, winner of season (10?) went on The Doctors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ibF18798dM and had his skin removal surgery documented on camera.

My guess? They got the skin surgery behind closed doors.

Like LockItUp said, although it is reality TV, it can be a far cry from actual reality.

I doubt they had it before the finale. Not enough time to recover and work out. And you are swollen for months after surgery.

they are dressing well, and wearing spanx

I haven't watched the show in ages, but I always noticed that early on the guys weigh in shirtless and the ladies weigh in wearing a sports bra, so everyone can see their naked tummies. And after a certain point, they're suddenly wearing shirts. You just know it's because they started wearing Spanx.

Many of them actually have lots of loose skin. Ada is one of them for example. She became very small, but she had a ton of skin on her back/arms that hung. Jeremy from the last season had it as well. Those are the only two I can think of off the top of my head but I do know that a good percentage have skin issues.

Exactly. This is what I noticed every time I watched the show. They show their big tummies in the beginning, but then they wear shirts after to possibly hide the loose skin.

Its actually not that hard to use clear tape on the loose skin for the sake of taking a picture.

And to the person mentioning spanx... actually shapewear does help the skin to shrink up.... not that much but it helps a bit by fighting the force of gravity.

This former contestant talks about loose skin in THIS article, and mentions many other contestants have the same issues.

Are there any creams or lotions that would help with loose skin?? Or is it wishful thinking? lol

Wait, it's on Netflix!!!??

As far as tight/toned goes- if you worked out 6 hours a day, I'm sure you would be too. But they do have loose skin, and you can really see it in the arms at the finale. I'm also thinking that the reason they start wearing full shirts about 2/3 of the way in is to hide the loose skin in their bellies.

Oh yeah, people get skin taped up for TV and photos all the time. I wouldn't take anything you see on tv as actual reality.