How to recover loose skin after weight loss
If you’re dealing with the problem of loose skin, especially after major weight loss, here’s what you can do about it.
Have you busted your butt for months and months to lose weight only to be left with handfuls of ugly loose skin?
Do you want to know once and for all what it takes to tighten this skin and show off that new body you’ve worked so hard for?
If so, then this article is for you!
First, let me say that I understand how frustrating the loose skin problem is. It’s extremely discouraging to feel like you’re doing everything right without getting the results you really desire.
Some people might say to stop worrying about how you look and just be happy with what you’ve got, but I have a hard time with advice like that.
Sure, some people develop unhealthy obsessions with looks and image, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a lean, strong, healthy body that looks and feels great. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that everyone should have that experience.
And so in this article, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the loose skin issue and see what can be done about it.
The Problem isn’t Always Loose or Excess Skin
While there are legit cases of excess skin after weight loss, what many people think is loose or excess skin is actually just excess body fat, which is soft and jiggly and easily mistaken as skin.
There’s an easy way to tell if you’re dealing with actual loose skin or too much body fat.
Pinch the area you’re concerned with and if you can grab more than a few millimeters of skin, there’s more fat in there to lose.
Until you lose that fat, your skin has no reason to return to its former size and tautness. Remember that skin isn’t a curtain of passive, inert flesh–it’s a living organ that adapts to its internal and external environments. As long as the fat it’s attached to remains, it will sag.
If you’re a man, I wouldn’t consider surgery to deal with loose skin until you’ve hit 10% body fat. If you’re a woman, 20% is the number.
These are the body fat ranges where your subcutaneous fat levels become low enough to accurately assess the state of your skin. And chances are just getting lean enough will resolve the entire problem.
If, however, someone gets to this low level of body fat and his or her skin is almost paper thin and looks like crinkled papyrus, then it truly is a matter of excess skin, and can be dealt with accordingly.
Now, one thing you should know is that certain fat stores are harder to burn than others. The science is fairly complicated, and I dive into it here, but for the purpose of this article all you need to know is the fat in certain areas of our body is harder to lose than the fat in others.
Not coincidentally, these “stubborn” fat stores cling to the areas most often associated with loose or excess skin problems: the lower abdomen, lower back (love handles), hips, thighs, and butt.
What many people think is loose skin is just excess amounts of stubborn fat.
Now, you can’t directly “target” stubborn fat stores with special diet or training tricks, but you can use several strategies to help eliminate them faster.
A big part of tightening loose skin is building muscle. The reason for this is simple.
There are two layers of tissue underneath your skin: fat and muscle, both of which press up against your skin and keep it from sagging loosely.
When you gain a large amount of weight, your skin must expand quite a bit to accommodate the increase in body size. When you lose the fat, however, and especially when you lose it quickly, your skin doesn’t necessarily shrink at the same rate as your fat cells. This imbalance can lead to loose skin.
Furthermore, many people use various forms of starvation dieting as well as large amounts of cardio to lose fat, which also causes significant muscle loss, further expanding the void between the skin and the underlying tissue.
The end result is a reduced body fat percentage but a small, soft physique with sagging skin. The “skinny fat” look, as it’s called.
Building muscle is the solution to all these woes because it literally fills in the looseness in the skin, creating a visibly tighter, healthier look.
This advice applies to both people that have already lost a lot of weight and those that are just beginning. If you’re currently dealing with issues of loose skin, you should start lifting weights. If you’re starting a weight loss regimen, be sure to include weightlifting in it.
Thanks and Source : Muscleforlife
If you’re dealing with the problem of loose skin, especially after major weight loss, here’s what you can do about it.
Have you busted your butt for months and months to lose weight only to be left with handfuls of ugly loose skin?
Do you want to know once and for all what it takes to tighten this skin and show off that new body you’ve worked so hard for?
If so, then this article is for you!
First, let me say that I understand how frustrating the loose skin problem is. It’s extremely discouraging to feel like you’re doing everything right without getting the results you really desire.
Some people might say to stop worrying about how you look and just be happy with what you’ve got, but I have a hard time with advice like that.
Sure, some people develop unhealthy obsessions with looks and image, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a lean, strong, healthy body that looks and feels great. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that everyone should have that experience.
And so in this article, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the loose skin issue and see what can be done about it.
The Problem isn’t Always Loose or Excess Skin
While there are legit cases of excess skin after weight loss, what many people think is loose or excess skin is actually just excess body fat, which is soft and jiggly and easily mistaken as skin.
There’s an easy way to tell if you’re dealing with actual loose skin or too much body fat.
Pinch the area you’re concerned with and if you can grab more than a few millimeters of skin, there’s more fat in there to lose.
Until you lose that fat, your skin has no reason to return to its former size and tautness. Remember that skin isn’t a curtain of passive, inert flesh–it’s a living organ that adapts to its internal and external environments. As long as the fat it’s attached to remains, it will sag.
If you’re a man, I wouldn’t consider surgery to deal with loose skin until you’ve hit 10% body fat. If you’re a woman, 20% is the number.
These are the body fat ranges where your subcutaneous fat levels become low enough to accurately assess the state of your skin. And chances are just getting lean enough will resolve the entire problem.
If, however, someone gets to this low level of body fat and his or her skin is almost paper thin and looks like crinkled papyrus, then it truly is a matter of excess skin, and can be dealt with accordingly.
Now, one thing you should know is that certain fat stores are harder to burn than others. The science is fairly complicated, and I dive into it here, but for the purpose of this article all you need to know is the fat in certain areas of our body is harder to lose than the fat in others.
Not coincidentally, these “stubborn” fat stores cling to the areas most often associated with loose or excess skin problems: the lower abdomen, lower back (love handles), hips, thighs, and butt.
What many people think is loose skin is just excess amounts of stubborn fat.
Now, you can’t directly “target” stubborn fat stores with special diet or training tricks, but you can use several strategies to help eliminate them faster.
A big part of tightening loose skin is building muscle. The reason for this is simple.
There are two layers of tissue underneath your skin: fat and muscle, both of which press up against your skin and keep it from sagging loosely.
When you gain a large amount of weight, your skin must expand quite a bit to accommodate the increase in body size. When you lose the fat, however, and especially when you lose it quickly, your skin doesn’t necessarily shrink at the same rate as your fat cells. This imbalance can lead to loose skin.
Furthermore, many people use various forms of starvation dieting as well as large amounts of cardio to lose fat, which also causes significant muscle loss, further expanding the void between the skin and the underlying tissue.
The end result is a reduced body fat percentage but a small, soft physique with sagging skin. The “skinny fat” look, as it’s called.
Building muscle is the solution to all these woes because it literally fills in the looseness in the skin, creating a visibly tighter, healthier look.
This advice applies to both people that have already lost a lot of weight and those that are just beginning. If you’re currently dealing with issues of loose skin, you should start lifting weights. If you’re starting a weight loss regimen, be sure to include weightlifting in it.
Thanks and Source : Muscleforlife
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