I was just reading Jimmy's blog about loose skin: Maybe that loose skin is really excess fat and it's something that I've thought about quite a bit. After losing 50 pounds, I too have a lot of loose skin. I'm sure that I still have a little excess fat under there but it can't be that much. At 5'7" tall, my lowest weight was 116 pounds (I'm currently 122 pounds) which works out to a BMI of 18-19. According to some of the charts, that's almost "underweight" for my height. Most charts put my ideal weight between 121-160 pounds. My starting weight was 167 pounds and that is only considered to be "marginally overweight". On my small frame, it was definitely very overweight. Anyway, I figure that I must have at least 10-15 pounds of excess skin. It has to be loose skin because there is no way that I could possibly lose another 10-15 pounds and still be healthy. I would have to be anorexic to get down that low. No one at 5'7" tall should weigh just over 100 pounds.

By the way, I have tried exercise and it only slightly tightened up some of the loose skin. I've got it under my arms, on my thighs and my belly. My stomach looks flat until I bend over. It's not a pretty picture, LOL.

I've been to the The Myth of Loose Skin website and I think he's full of baloney. According to what he says, I need to lose at least another 10 pounds and that would be insane!

I agree that "myth" site is BALONEY! Since I wrote that post, LindaSue, I've lost about 20 more pounds and the loose skin is worse than ever. It's kinda gross, but I consider it a battle scar of days gone by. One of these days, I will get it taken care of!

Linda,

Height and weight charts are meaningless. BMI is meaningless.

What matter is body composition.

The only way to test this properly is getting it professionally tested.

Don't focus on weight, but body composition.

It may mean instead of losing 10 pounds, you have to gain ten pounds in lean mass? (Or it may not?) I was just saying that as an example that what you weigh is menaingless.

It's like me at over 300 pounds weighing myself.

why am I weighing myself? I'm still extremely obese! LOL

One thing I have noticed is that when I exercise regularly, and start to build up muscle, my clothes fit loser at a higher weight. It does take a while for that to happen though and at first my jeans will fit tighter in my thighs until the muscle swelling levels out. Exercising does help make the flab look a little better but I sometimes get discouraged because I know that I'll always look flabby if I remain thin. I so regret letting myself ever get that fat and now I'll have to pay for it the rest of my life. I'm just glad that I decided to take charge of my eating when I did or the situation might have been even worse or I might have reached a point in my life where losing weight would be more difficult.

One of these days I WILL get back to exercising. I have back problems that make exercising painful but it's not unbearable and the results are worth it. I do Callanetics and Pilates. The Callanetics are great for muscle tone and I do the Pilates in between my Callanetics days. They're much easier and they give me a chance to rest and recover from the Callanetics.

I'm very concerned about loose skin too! I have wrinkly upper thighs, a tummy that's getting wrinkly around my stretch-marks(2 kids), and my bat wings ...skin hanging under my upper arms..well, let's not even go there* I've been dry skin brushing every morning for about 3 weeks..has anyone else done this, and was it a good resolution for your loose skin problem?

PS..I am exercising every day...cardio/weights

Hi Linda! Thank you so much for your recipes***

I don't think I've seen any results yet, after 3 weeks..but then, I look at my body daily too...hard to tell:)

I think I'm about to step into it. :-)

I can't prove it, but I think the Myth of Loose Skin site is probably correct.

Think of some of the contestants on the Biggest Loser. How is it that many of them reach their ideal weights and don't have large amounts of loose skin left over?

The key is to LOSE FAT - NOT WEIGHT! There is a such thing as a skinny fat person. If you have a lot of loose skin, you may have to shift your body composition by working out with weights and slowly losing fat until your skin begins to tighten up.

I'm trying to do this as I lose weight. It will be interesting to see my results when I reach my maintenance weight.

Actually, Fitlanta, I interviewed Adro Sarnelli who won Season One of "The Biggest Loser Australia" and he had LOTS of loose skin issues to contend with through multiple surgeries.

I am interested in what I have read about Titan Tissue Tightening. There are a couple of other recently FDA-approved, non-surgical options involving heat and the increased production of collagen.

I don't think these can possibly take the place of surgery for some folks, but they might be good (and less expensive) alternatives for some.

I think that *some* loose skin issues can be improved by further fat loss, further muscular development, better nutrition, and even time! But I think there is still definitely a place for surgery for some people some of the time.

JMHO.

Look at body builders. Sometimes their bodies look so tight, it's like their skin is stretched over their frames. Some male bodybuilders have bodyfats as low as 5% or less.

I know that at least some of the US Biggest Losers looked great by the time they finished losing weight and showed up at the finales, and that was without the benefit of surgery. Matt from Biggest Loser 2 looked pretty fit to me - not saggy or anything. So did Eric and Wylie from Biggest Loser 3. (Seth from BL2, however, had SOME loose skin in his midrift area, though it didn't look terrible overall - and he looked pretty fit in his arms and throughout the rest of his body.) I'm not the most committed Biggest Loser watcher, so I can't give solid stats or anything on all the contestants from the all the seasons.

I didn't say ALL of the contestants from the show avoided loose skin issues, but I am saying that some managed to minimize or avoid this problem. We need to figure out if there is something they did that enabled them avoid major loose skin issues. It may be partly genetic, but I believe it's also largely strategy. You have to focus on FAT loss - not just weight loss.

Jimmy, you had GREAT weight loss on Kimkins, but your focus was NOT on fat loss, but on seeing the scale go down and seeing your overall size go down. You knew that losing more than 2-3 lbs/wk was absolutely going to cause your body to start encroaching into muscle tissue. So it's not surprising at all that with your weight loss over the past few months, you still have the same loose skin problem.

I can't say for sure, but I've been working out with weights as I lose b/c I do not want to have a major loose skin problem. With resistance training, I am trying to force my body to protect its muscle, thereby forcing it to burn off fat for fuel. Though I am still big, I can now see muscle building underneath the fat. I will know if my strategy worked 50 lbs from now.

I tend to think it's mostly luck whether you end up with loose skin or not. If you're younger and have less weight to lose your chances are better.

I was surprised to read Linda Sue had this problem, because I also went from just into the overweight BMI to somewhere around the lower end of the "normal" range (because I'm shorter, the actual numbers are all a bit lower) and I didn't have any loose skin problems at all. I'm 46, and I do some exercise, but not a huge amount, and I did hardly any while I was losing weight. I lost most of the weight over a six month period about three years ago. My husband still has more weight to lose, but I'd guess there will be some looseness by the time he's finished - but he will have lost well over 100 lb by that time.

Maybe part of my problem is my age. My skin isn't as elastic as it used to be. Maybe it is true that I need to build up muscle and lose more fat but I don't want to look like a body builder. I think I'd have to gain a ton of muscle to balance out the amount of loose skin/fat that I've still got on my body. I'm not even sure if that's possible with my body type. I don't think I'm destined to be muscular and I'm not sure that I want to be.

You can tone without being *muscular* or looking like a body builder. Women have to do some very serious workouts to end up with those bulging muscles.

There's some really great information on this site for women regarding weight training.

http://www.stumptuous.com/

We all have our own issues with our bodies, and although I have had a lot more weight to lose than you, loose skin can affect us all.

Try doing some weight training Linda. You may find all you need is to build up a little muscle under that skin to make all the difference. And the increased metabolism can never hurt. It's good for your bones as well.

Liz, I think it may be luck whether or not you end up with loose skin without the right kinds of exercise or a proper strategy of avoiding loose skin as you lose weight. I don't think this issue is any different from dieting in general - some ppl have to work harder than others.

I'm going to say about this, the same thing I say to myself frequently. Do ALL you can do before throwing in the towel or concluding that something won't work. Has anyone here put forth even the slightest effort to see if Tom Venuto had a point about dealing with loose skin through diet/exercise, rather than surgery?

I do weight training, but no one could mistake me for a bodybuilder! ;-)

I'm just stronger and my body works more efficiently and looks smaller at a higher body weight. I have more energy and feel better. :-)

I used to have really skinny arms. No more!

Researchers are finding more and more that people can be very thin by the charts and yet have excess amounts of the relatively more dangerous visceral fat. This is more common among people who maintain their weight solely by dieting without the use of exercise.

OK.... Here's a really strange thing.... My loose skin is a *lot* less since #11 was born than it was before him! I dunno what he was doing in there, but it seems to have worked! (Not that it's entirely gone, but it's much better!)

Body composition is truly the thing we're all after, not just weight loss. When I was 221, I tried low fat and I got down to 178. I had some loose skin in my chest and lower back areas, not to mention love handles and I still was fat around the middle. I lifted weights three times per week was quite muscular, but I lost a lot of muscle doing low fat.

After creeping back to 207, I started Atkins and now at 161, I'm really lean despite the fact that I still lift weights three times per week. All of the loose skin and love handles are gone and I'm very muscular at 39, 5'8 and a 30-inch waist.

A lot of that bulging muscular look that you see is genetic. Some people aren't very strong, but they really bulk up and look big. Others, don't tone very well at all, but they're as strong as oxen. The strongest people actually don't look the part, unless you see them while they are exercising. I believe everyone would benefit by adding weight lifting or some form of resistance training. Weight lifting gives you more bang for the buck in less time, but there are many ways to do it. Also it's well settled that muscle burns more fat and it's much more pleasing to look at!

Best Regards,

Charles

When I do exercise, I don't seem to have much trouble building up my biceps which don't have any fat on them to speak of. It's my triceps that are the problem. I don't think I'd even want the amount of muscle back there that it would take to fill the hanging flab. I suppose I'd need to get my biceps big enough to pull all that skin up there instead of it hanging down in the back??? I think I'd look like Popeye, LOL!

I have to tell you I am THRILLED with results from Curves! I started a few months ago at over 260 pounds and now that I've lost 44 pounds, I am really glad I did Curves faithfully. I have never kept up an exercise program this long before, and I really hated exercise. Both knees hurt when I took stairs one step at a time....you've seen pitiful people who take one step, put the second foot on it, take a second step, put the second foot on the second step, holding tight to the rail. That was ME. Now I can take stairs normally!!!! WooHoo! I haven't lost as many pounds as some people have, but I know I've traded some fat for some muscle with the hydraulic machines that work two or more muscle groups at a time. The really cool thing is that the intensity of the workout is controlled by how fast the machines are used. There are recovery aerobic stations between each machine, and I can now combine upper body calisthenics with the aerobic walking or running in place at the recovery stations. They tell me that circuit training gets more accomplished in 30 minutes than many other forms of exercise in a much longer time. I believe it!

You would think that with a 44-pound loss so far, I would have skin hanging all over me. It isn't so, and I just turned 60 years old and have been heavy most of my adult life! Wow! I cannot believe it! I still have a lot to lose and won't know what it's really going to be like until a few months from now, but I'm already dealing with WAY less loose skin than I expected to have at this point! One other thing I have done is use a Homedics massager, the kind with the handle that is advertised on TV, on those places that had considerable fat to lose...which is most of me! I never had particularly good circulation, and I think that helps. I didn't know if it would work, but why not try it.....no harm done and nothing to lose but possibly more fat and loose skin!

Here is the best of all: A young woman in her mid-thirties weighed 600 pounds at my Curves gym, and I learned that over a period of several years she lost 400 pounds! She is in her mid-thirties, she has never had surgery, and she has NO hanging skin! She is very shy so I didn't want to stare, but Oh, My Goodness! I had to work at taking my eyes off her when I first met her! She is tall, very attractive now, and there is no way you could tell she was ever even overweight, much less 400 pounds overweight!!! It is just the most amazing thing! She said she had to relax and accept the fact that there would be stalls. Her longest stall was SIX MONTHS one time, and she STILL kept at it! She did protein shakes and one healthy food meal a day, and she allowed herself one treat a week. She still eats that way. So there is hope for even folks like me!

I could not recommend Curves more highly. It's fun, even though it's serious business, and it is really, really nice for people like me who have never exercised very much and never thought they ever would! My goal was/is to have total body conditioning, working out every major muscle group several times a week. Let's face it.....I have just chosen to slow down aging and feel good! I'm already hooked. I discovered I LIKE feeling stronger, healthier, and more energetic. It's a KICK! If I can do it, ANYBODY can! Those days when I go in and I'm not in the mood, I begin by saying "I am so grateful that I am able to do this" as many times as it takes....until I AM grateful I can do it.

Hope that helps somebody!
It's the best $34/month I've ever spent! I fully expect to do it the rest of my life now! There are plaques on the wall with the names of women who have exercised there for up to twelve years! What a positive addiction!

In the Spirit!
Jazzy