weight loss and loose skin

Hi would imagine that like many things this may be individual but for me I’ve lost three stone in six months two of them very quickly in the first couple of months via lCHF and intermittent fasting. I’ve been incredibly lucky and have a bit of loose skin but not too much. I’m sure I read on dr fungs fasting info that if you fast the body not only eats its own fat but also excess protein such as spare skin - sounds disgusting and not sure if this is what happened to me or it’s just I have reasonable elasticity in my skin but combining fasting and Pilates which tightens up the abdominal core means that it seems to be shrinking back with the weight loss. Hope this helps you I was concerned it would be a problem with rapid weight loss but not for me. I’m sure there are many with greater weight loss and a wide range of different experiences and results....good luck with your continued weight loss

I do sympathise @lucylocket61 , it must be a real downer to be solving one problem only to have another arise. I can't really offer any suggestions as I'm trying to put on weight as I lost quite a bit before diagnosis. One thing that might help could be to build up muscles in your abdomen this might help stretch that loose skin a bit.
Hopefully you'll receive far better suggestions from folk who have experience of your problem.
Good luck!
Dave

Well done on your weight loss! I am in my fifties too and since my Type 2 diagnosis last May I have lost over 5 stone, still over 2 to go! I agree about where it’s gone from, my arms, legs, boobs, back, face, even my hands and feet are all thinner. My tummy is smaller but definitely seems to be the last place that’s going to lose it as I approach my ideal weight. So far I have no hanging skin, maybe at our age our skin is flexible enough to spring back? However I do have stretch marks, I wear them with pride as a badge of my achievement so to speak

Hay - feel your concerns - I think in any case losing weight if need to can only be seen as positive.

I'm guessing it depends on many things what degree of loose skin have e.g age, how big (and where) was to start off with, muscle mass, gentic deposition, skin condition e.g people with leather skin from sun, speed of loss and likely self care e.g using oils etc

Prob a raft of other things too.

Can only really comment on my own experience im 33 m never been sun burnt in my life so think my skin is pretty good although don't do any particular regular care - I hold most my weight around my mid section so was never concerned about other areas in general without the weight I'd say I'm small framed but tall (not muscle bound by a long shot).

Since gp gave me kick in the a** nearly 3 months ago I've had pretty rapid weight loss - just over 3 stone with about 1-2 to go before ideal.

My result as far as skin goes is that there is slight looser than used to be but nothing that concerns me and defantly not even close to were it would cause problems - infact hopeful over time will just go back to how used to be a few years ago when I was lighter.

Biggest factors I feel for me is age and that while I was obease I didint consider I was excessively over huge to start off with - but most of all just luck.

Hope is some help and hope you can carry on your journey of loss without been to concerned about excessive skin

Edited by a Mod.

I lost 61/2 stone in 6 months many (30) years ago well before diabetes diagnosis then some more over a longer period and have remaind at 10-11 stone lighter than I was at my heaviest ever since ( oscillates by +/- 1/2 stone)
Likeyou I maily lost frm my middle - Ive never had massive amounts of loose skin - some yes but never the hanging down type and what I have had, tightened up to a degree after the weight loss. Vitamin E applied externally helped with skin condition

I am in around your age and have lost quite a lot of weight very rapidly. I haven't noticed any loose skin on my body in the way that you fear. I don't exercise so am not very toned, so I am wibbly and have squishy bingo wings and the like. Where I noticed saggy skin is on my face and neck. I don't like it but then I don't much care for the wrinkly ageing process anyhow! The cliche of choosing between your face and figure is quite accurate for me. Much better to be healthier at a lower weight think than have a face that looks younger.

I went from 95 to 70 kg over about 9 months from all over, though the rubber tyres round the middle did leave some loose skin... not that pretty. Been working, as others have mentioned, on building up the muscles again, pretty slowly over the last two years and it does seem to be working. It's really a by product of shoulder/arm weight exercise for frozen shoulders... 3 kg for each arm and some core pilates, all pretty gentle, muscle and body tone.

It's some that is often not mentioned when bariatric surgery is discussed. There was an article in Guardian a couple of months back and after some digging found it.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...o-cut-it-off-weight-loss-patients-excess-skin

@lucylocket61
Fasting is the key here. Autophagy should reduce excess skin. Dr Fung says he has never had a patient who needed to have excess skin removed. After my 8 stone loss I am slightly loose around the tum but nothing like your picture.

lucylocket61 said:

since I started having a cup or two of bovril a day, the dizzyness I experienced when fasting has gone. I cant remember who suggested it - sorry.

However, my blood sugars seem to keep going up and up if i fast, i tried for 5 or 6 weeks fasting for 14 hours and only eating twice a day and i felt drained and fuzzy and my sugars crept up all the time until I had eaten. They were up to around 10-12 before lunch. Thats why I went back to the hot milk coffee mid morning.

any ideas of how to combat that please?

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Eat breakfast and lunch and skip dinner? This is meant to be more effective fasting than skipping breakfast and lunch allegedly but for most it is simply far easier to skip breakfast. I have no idea if there re any studies that have shown it (highly unlikely) but I do think Dr Fung says this although he prefers to eat diner with his family so is a breakfast skipper because that works for his eating patterns.

This is something i have done a bit of reading about, and have a little practical experience, too. I lost a lot of weight in my thirties and it took over 2 years to improve. Arms and tummy have never fully recovered.

I understand that until we hit our mid 40s (perimenopause) our skin is usually elastic enough to bounce back from most things - so long as we eat the nutrients that enable the healing. It may take a year or two, but the skin usually tightens up.

After 50 and menopause the skin loses elasticity and is less able to tighten up. Good nutrition, skin moisturisation, skin brushing, will help. It can still improve, but it will take longer and may not be as effective.

Don’t fall for the myth that exercising will tighten the skin. The only place on the body where the skin is attached to the muscles is the face. So you can lift facial skin by increasing facial muscle volume and stopping muscles sagging. Elsewhere on the body all you can do is increase muscle definition and volume while the skin sags over it. Sometimes this can give the limited impression that the skin has tightened.

As BB says, Jason Fung says that none of his fasting patients have needed skin reduction surgery. He credits this to lower protein and autophagy. Both of these could be achieved without extensive fasting, since autophagy can be triggered by low calorie without fasting (e.g. Volter Lungo’s Fasting Mimicking Diet)

I have seen some people advising jogging and high protein diets to tighten up skin. I think that is illogical. Loose floppy skin is going to flop more with high impact exercise, isn’t it? Gravity will stretch it with every jolting impact. And a high protein diet is not going to make the reabsorption of unneeded skin likely, since harvesting and recycling the available and redundant protein/collagen will work better if the diet doesn’t have a protein surplus.

If anyone wants, i can provide online references to all of the above (including you tube vids of facial exercises that claim to work as well as face lifts (hmmmm!) but i will not provide links suggesting jogging and collagen to reduce saggy skin. You can find them if you like, but i won’t help you.

Brunneria said:

If anyone wants, i can provide online references to all of the above (including you tube vids of facial exercises that claim to work as well as face lifts (hmmmm!) but i will not provide links suggesting jogging and collagen to reduce saggy skin. You can find them if you like, but i won’t help you.

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Been following this thread with interest. If you can provide online refs to the things you mentioned that would be very helpful @Brunneria and thank you in advance.

No worries!

Skin brushing
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dry-skin-brushing-benefits-cellulite_n_1811708

This is Jason Fung’s blog post on protein that refers to loose skin
https://idmprogram.com/how-much-protein-is-excessive/
But you would really need to read more of hos posts in fasting to get the full picture.

Volter Lungo and the Fasting Mimicing diet (which is an expensive packaged verion of a very low calorie, low protein diet to be followed in 5 day bursts every few weeks, intended to trigger autophagy. Personally, I think fasting is cheaper and easier.
Long video
Newspaper article
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/nutrition/why-weve-all-been-doing-the-fast-diet-wrong/

This is just one face exercise vid - there are 1000s out there. Also some books.
You can do searches on which particular part of the face is a problem. E.g. chin, eyebrows or cheekbones.
I confess that while i know a few exercises, I never remember to do them often enough to improve my jowls.
So I am not confirming that they work!

Oh, and something else i forgot to mention last night - when people go through lipsuction, they are told to wear compression underwear 24/7 for weeks afterwards. This helps the flesh reduce to the new shape. Seems like a good idea to me. I mean, if nothing else, it would reduce the endless pull of gravity, wouldn’t it?

lucylocket61 said:

OK, I know this is probably silly but:

I have gradually, over two year, lost just over 2 stones. Not a great deal as I have another 6 to lose. At this rate, I will be in my coffin before i get slim........

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As well as the helpful posts on your thread, @Lucylocket, the slow weight loss (teeth-grinding though it is) will also help regarding loose skin. I endorse the other members' tips regarding moisturiser - slather it on. There are some really good and cheap ones out there, especially those containing shea butter and Vit E; no need for a £175 pot of Crème de la Mer!

My girlfriend bought me something called BioOil to reduce the appearance of a scar I had (I think from Boots and some hairdressers for about £20) as she had used it for stretch marks after 2 children The stretch marks disappeared after about 6 months.
Would be worth reading up on this stuff.