Everything You Need To Know About Loose Skin And Weight Loss
Author: Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, author of the #1 best-selling
e-book Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
If you're extremely overweight or if you've been extremely overweight in the
past, then you know that getting rid of excess weight is only one of the challenges
you face. Once the fat is gone, you are often confronted with an equally frustrating
cosmetic problem; Loose skin.
I receive a lot of e-mail from people with loose skin or from overweight people
who are concerned about having loose skin after they lose the weight. Just recently,
I received this email from a reader of my syndicated “Ask Tom” fat
loss column:
“Tom, I began a fat loss program using your Burn The Fat program and it
worked so well I got down to 15 1/2 stones (from 19). However, this has caused
me a problem: Excess abdominal skin. I didn't crash lose this weight, it came
off at the rate of about 2 lbs. per week just like you recommended. Now I'm
unsure of whether to carry on, as my abdomen has quite a lot of excess skin
- I feel like I've turned into a bloody Shar-Pei! (You know, as in the dog!)
Does everyone go through this? Will the skin tighten up? I was overweight for
more than 12 years. Am I going to end up needing surgical skin removal? Can
you offer me any advice? I'm a medical student in the UK and my colleagues seem
determined to proffer surgery as the only option.”
My answer included 12 things you should know about loose skin after very large
weight losses:
1. Skin is incredibly elastic. Just look at what women go through during pregnancy.
Skin has the ability to expand and contract to a remarkable degree.
2. Elasticity of skin tends to decrease with age. Wrinkling and loss of elasticity
is partly the consequence of aging (genetic factors) and also a result of environmental
factors such as oxidative stress, excessive sun exposure, and nutritional deficiency.
The environmental parts you can fix, the genetics and age part, you cannot.
Advice: Get moving and change the things you have control over... Be realistic
and don't worry about those things you don't have control over.
3. How much your skin will return to its former tautness depends partly on
age. The older you get, the more an extremely large weight loss can leave loose
skin that will not return to normal.
4. How long you carry extra weight has a lot to do with how much the skin will
become taut after the weight loss: For example, compare a 9 month pregnancy
with 9 years carrying 100 excess pounds.
5. How much weight was carried has a lot to do with how much the skin will
resume a tight appearance. Your skin can only be stretched so much and be expected
to "snap back" one hundred percent.
6. How fast the weight was gained also has a lot to do with how much the skin
will resume a tight appearance. Your skin can only be stretched so quickly and
be expected to "snap back."
7. How fast weight is lost also has a lot to do with how much the skin will
tighten up. Rapid weight loss doesn't allow the skin time to slowly resume to
normal. (yet another reason to lose fat slowly; 1-2 pounds per week, 3 pounds
at the most if you have a lot of weight to lose, and even then, only if you
are measuring body fat and you’re certain it's fat you’re losing,
not lean tissue).
8. There are exceptions to all of the above; i.e, people who gained and then
lost incredible amounts of weight quickly at age 50 or 60, and their skin returned
100% to normal.
9. There are many creams advertised as having the ability to restore the tightness
of your skin. None are likely to work – at least not permanently and measurably
– and especially if you have a lot of loose skin. Don't waste your money.
10. If you’re considering surgical skin removal, consult a physician for
advice because this is not a minor operation, but keep in mind that your plastic
surgeon may be making his BMW payments with your abdominoplasty money. (Surgery
may be recommended in situations where it's not 100% necessary). Surgery should
be left as the ABSOLUTE FINAL option in extreme cases.
11. Give your skin time. Your skin will get tighter as your body fat gets lower.
I've seen and heard of many cases where the skin gradually tightened up, at
least partially, after a one or two year period where the weight loss was maintained
and exercise continued.
12. Know your body fat percentage before even THINKING about surgery. Loose
skin is one thing, but still having body fat is another. Be honest with yourself
and do that by taking your body fat measurement. This can be done with skinfold
calipers or a variety of other devices (calipers might not be the best method
if you have large folds of loose skin. Look into impedance analysis, underwater
weighing, DEXA or Bod Pod).
Suppose for example, a man drops from 35% body fat all the way down to 20%.
He should be congratulated, but I would tell him, "Don't complian about
loose skin, your body fat is still high. Press onward and keep getting leaner.”
Average body fat for men is in the mid teens (16% or so) Good body fat for
men is 10-12%, and single digits is extremely lean (men shouldn’t expect
to look “ripped” with 100% tight skin on the abs unless they have
single digit body fat, and women low teens).
Except in extreme cases, you are unlikely to see someone with loose skin who
has very low body fat. It's quite remarkable how much your skin can tighten
up and literally start to “cling” to your abdominal muscles once your
body fat goes from “average” to "excellent." Someone with
legitimate single digit body fat and a ton of loose skin is a rare sight.
So... the key to getting tighter skin is to lose more body fat, (and build
more muscle), up to the point where your body composition rating is BETTER than
average (in the “good” to “great” category, not just "okay").
Only AFTER you reach your long term body fat percentage goal should you give
thought to "excess skin removal." At that point, admittedly, there
are bound to be a few isolated cases where surgery is necessary if you can’t
live with the amount of loose skin remaining.
However, unless you are really, really lean, it's difficult to get a clear
picture of what is loose skin, what is just remaining body fat and how much
further the skin will tighten up when the rest of the fat is lost.
Need help getting rid of that last bit of body body fat? Click here to find
out how to do it the natural way: www.burnthefat.com.
Train hard and expect success!
Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
Founder & CEO of
Burn The Fat Inner Circle
About The Author
 Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the Fat,
Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World's Best Bodybuilders
and Fitness Models. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss
expert who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs
or supplements. Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn
stubborn body fat, find out which foods burn fat and which foods
turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss report and mini course by
visiting Tom's site at www.BurnTheFat.com
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