If you’ve put in months upon months of hard work to lose weight, yet are still not happy with how you look due to loose skin after weight loss then this is a must read!
Loose skin can be handled, so let’s look at exactly what you can do.
First of all, we need to determine whether what you have actually is just loose skin, as more often than not the suspected ‘loose skin’ is actually subcutaneous fat (meaning fat stored under the skin that is often mistaken as skin). I highly recommend checking out my article on weight loss here to lose that stubborn fat.
Men often find their loose skin issues to be around their lower abdominal region and back.
Women often find their loose skin issues to be around their hips, thighs and bum.
These areas of men and women are both physiologically resistant to weight loss.
In simple terms, these are the hardest and last areas your body will burn fat off.
The pinch test is the easiest way to determine if you’re dealing with excess fat or loose skin.
If you can pinch more than a few millimetres of skin you have some more weight to lose.
I recommend using a body fat caliper like this to test your skin folds.
Your skin will remain in that shape and position until the fat is lost, your skin is a living organism that adapts to its environment aka the fat.
If however, you have determined that you do indeed have loose skin and your body fat is around the single digits for men and 17 – 20% for women it’s time to deal with the excess skin.
In order to reduce the excess skin we need to build up some muscle.
Chances are if you’ve recently lost a large amount of weight following a supposed ‘fitness guru’ or ‘health experts’ methods you were eating a very low number of calories, performing large amounts of cardio and did not perform any or much resistance training at all.
You’ve lost fat and you’ve lost muscle.
You don’t need surgery; you just need to improve your body composition.
Following a weight lifting/resistance training regime while maintaining your low level of body fat will allow you to ‘tighten’ your skin by building lean muscle mass. If you’re only just starting a weight loss regime now you’re lucky enough to have found this information in time! Be sure to incorporate resistance training in your routine as it is possible as a beginner to lose weight and build muscle at the same time (however, after you have been training for a prolonged period of time you will no longer be able to accomplish this ‘body recomposition’).
The final method of getting rid of loose skin after weight loss is to increase your skin elasticity, this method will be slightly more relevant for the older readers as our skin elasticity reduces as we age, that said it does affect younger people too.
There are several supplements that are suitable for improving your skin elasticity, including:
Gelatin
Gelatin is found in foods such as short ribs, chicken feet and oxtail. As you can see, it’s not an easy thing to get in your diet – therefore supplementing Gelatin is the easiest way to get it. Studies suggest that consuming 500mg of Gelatin on a daily basis can increase skin elasticity.
Evelle
A recent study suggests that the skin care product, Evelle improved skin elasticity by 9% in 62 women over the course of 6 weeks, the roughness of skin was also lowered by 6% after 3 months of treatment.
Evelle contains Vitamin C, Zinc, Selenium and various other cartenoids and nutrients. These nutrients can be consumed via your diet alone, or you can conveniently supplement.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is extremely important for skin elasticity, due to it being an important part of collagen formation. Studies indicate that Vitamin C can reduce wrinkles and improve collagen formation.
I recommend taking 1 – 2 grams of Vitamin C per day for loose skin after weight loss.
Studies Referenced
http://www.nuskin.com/global/library/pdf/products/tegreen_study_01.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15764035
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1720597
Have you dealt with loose skin after weight loss? What worked for you? Let me know your thoughts on this post in the comments below!