Regular exercise , including cardio and strength training , will help you maintain your weight and tone your body. It also may help your skin look tighter. Talk to your doctor if you're concerned about extra skin.
Some people who lose very large amounts of weight pounds or more may consider plastic surgery after they've kept the weight off for a while. Besides talking to your doctor, keep taking good care of yourself: Eating right, getting exercise, and caring for your skin can help you look and feel good.
Reviewed by: Mary L. That said, even if you are ready to be as bold as the people in that SELF article, there are still some steps you can take to give your skin a little help. As I said, because your skin is a living organ, it will slowly return to a shape that fits your new body. But since that process can take a few years, here are steps you can take to help it along. Stay hydrated Attend to your hydration needs.
Water is a crucial component of maintaining skin elasticity. Your skin is made up of cells. Skin cells, like all cells in your body, are made up of water.
Without water, this enormous organ will certainly not function at its best. If your skin is not getting a sufficient amount of water, your skin will have less resilience and less elasticity.
Eat properly Two necessary ingredients that keep skin plump and elastic are collagen and elastin. Make sure you eat protein-rich foods. Cottage cheese, milk, legumes, tofu, beans, seeds, nuts, and fish all contain collagen and elastin forming components as well as oils to help maintain healthy skin.
It can be challenging to increase your protein intake without taking in more calories than you need and potentially undoing some of the weight loss you have experienced. Understanding the concept of protein density can help. Take care of your skin Nourish and care for your skin.
Daily exfoliation can help to remove dead skin cells and increase skin circulation. A hot bath with salts and minerals can improve skin tone. Skin tightening creams with herbal formulas and ingredients such as aloe vera, hyaluronic acid, yeast extract, soy protein, vitamin C, vitamin E, and vitamin A can help to hydrate and increase collagen and elastin formation in the skin.
For more information about skincare after weight loss, read the Nutrition Diva's post on how vitamin E can help with stretch marks. A few more things you can do to care for your skin include: Staying away from harsh detergents like soaps, shampoos, and dishwashing liquids with sulfates Limiting your sun exposure and staying away from tanning beds Not smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke Minimizing your contact with hot and chlorinated water If you swim for fitness or fun, use soap and shampoos that are specially designed to remove chlorine.
And be sure to moisturize as soon as you get out of the shower. With that mass gone, you are left with an empty wrapper. So, why not fill that wrapper back up with some muscle mass? Engaging in some hypertrophic muscle building activities, especially in the areas around the loose skin, can give the appearance of tighter skin. It can take at least four weeks of concerted muscle gain effort for you to start seeing and changes, so be patient and go slow.
Can loose skin go away on its own? The truth is, skin can only be stretched so far before it loses some of its ability to snap back, especially as we age. Genes also influence how much collagen our skin retains as we get older. So does the amount of weight you've lost and how long the weight was carried before you lost it.
Time, nutrition, hydration, skincare, and building muscle may not ever be enough. A surgical fix should only be used in extreme cases. And a word of warning: I've heard from trainer friends that folks who have undergone this operation have gained more fat back while rehabilitating from surgery.
Make sure you work closely with a specialist before and after a surgery such as this to avoid this potential pitfall. Men also tend to do better in their arms and legs than women do, notes Jeffrey M. Kenkel, M. According to Dr. Jacobs, here are some options for tightening your skin after weight loss:.
On top of surgical excision, options include liposuction which uses a suction technique to remove fat, and, for patients with mild skin and fat excess, non-invasive procedures usually in the form of ultrasound or radiofrequency procedures that heat up the skin and cause contraction by triggering collagen production, explains Jacobs. You might have micro-needling with radio frequency energy done, for example, which makes thousands of tiny punctures in your skin and delivers radiofrequency energy during treatment, explains Zuckerman.
Patients can also turn to contouring procedures such as BodyTite and FaceTite which can be used in conjunction with liposuction to remove fat and tighten skin, but for all but mild cases of excess skin, these treatments may not fully address the problem, he notes.
Building muscle—by way of a solid exercise regimen with strength training work—is always a good idea. Plus, it can make your skin look tauter, says Holly Wyatt, M. So, depending on your circumstance, you might be able to expect some changes.
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