Looking to the future and excess skin concerns

[Harvest 0]

I'm still on my weight loss journey, but I'm starting to see the skin on my legs and arms get very loose. I was wondering if there was something I might do to tighten the loose skin without actually going into surgery...

I've heard weight bearing exercise might do the trick...anyone had any success with this approach?

Harvest

[Jachut 487]

Well, that's hard to say, because although I've run regularly throughout my whole journey, who's to say what I would have looked like had I not done so?

i can say I dont *need* plastic surgery. I have no hanging apron or terrible bat wing arms.

But I also do not have the body I'd expect to have for the amount of exercise I do. Its not fair, but I'm STILL flabby and loose. And that's just because all over my body, my skin is about 1/2 a size too big for the body its covering. I look somewhat toned because you can see muscle definition on me, but its all just a bit sad and droopy. I could look FANTASTIC with a Tummy Tuck, buttock lift, etc but to be honest, the problem I have does not justify the awful scarring from those procedures.

The state of my poor boobs does.

I've also heard on more than one occasion that jogging destroys your face, lol.

Sadly, I think that anyone who loses a lot of weight will have the signs on their body to show for it. Unless they're VERY luck and VERY young, I just dont think there's a lot you can do about it. I'd never ever ever trade my old body for the one I have now though. I may not look perfect but all around me, people of my age are fat and out of shape, so in comparison, I do OK, lol.

[Apples2 19]

I like the way Jachut put it....1/2 a size from fitting in her skin. I feel the same way. The few imperfections that come with the weight loss I have had do not justify plastic surgery for me. Someone else might feel totally the opposite.

For the age of 53, I feel very lucky to have come through this and get to goal and beyond without a lot of hanging skin. Just a little. None on arms, butt's OK and tummy is flat. The place I notice it the most is on my upper thighs. I did work out during the entire weight loss process and continue to. I am not sure if working out helped with less sagging skin but the definition of my muscles makes a difference in how I look and feel about myself.

[Chickie 15]

At close to 4 years post op (band), and almost 3 years post op (tummy tuck) all of my loose skin is worn with almost pride.

Nothing aside from my stomach was bad enough, in my mind anyway, to bother with further surgery. So I have learned to live with my much thinner, but baggier, body.

To be honest, I don't realy think about my loose skin much at all anymore. The only time I think of it is when I talk about my weight loss.

[ninner 0]

I'm planning to make mine into a lampshade.

[MacMadame 81]

I was on a PS' site and he had some videos. In one of them he was saying something like "children are wonderful, but no one wants to look at their bodies and see the signs they gave birth" and I'm thinking "moron." Of course I want to see the signs. Erasing the signs that you've *lived* is creepy IMO. So is living your life so you don't put signs on your body (like people who deliberately school themselves to have bland facial expressions).

(Needless to say, I won't be using that surgeon.)

That said, I have no moral objections to plastic surgery and will probably get some. But not to pretend I'm something I'm not (like pretending I'm not a mom or that I'm 25 years younger than I am). I will get it to fix problems. Like not being able to buy pants that fit or having boobies so big that I get backaches.

[OH Juli 15]

I'm a strength training junky. I run a bit too. w00t I'm starting yoga.

I was drastically over weight for easily 15 years. I am nearly half the weight I used to be. There's not jack that would make that skin fit this body. I can't wear a size 32 pair of pants and pretend they fit. I'd have to take them apart at the seams, recut the pieces and stitch them back together again.

That's what plastic surgery means to me. Just making the outters fit the inners.

[MacMadame 81]

Exactly! No one should have to take their pants apart and re-sew them if there are alternatives.

[Jachut 487]

I think its really worthwhile building a healthy perspective on it too.

I think of it in terms of getting older. I quite often look at my 5 year old daughter's gorgeous, dewy skin, or hold my arm against my 13 year old son's and say this is why we plaster you in 30+ every time you go outside. I am an Aussie and I grew up in the 80's - my skin tells that story. No peaches and cream English complexion, that's for sure!

By the time I'm 70, I will have a turkey neck, the elasticity on arms and thighs will have gone etc. My excess skin problem really is small enough, that it will be pretty much swallowed up by normal aging anyway. So why would I have major surgery to fix something that will reappear? (and I know this is different to having major hanging skin problems).

Like Mac, I have NO objection to cosmetic and plastic surgery - the lapband was very much a cosmetic procedure to me, I was very much motivated by how I wanted to look. But I think many strike a danger period post weight loss where they become obsessed with every physical detail of themselves, I know someone in real life who is a joke - she's had the boobs, the Tummy Tuck, the face lift, the perma solarium tan, the heavy make up the fake nails, the hair extensions, and soooooo many designer clothes. She's 50 and she looks like a freaking drag queen.

Much much healthier to relax into it, think about these procedures, get used to your new face and your new body. I dont really believe that 2 years waiting post weight loss is necessary to let your weight settle, but I do believe for many people it is a GREAT idea to let them calm down a bit before they do things they might regret.

We do need to learn to appreciate just being healthy and normal to some degree.

[lil miss scare all 0]

But I think many strike a danger period post weight loss where they become obsessed with every physical detail of themselves, I know someone in real life who is a joke - she's had the boobs, the Tummy Tuck, the face lift, the perma solarium tan, the heavy make up the fake nails, the hair extensions, and soooooo many designer clothes. She's 50 and she looks like a freaking drag queen.

.

sounds like half the women in Orange County and LA. lol. hey. i live here. i see it on a daily basis. im allowed to say that.