Hi all

Does anyone know the TRUTH about wether loose skin goes away after time and excersize? (anyone got pics to prove it) cuz i cant afford surgery (as im only 16), and after losing 115lbs my stomach looks less than attractive. anyways any help would be great?

For those of you who remember i came here and bitched about loose skin when i first got here. After doing some research i realized every site that says "only surgery fixes this problem" are littered with advertisements for plastic surgeons, so in other words i dont trust them. However i talked to some doctors and some say it will go away with time, some say it will take time and excersize, and 1 said "you need surgery" so then i was reading a personal trainers site one day and it pointed out that you cant find a pic of someone that is 10% body fat that has loose skin so the challenge is to find a picture of anyone with 10% body fat that has loose skin.

I can say with total certainty that if you have a lot of loose skin, ONLY surgery will fix it.

In terms of less loose skin and will it bounce back, it seems to be the consensus that some loose skin will shrink. Afterall, even somebody who goes from a mere 15 to 8% has lost a lot of girth there and they often have tight skin.

If you've lost lots of weight, then it's highly likely that you have too much loose skin to ever go back, but it would depend on you of course.

But isnt your skin a living organ that adapts to change? i mean look at people in POW camps, they starve and come out with like 3% body fat and they have tight skin tho... im still a lil confused heh

There are many factors, but age seems to be one of the biggest. Younger people have more adaptable skin, and so that is something you have going for you. If all other variables were the same, a 60 year old man would have much more trouble firming up his skin on his own than you would. So I think it is just a time thing, and how adaptable your skin truly is.

First, congratulations for an excellent accomplishment. Second, I can't speak from personal experience.


But, check out this article. http://my.webmd.com/content/article/49/40027.htm

To sum up some salient points:

* Give it 8 months to a year after drastic weight loss to see how the skin is tightening up before even considering surgery.

* Several variables in your favor: you are young; you couldn't have had the excess weight for an extended period of time (being only 16).

But isnt your skin a living organ that adapts to change? i mean look at people in POW camps, they starve and come out with like 3% body fat and they have tight skin tho... im still a lil confused heh

Not that I want to look at more pictures of POW or concentration camp victims but from my memory I'm not sure I'd agree with the tight skin comment. Also, most would have lost the weight over several years and were most likely not that big to start with (especially if they were in the armed services). I remember reading somewhere that if you loose weight reasonably slowly you can adapt a certain amount, but while you can create new fat cells, you cann't remove them. They only shrink. I think that comment was on this site (Jeremy perhaps??)

Nedge is right - pows didn't go in there weighing all that much, since you don't see many soldiers in combat with a huge bodyfat percentage.

i've lost a good deal of weight, and i do have alot of loose skin, its kinda hard to come to terms with, but you just gotta keep working at your goals
you may wanna start bulking up, filling that skin with muscle, or cut down untill you know all the fat is gone, then bulkup/maintain for a year or so, see what happens
for me, im bulking, only for a few months, kinda as a break, and to restore some of the muscle i lost after a long, long cutting phase, then i wanna go back on a cut, but alot slower than i did before, like 1-2lbs a week, and loose as much fat as i can, without losing LBM, then see what happens after 3-4months

The other thing to consider is that if you're young and you haven't reached maximum height yet, some of that loose skin could get pulled in an upward direction and tighten up on it's own that way.

I am sorry, but I've seen pictures of people with less than 10% BF that still had a lot of loose skin. This picture shows that if you have a very low BF% you can still have very much loose skin, but it also shows that the way to solve that is to add more muscle to the abs. So there is hope! :tucool:

Hi nemesis,
i ve lost approximate 275 pounds and although i did sport and creamed my skin the whole two years there is no chance to get back a 100% "normal" skin. The only advice i can give you in case to a surgery, at first you should try to keep ( sorry i don`t know if this is the right expression in english ) your weight for at least 1 year because if you gain weight after the surgery you will get big problems with your scars.

I am sorry, but I've seen pictures of people with less than 10% BF that still had a lot of loose skin. This picture shows that if you have a very low BF% you can still have very much loose skin, but it also shows that the way to solve that is to add more muscle to the abs. So there is hope! :tucool:

i hope to do something like that, im doing a mini-bulk/break right now then i will resume cutting once i've restored some of my lost LBM (poor LBM, its beeing going hungry for almost a year now!) i wanna cut down as much as i can, then bulk up, hopefully in the next year or 2, i can reach 220lbs, with a low-body fat, thats a long term goal though! :D

Unfortunately that guy had a lot of "chemical enhancement" so to speak.

Unfortunately that guy had a lot of "chemical enhancement" so to speak.

That has nothing to do with the point I tried to make here. If he used drugs, that only speed things up.

The point is: you can have loose skin and a very low BF%, plus you can fix the loose skin issue by adding muscle (i.s.o. fat)

You win... my loose skin isnt like as bad as that guys or nething and it only shows up rly if i suck in my stomach (as i still have some BF to lose) hey does ne1 know if preperation H rly works? i was reading on some other forum that it helps tighten it is that true?

Yeah, I'm just sayin those are some huge abs. lol

Prep H is something some competitive bodybuilders will use before a competition or photo shoot. It pulls some of the excess water out of the skin. But it supposely only lasts a couple of hours.

It sounds like the best way to remove skin is to start a bulk cycle and fill that loose skin out with muscle, get surgery, or hope it goes away eventually. I also imagine the longer you've had that skin stretched out, the longer it will take to go back, if thats even possible.

Since you are only 16 years old, you have plenty of time to wait out your loose skin retightening, since I'm assuming your parents aren't going to foot the bill for a cosmetic surgery like this (or risk your going under anesthesia for a vanity surgery).

I lost 60 LBS., which I know is only half of your 115. My skin continues to gradually retighten after 2+ years with continued workouts and proper diet.

Just be patient over the next couple of years or so, and then reassess whether you really need the surgery.

And big congrats on the majpr weightloss! :claplow:

Thanx every1 oh but i think some of that 115 lbs i lost was muscle too cuz i used to bench 330 lbs, and now im lucky if i can get 250 up heh, i guess thats what happens when you eat 1600 cals a day and run/power walk for 60 mins a day and never lift weights im actually bulking up quite well tho :D... hye i was just thinking too, wont my skin kinda stretch out with every inch i grow? so since im 16 im still growing so itll tighten that way too right?