How to Get Rid of Excess Skin After Weight Loss

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How to Get Rid of Excess Skin

How to Get Rid of Excess Skin? Is it really possible to get rid of extra skin? We explore how to get rid of excess skin… 

Great! Your weight loss strategies worked and you even managed to lose weight but you are now facing a problem of loose skin. I sympathize with you because one of my very best friends had a similar problem with this. It may ruin your self-confidence and make you conscious of the way you look. This is why I will be telling you the different ways of excess skin removal.

I am going to show you some of the best strategies to get rid of that flabby skin and lower belly fat. If you have been struggling to shed the extra skin after weight loss, do not fret any longer. I have the right answers for you as I am going to share with you the exact ways by which you can tackle this problem with ease.

It Isn’t Always Excess Skin

I am not denying the fact that there are a lot of us who find themselves stuck with the problem of excess skin after weight loss; however, not everyone faces the same exact problem. Do not be very quick in coming to the assumption that you too are suffering from the trouble of excess skin. In a lot of cases, people merely have subcutaneous fat and that is not excess skin, so think again! The fat which is present is very soft and it is easily mistaken to be skin. In those cases, when you lose a lot of weight, the subcutaneous skin might be pretty stubborn and there are greater chances of being confused by mistaking it to be skin.

Now, it is normal for you to wonder as to what I mean by stubborn. What I really mean is that this fat is harder to shed as compared to other fat. You can find details of how to get rid of this form of fat in an elaborate article. There are various different ways that are available for the sake of getting rid of the extra stubborn fat and intermittent fasting is one of the most effective ways. Regulated dieting will definitely be of immense help as well.

Right now, you need to know that there are certain areas of our body, which are designed to be more resistant to weight loss. The physiology is such that they will put up a fight to shed from your body and are least likely melt off.

When it comes to men, the lower abdomen, and the back region are most stubborn and you are going to find it very hard to get rid of the extra weight from these areas. At the same time, as far as women are concerned, it is the hips, thighs, and the butt which have the type of physiology that makes them resistant to weight loss. It also pays to know that these are the areas which are very prone to loose skin problems.

Knowing this, a lot of people end up mixing these two problems because they do not go through the details meticulously.

If you are confused as to whether you have loose skin or you have an extra layering of stubborn fat, here is the method you can use. All you need to do is pinch the area where you think the problem is. Now, you should try and find as to how much area you could grab while pinching. If you can get hold of more than a few millimeters of the skin, it is likely that there is too much fat in there and it is not loose skin. You can also use calipers as they are an excellent way of checking your body fat percentage as well.

Until and unless, you get rid of this fat, your skin will fail to return to previous size. You have to work hard to ensure that you can get rid of this excess fat because if you fail to do so, it will continue to sag from your body and give you the kind of appearance which the excess skin does.

For men, I would not advise taking any kind of special measures for the excess skin unless your body fat comes down to as much as 9 or 10 percent. For women, the body fat percentage needs to be as much as 17 or 18%. If you are wondering as to how to measure your body fat percentage, you can always use calipers or even hydrostatic equipments. There are various ways that are used for the sake of analyzing the percentage of body fat  and you are free to pick the ones, which seem to be ideal for you.

The reason is that when your body fat comes down to this range, the amount of subcutaneous fat left in your body is going to be remarkably low. In a lot of cases, it has been seen that this alone is sufficient to handle the problem of loose skin.

However, even after you have reached this level of fat percentage and still you find that your skin is very thin and looks almost like crinkled papyrus; it infers that you might actually be facing the problem of excess skin and so you need to do the needful to get rid of loose skin after weight loss.

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Building Muscle And Reducing Excess Skin

If you want to know how to get rid of excess skin, one of the best ways by far is building muscle. When you work your muscles, you will be able to shed the extra skin easily.

Let us get into more details…

I found that most of the people who faced the problem of excess skin included those who were involved in strict cardio and heavy dieting. While this method is useful for the sake of shedding the extra pounds but it can easily shed down your muscles as well. If you are one of those who chose crash dieting as a means for losing weight, you need to be prepared for loose skin problem because tremendous loss of muscle occurs in this method.

When you manage to lose a great deal of weight because of excessive dieting and intense cardio, you will find that despite having a low body fat percentage, you will have an extremely soft physique and your skin is likely to sag. This is what I like to call “skinny fat syndrome”.

If you are suffering from this syndrome and looking to learn how to tighten skin, the answer lies in improving your overall body composition. Wondering what that truly means?

Read on…

When improving your body composition, what we truly infer is that you need to build the muscles in your body and at the same time, ensure that your body fat percentage stays low. Doing this will actually help in tightening the skin and you will have a much healthier and tighter body that will give you no more drag.

The best part about this is that it applies to those who have managed to shed substantial amount of weight and even those who are still en route to their destination.

If you have already started sensing the trouble of excess skin, you should make it a point to lift weights as a part of your shedding program.

Weight lifting is an excellent way to ensure that you can tighten the skin and thereby keep the muscles alive while getting rid of the extra pounds in your body, plus lifting is great for boosting your resting metabolic rate.

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Work The Elasticity Of Your Skin

Sometimes, it may so happen that your skin will lose its elasticity. This is the situation which you should obviously try to  avoid. The reason is the fact that when the skin loses the elasticity, it will fail to come back to its proper size and thus end up being labeled as loose skin. This is a natural phenomena which happens as we age; however, many  times, it has been found to affect younger people as well.

So, what essentially can we do to improve it?

Let us find out!

As per a study that was conducted by Stanford University, it was found that people who consumed 500 mg of gelatin every day had a greater chance of improving the elasticity of their skin. However, it can be a little tough to incorporate gelatin in your diet. It is found in foods like oxtail, chicken feet and even short ribs as well. If you want to improve the gelatin intake, one of the easiest and the best ways is to fall back on supplements.

Another study was conducted which showed that Evelle, which is another supplement could aid in improving the elasticity of your skin. This supplement is so made that it contains selenium, vitamin C, zinc and even carotenoids which are nothing but plants pigments that are commonly found in fruits and vegetables. If you do not want to take such supplements, eating a lot of seafood, nuts, fruits, red meat and vegetables should help you get you some of the benefits.

Further, you need to ensure that you are taking the right amount of vitamin C. it is responsible for forming collagen and it can be ingested orally or if needed, it could be applied topically as well. There is no surprise over the fact that use of vitamin C can help in cutting down the wrinkles and also help in forming collagen as well.

You can easily find vitamin C in plenty of fruits, but if you are not getting it enough, you need to fall back on supplements but, one problem with supplements is that the numbers can vary a great deal. Some people believe that 2 grams per day is enough to serve your need while others believe that 6 to 18 grams is the permissible limit. To avoid any kind of troubles, I mostly settle with 1 to 2 grams of vitamin C per day.

Now, there are surgical methods which are available. When you ask people as to how to get rid of excess skin, a lot of them might ask you to go under the knife and get the extra skin cutdown. My personal advice to you is to implement all these above tips before you opt for any of these drastic solutions.

The surgical method of shedding the extra skin should be the last resort and it should only be used if you are fed up of trying every single method and none of them work out for you. In most cases, a blend of these methods is bound to work. One thing which you need to know is that you have to be dedicated and you must be patient. Do not lose hope and give up on your quest to shed the excess skin.

With the right application of these steps, you will be able to get the tighter body which you desire and avoid the presence of loose skin. So the next time you find your reflection to be not ideal because there is a lot of excess skin hanging around, you know the things you need to do and the supplements you must try.

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Conclusion

In the worst-case scenario, you can choose to get a surgery done and get rid of the excess unwanted skin from your body. However, mostly the right exercises and the finest supplements should do the trick for you. The main solution lies in your muscle building workout plans.

Learn the art of building muscles and be all set to bid goodbye to the troubles of excess skin.

-Terry Asher

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Terry

Gym Junkies Founder & Editor in Chief at Gym Junkies LLC
I’m Terry and I’m here to help you achieve your fitness goals. I truly believe anyone can achieve the figure they want with the proper guidance. Through my extensive fitness blog, top fitness videos, leading workout supplements, and top selling eBooks, I have been able to help thousands of people online lose weight, tone up and get in shape. My passion is helping people all around the world change their lives for the better.
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13 COMMENTS

  1. I had absolutely no clue that what seemed like loose skin could actually still be fat that just hasn’t been lost yet, an that might take more work to lose. Thank you for also including the methods of telling if it is really fat or loose skin, because it is a bit ambiguous when looking at it… There definitley is still a struggle with appearance even after an extreme amount of weight loss, because even when you lose the pounds, your body still has some kind of visible reminder that it was there at some point. Really appreciate the details as well for where this is most often located on both men and women’s bodies too. Also had no idea that continuing to build muscle can help, so I’m going to be lookin more into it, because I’m one of those people struggling with it after shedding a good amount of weight.

  2. I will have to lose about 120 pounds to get to my ideal body weight. I’m hearing a lot of people have loose skin that won’t go away even after losing much less weight. But all the pics I see of people with loose skin come from people that either were morbidly obese, or lost weight too fast. The latter seems to apply to what you are stating above. I was just wondering if it is possible to predict how much loose skin I would have losing over 100 pounds as long as I don’t lose muscle mass in the process?

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