“Your skin may not contract back to its smaller shape if weight is lost too quickly.” This inability for the skin to contract as well as it once would have, due to the weakening of the fibers over time, is what leads to excess or saggy skin during weight loss.
While you won't be able to completely prevent loose skin if you're losing large amounts of weight, losing weight slowly is the best way to avoid excessive sagging. Most experts recommend aiming for 1 to 2 pounds a week, which translates to 4 to 8 pounds per month.
However, in most cases, small amounts of weight loss, such as 20 or fewer pounds, typically don't lead to the development of loose skin. However, larger amounts of weight loss, such as 50 pounds and over, especially over a short period, can considerably increase your risk of loose skin.
Will Losing 50 Pounds Cause Loose Skin? If you drop large amounts of weight, especially from quick reductions in belly fat, it is possible you will have some extra skin left behind. Prolonged periods of obesity can stretch your skin, eventually damaging the collagen and elastin that help keep your skin tight.
“The general recommendation is to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, which translates to 4 to 8 pounds per month,” said Lizbeth. Our skin is made of elastin and collagen fibers, enabling it to stretch without tearing. Weight gain causes your skin to stretch tight like an over inflated balloon.
“In general, it can take anywhere from weeks to months—even years,” says Dr. Chen. If after one to two years skin is still loose, it may not get any tighter, she says.
For small to moderate amounts of weight loss, your skin will likely retract on its own. Natural home remedies may help too. However, more significant weight loss may need body-contouring surgery or other medical procedures to tighten or get rid of loose skin.
“However, rapid large-scale weight loss will invariably result in excess skin.” Devgan seconds that. “The best way to prevent skin laxity after weight loss is to do your best to lose weight at a slow and steady pace,” she says.
When fat is lost, so is collagen, the scaffolding within skin that keeps it firm and plump. Your skin already naturally loses collagen due to age (consider it the worthy tradeoff for another birthday), so combine that with losing weight and it's not surprising to see droopier, wrinkled skin.
For some patients, even though they lose hundreds of pounds, their skin bounces back quite successfully. Unfortunately, this is quite rare. What often happens is that patients are left with excess, sagging skin after significant weight loss.
Rapid weight loss diet is a type of diet in which you lose more than 2 pounds (1 kilogram, kg) a week over several weeks.
The loose skin is caused by losing a huge amount of weight – as in, 100 pounds or more – in a very short amount of time. It can happen when the weight is lost through diet and exercise, but it happens more often to weight-loss surgery patients.
Most experts agree that losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is the recipe for long-term weight management. Anything faster than that seems to increase the potential for weight re-gain, with many people gaining even more weight than they lost.
Excess skin can appear when you lose between 40 and 50 pounds. A dramatic weight loss of 100 plus pounds will almost certainly result in loose skin. If you drop 20 pounds or less, your skin will not produce excess, much less get so loose as to hang off your torso and limbs.
But do you really know what's realistic? Over the long term, it's smart to aim for losing 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a week. Generally to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day, through a lower calorie diet and regular physical activity.
The best ways to help prevent these complications is to reduce skin to skin friction. You can do this by applying powder in between your skin to reduce moisture and chaffing. Also, you should wear compression clothing because it can help hold your skin in place to reduce rubbing.
Core strength workouts like Pilates, yoga, and barre can assist tighten and toning stomach muscles, which can help with loose skin appearance. Toning muscles can be achieved through cardio exercises such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling, or aerobics.
Laser resurfacing This is the most effective procedure for tightening loose skin. Unlike the laser treatment described above, this procedure requires some downtime. You'll need to stay home for 5 to 7 days. Laser resurfacing also gives you the fastest results.
Whether you can lose weight without loose skin depends on how much weight you shed. If you lose a small or moderate amount, then it's certainly possible to have no loose skin after weight loss.
But many health care providers agree that a medical evaluation is called for if you lose more than 5% of your weight in 6 to 12 months, especially if you're an older adult. For example, a 5% weight loss in someone who is 160 pounds (72 kilograms) is 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms).
Losing more than 1 or 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kg) a week is not safe for most people. It can cause you to lose muscle, water, and bone density. Rapid weight loss can also cause some side effects including: Gallstones.
A good moisturizer can plump up your skin, making fine lines and wrinkles less noticeable. This result is temporary. To continue seeing any benefit, you need to apply the product every day. As for the claim that a cream or lotion can lift sagging skin, dermatologists say that's not possible.
To be more precise, excess leftover skin after rapid weight loss is often the primary cause of stretch marks. However, your skin stretches when you gain weight, but those marks are usually not visible at this stage. You start seeing those hidden stretch marks only after you shed some pounds.