Hanging real low all over?

March 10, 2009 11:54 PM

I am morbidly obese and honestly one of the things holding me back from attempting to lose the weight is sagging skin. I saw a little of that when I last shed 60lbs and this time I have 100 to lose. Will the sag through diet and going slow be as extreme as I have seen on tv with weight loss surgery. I cannot afford plastic surgery afterwards that they all seem to need.
posted by beautifulcheese to health & fitness (21 comments total)

I am dating someone who lost 100+ lbs and he said that he's much happier with loose skin than extra weight. I know this isn't what you're asking but I want to chime in to combat any negative thoughts you may have about the aesthetics of loose skin. I think he's a total hottie and you are/will be as well. Best of luck - it is a difficult journey but you will make it.
posted by cranberrymonger at 12:03 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I am friends with someone who lost almost 200 pounds and I have seen her arms and legs and it really doesn't look bad. There is a little extra skin hanging but I don't think it's terribly obvious that she used to be huge, especially if you only see her lower arms and legs. (I can't comment on her abdomen because when she had a hernia repaired, they did a free tummy tuck along with it.) However, she was always athletic even before her gastric bypass, and worked out several times a week, playing volleyball, racquetball, and other sports. Not sure if that has anything to do with how much the skin hangs.
posted by IndigoRain at 12:32 AM on March 11

The younger you are when you lose the weight, the more your skin will bounce back into place. I'd hate to think that aesthetics are keeping you from doing something good for yourself. I'm sure that someone will come along and say this more gracefully then I ever could.
posted by idiotfactory at 1:06 AM on March 11

It really depends on how old you are when you loose the weight, the younger your are the less loose skin there is going to be.
posted by bigmusic at 2:22 AM on March 11

As my dad says - don't let the excellent be the enemy of the good - you might not end up perfect (but hey, none of us are) but you will feel a hell of a lot better.

Also, television stories are selected for maximum drama, so take what you see there with a grain of salt, they probably show the worst cases in that harshest light.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:33 AM on March 11 [6 favorites]

There's a relevant thread here, which has plenty of interesting comments and says pretty much everything I was going to say.

Congrats on losing 60lbs before, that's amazing!
posted by badmoonrising at 3:38 AM on March 11

A friend of mine lost 100 lbs in a year. (When asked all he said was 'cantalopes') and ended up getting his skin surgically tightened. I remember his excitement about weight loss far outweighing being bummed about the skin.
posted by debbie_ann at 4:54 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Not to be blunt but you will look far better alive and saggy than dead and obese. Do not let fear of saggy skin hold you back, don't let it be your excuse for not trying! You can do it and you will feel so good when you do that you won't notice any issues. Good luck!
posted by Pollomacho at 5:54 AM on March 11 [6 favorites]

You can add muscle mass so you don't look like bones and skin.

But you need to lose the weight first. Not to be harsh, but it sounds like you're looking for an excuse/justification to keep you extra 100 pounds.
posted by tiburon at 6:15 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]

I've lost 60 pounds slowly (very slowly...) and not really seen any loose skin, certainly nothing extreme. I'm 37.

I also think a side benefit of going slow is that, while I've hit some killer plateaus, I haven't gained anything back. Over about 4 years. I've seen friends who had quicker and more drastic weight-loss gain it all back in that time.

Go for it and good luck!
posted by JoanArkham at 6:19 AM on March 11

I lost 85 pounds and all I got was this lousy apron.

Unfortunately, you are just going to have to deal with the skin. Exercise and weights may help a lot (once you get into it, it's fun! ) . My "apron" has shrunk considerably, but it's still there and I accept it and anyone who may actually get to see it will have to accept it as well.

I have another 75lbs to go and am expecting more skin as I decrease in size.

Please, please, PLEASE don't use the skin as an excuse (trust me, I know how easy it is). You CAN do it. Worst comes to worse, pretend you're a flying squirrel! I do.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:32 AM on March 11 [6 favorites]

Hit post too fast...

Good luck. You really can do it. (Yeah..if I can, then you can. Seriously. If you knew me you would say, 'holy crap! HE did it? pfft..If he can do it, I'll certainly have NO problem doing it myself!)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 6:34 AM on March 11

The amount of sagging skin is dependent on a lot of things--age, genetics, prior skin health (you'll probably have a better time of it if you aren't a smoker), rate that you lose weight, all of that. Furthermore, many people with sagging skin find it can tighten up a bit in the years after the weight loss, though again the degree to which that happens is dependent on the factors above.

Unfortunately, there is no way to figure out whether or not you'll have the sagging skin problem or how bad it'll be. You say you saw some last time, but how long did you maintain the weight loss, and how fast did you lose the weight?

Remember that the extreme cases you see on television, a lot of those people were much more than 100lbs overweight and/or lost the weight very quickly through extreme methods like weight-loss surgery.

The best precautionary measures you can take is to start losing the weight now, before you get any older, commit yourself to losing it slowly, and just drink plenty of water and engage in good skin-care practices. And if you do have sagging skin to a degree that you are extremely unhappy with it, be patient and allow it time to tighten up a little again. A bonus side-effect is that you can use that time to save up for plastic surgery, and if at the end you can become at peace with your body you'll have a nice chunk of money to go on vacation in the Caribbeans.
posted by schroedinger at 6:35 AM on March 11

nthing JoanArkham - I am down about 70 in about 2 years and don't really see a problem yet (31, female, avg height). I probably have 50 or so to go.
posted by getawaysticks at 6:35 AM on March 11

The slower the weight loss the more time the skin has to adjust, just anecdotally. I think that's one of the downsides to gastric bypass, as an aside.

You can do this! Good luck.
posted by agentwills at 7:08 AM on March 11

Id rather have sagging skin than be dead at 40 of a heart attack. Let say the worst case scenario comes about and you need 6k for surgery. Lets say you get a loan for 48 months. At 6% thats a payment schedule of $140 a month. Is $140 a month the only thing holding you back from a healthy weight and lifestyle? Heck, your food savings alone would pay for the surgery.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:10 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

I've heard that there can be sagging as you lose the first big bunch of weight, but that it gets better as you lose the last of the excess weight.
posted by amtho at 7:28 AM on March 11

A friend of mine lost 80 pounds in her 30's, and her only sagging skin was in her abdomen; HOWEVER, she'd also had 3 pregnancies, one of them a twin pregnancy. She had a lot of sagging skin even before she began losing weight.

Ultimately if this is going to be that much of a hang-up, why don't you start saving money now, just in case? A tummy tuck is around $7000. Can you save that much in a year or two while you lose the 100 pounds? Then if you don't feel you need surgery, you have a nice chunk of money!
posted by peep at 8:22 AM on March 11

One factor is how the excess weight was distributed (and now, where the most excess skin will be). Surgery aside, I asked a friend who has lost over a hundred pounds (exercise and portion control), she said tummy control panties (hate that word- I'll call them knickers :) ) completely control the skin on her abdomen. She's early 30s and just lost the weight she had been carrying since high school, so I think age when the weight was gained and the length of time carried has a great deal to do with it.

She also mentioned that although there was excess skin on her arms and legs, it hung differently when she started building muscle mass there; it followed the curves of her body more and wasn't as noticeable.

I notice you live in Canada- either now or in the future, you may have an annual health spending account that would pay towards surgery if you chose to have it. Congratulations on such an amazing achievement, all the best for the future.
posted by variella at 9:30 AM on March 11

My old roommate lost about 130lbs in a year (she was in her late 20s, and had been overweight her whole life. She went from like 250 to 120 at 5'3".) She had some sagging on her belly and breasts, but in a shirt & bra you couldn't tell. What little looseness there was on the rest of her actually kind of looked awesome. Her collarbones and arm muscles had beautiful definition, like a ballerina's, and I think it was because the slightly looser skin kind of draped deeper into the crevices of bone and muscle. It looked gorgeous, and I was totally jealous- she and I weighed the same and had about equal amounts of muscle, but my arms and clavicles have never looked that nice!

She is muuuuch happier smaller, even though she was a little self-conscious at first about how she looked naked. But she always commented with real wonder how much she loved being able to: run to catch the bus, sit beside a stranger on the subway, sit cross-legged, wrap a towel around her, find cute clothes in any store, etc. And the added confidence = a huuuge boost in the number of romantic partners she attracted. After being single and lonely for years she was being chased around the block by men. Cabbies would give her free rides, even! It was kind of ridiculous/awesome. She found a job she liked more, got her own place, started dating up a storm (nobody seemed to care about her loose skin, especially when she presented it in an adorable set of lingerie) and after 2 years of that found a keeper and they just had a babeh (after her second kid she's considering getting a tummy tuck-- that'll have been like 6-7 years after the weight loss). Pretty great story- she turned her whole life around. It was remarkable.

Moral of the story: loose skin be damned, if you lose the weight you will NOT regret it. GO for it!
posted by pseudostrabismus at 10:34 AM on March 11 [1 favorite]

Sorry, I sound like some weird bridezilla in that comment, like I place huge stock in how many men like a girl. I honestly don't, and being single does not mean being lonely- I totally know that. I'm just clumsily trying to explain a phenomenon that was plainly evident to all observers at the time-- it was absolutely, wonderfully crazy to see the change in this person's life. I mention the men more as an example of how her confidence changed and attracted people, and how social her life became after she lost the weight. I think she could have been that social before, but she wasn't. She was kind of depressed and lonely, lethargic and had bad hygiene, and she wanted to live fully and share her life but couldn't seem to make it happen. Like she was stuck. And suddenly (well, 8 months later), she was... un-stuck. She did a ton of work on herself, too- therapy, journalling, took care of chronic dental & medical issues she'd just been adapting to for years, lost the weight with tons of exercise and a healthy diet. And everything got so much better. Not perfect, but so much better. That was what was profound to me- the fact that her desire to share her life suddenly found itself all dressed up and happy to attend every party and she was visibly liking herself. Not the fact that men liked her more- that was just a side effect. It's hard to explain but it was pretty evident to anyone who saw her before & after.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 10:52 AM on March 11