Extra Skin?

Training Bodybuilding
1

Does anyone know how to get rid of extra skin after weight loss.What kind of diet/workout best reduces extra skin? Over the past year and half I went from 264 pounds to 175 and i’ve been lifting and am now up to 181.

I’m 6’3-18 years old. I lost the weight by eating right and jogging, sprinting hills, and light lifting.I was an o’lineman in high school. I was recently measured by hand calipers to be at body fat% 8.8 to 10%. I lost about 90 pounds so needless to say i have a lot of extra skin.

I wanna get bigger but am scared of adding fat at all-it’s hard to tell if i add fat b/c of the skin-what do you fellas recommend-how do iget rid of this skin?

2

My understanding is that it has to be cut off. Can’t say I know for sure though. X probably knows for certain. Is it possible to fill the excess skin after weight loss out with muscle?

3

9 times out of 10, people mistake fat for “loose skin”. At the age of 18, I wouldn’t expect that your skin has lost all elasticity. I would also guess that you have very little muscle mass on your frame which is why you are still carrying so much extra body fat at such a minimal weight for your height.

That means GAIN some muscle. Get in the gym and make gaining muscular body weight your goal instead of trying to lose more weight. At your age, you could make changes that most people can’t if you simply worked hard enough for it and quit avoiding food for fear of becoming truly fat again.

Someone with more muscle mass can carry more body fat and still look lean.

4

I appreciate it. But a M.D. and a registered trainer both told me it was extra skin. The m.d. recommended cutting, the trainer said cardio will shrink the skin cells which i kinda didn’t buy. I’m not amazingly strong by any means-i’ve only been training hard for a little while but i bench 245 and squat 295.

I wouldn’t say I have very little muscle- probably more than the average grown man. Do you know the time span for skin to shrink? The other guys(md) gave real vague answers. Trust me i eat enough to gain muscle i was just illustrating my predicament. Any other recommendations?
And thanks again.

5

[quote]ancapo wrote:
I appreciate it. But a M.D. and a registered trainer both told me it was extra skin. The m.d. recommended cutting, the trainer said cardio will shrink the skin cells which i kinda didn’t buy. I’m not amazingly strong by any means-i’ve only been training hard for a little while but i bench 245 and squat 295.

I wouldn’t say I have very little muscle- probably more than the average grown man. Do you know the time span for skin to shrink? The other guys(md) gave real vague answers. Trust me i eat enough to gain muscle i was just illustrating my predicament. Any other recommendations?
And thanks again.[/quote]

If you already saw treatment for this, why would you ask here? No one can know your personal situation from reading WORDS over the internet with no picture attached or any example of what you are talking about. One thing I can tell you is that you weigh MUCH less than someone of even average weight for your height which makes me wonder why you think you are carrying so much more muscle than an average person. Perhaps if that person doesn’t move off of the couch at all and is possibly hooked up to a respirator.

I would think someone on a BODYBUILDING discussion forum would be looking to add some muscle mass which would go a long way towards filling out a 6’3" frame.

Post a picture. That will settle just about everything.

6

I also wouldn’t expect the elasticity of the skin to be gone at 18. I’d give it some time. If you don’t see a reduction in the extra skin over time, then maybe get a second medical opinion.

7

I saw a guy on my track team in college get serious one year after several years of hard partying and a year off from track where he gained maybe 20 pounds.

He came back to the team the next year and during our tough off season conditioning work in the fall, he lost all that fat weight, and his skin was very loose.

My coach told him it would probably take 6 months or more for the skin to completely tighten up, considering it had been stretching out for a few years.

And that’s about what happened. After losing the weight in the fall, his skin was a lot better by the end of the season in the spring, although it still wasn’t completely tightened up yet.

I would guess for you that could be longer. You lost more weight, and had it on for a longer time it sounds like. However, you are only 18, which means your skin is still super young and super resilient.

When you’re 30, you can look back on your teenage years or even your early 20’s and you’ll see how taut your skin is compared to your 30’s.

I would just give it some time. Make sure to stay well hydrated, get lots of your vitamins (like E and C I think are good for the skin), and get a good source of Omega-3’s. All these things are good for your skin and should help its resiliency.

Maybe take photos to keep track of progress over several months. Changes over long periods of time are harder to notice. After one year, you may still feel too flabby, but if you have photos of when you started, you may be able to look back and see “yeah, my skin really has tightened up a lot, I just need to keep being patient”.

Definitely, though, filling out with more muscle will help too.

I would be hesitant to go under the knife, especially at your age. It seems to me, those surgeries are much more for after people are in their 30’s-40’s and beyond, when your skin really has lost a lot more of its elasticity.

I wouldn’t start to consider surgery unless you can see that there’s really been no progress for like a year.

8

If you have visiable stretch marks, then it’s likely excess skin. If you have no visible stretch marks, the “loose skin” is actually fat.

9

Give it time & build up muscle to take up the slack, so to speak. That’s what I did and it worked well.

10

I really appreciate all the replies-ya i do have stretch marks. I’ll definately keep lifting hard and just wait and see what happens.
Thanks again.