First Of All What Causes Loose Skin
Having a baby inevitably causes the skin to stretch, most notably around the stomach, but also in other places such as the face, legs and buttocks. While some women are lucky and have very little loose skin after giving birth, itâs completely normal to see some and want to get rid of it.
Perfect Poses Reduce Paunch
Along with abdominal exercises, certain types of yoga poses and stretches can step up your saggy belly reduction workout routine. The plank and boat poses are an intense tummy workout.
For the plank pose, start on your elbows and knees and place your feet out behind you in a plank position so your body is parallel to the floor. Hold this position for as long as you can, breathing normally throughout and try to increase the amount of time each time you do this exercise.
Begin the boat pose by sitting on the floor with your feet stretched out in front of you. Slowly tip your upper body back while you raise your feet and legs off the floor. Stretch your arms toward your legs. Your ultimate aim is to make a V-shape with your torso and legs. You might feel a bit wobbly, but your abdominal muscles will tighten as they help keep you in place. Breathe normally as you stay in boat for up to one minute, and don’t worry about falling out of it. Keep trying until you can nail the pose.
Belly Toning Exercises For A Tight Tummy
Chances are your belly has some stretched skin if youve lost a lot of weight.
Tightening the tummy area is much more possible if you take time a few times per week to exercise that area.
Commit to belly toning exercises such as crunches, air bike, leg raises, sit ups, side bridges, and pelvic thrusts.
You dont have to spend a lot of time on these flat tummy exercises either. Simply spending 15 to 20 minutes three to five days per week will help tighten your tummy area to get rid of loose skin faster.
You can find here8 simple exercises to get a flat tummy, and if you have loose skin on your arms, check these 6 simple exercises to get rid of jiggly arms.
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Modest Tightening And Lifting
Non-invasive skin tightening proceduresThese procedures are called non-invasive because they leave your skin intact. You wont have a puncture wound, incision, or raw skin afterward. You may see some temporary redness and swelling, but thats usually the only sign that you had a procedure.
Heres what you can expect from a non-invasive skin-tightening procedure:
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Results: Tend to appear gradually, so they seem natural
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Downtime: Little or none
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Colorblind: Safe for people of all skin colors
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Body-wide use: Can tighten skin just about anywhere on your body
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Side effects: Usually some redness and swelling, but little risk of other side effects when performed by a board-certified dermatologist
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Time commitment: Most procedures take 1 hour or less
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Pain: May have some discomfort during the procedure, but thats usually it
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Makeup: Can often apply immediately after the procedure
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Cost: Varies and not covered by insurance, so ask how much it will cost
If you opt for a non-invasive skin tightening procedure, youll likely have one of the following:
UltrasoundDermatologists are using ultrasound to send heat deep into the skin.
Bottom line: The heat can cause your body to produce more collagen. With 1 treatment, most people see modest lifting and tightening within 2 to 6 months. You may get more benefit from having additional treatments.
RadiofrequencyDuring this treatment, your dermatologist places a device against your skin, which heats the tissue beneath.
Can Laser Skin Tightening Cause Cancer
Laser skin tightening is not a cause of skin cancer. It is FDA-approved as a safe way to firm skin on the body. An aesthetician or medical spa employee is not trained to identify cancerous growths on the skin but laser skin tightening does not in any way cause skin cancer or any other types of cancers.
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Skin Tightening Treatments At Their Best
These 13 at-home skin tightening treatments can provide a number of amazing benefits for your loose and sagging skin. But theyre best used as a supplement to the most effective treatment for sagging skin: SiO Beauty patches.
Our SiO Beauty patches are made from two key elements: Silicon and Oxygen . Working together, these elements encourage your skin to hydrate, plump, and rejuvenate itself over time.
Pair the SiO products mentioned throughout this article with the amazing home remedies weve given you to achieve maximum skin tightening and revitalization! Heres to healthy, youthful skin. Enjoy!
Consume Vitamin C To Improve Skin Elasticity And Flexibility
Vitamin C is required to produce collagen, a naturally occurring protein found in the body that supports elasticity and flexibility of the skin. One scientific study concluded that vitamin C stimulates collagen production and helps to protect against sun damage.
Citrus fruits, broccoli, guava, kiwi fruit, strawberries, peppers, papaya and berries are high in vitamin C.
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Try Ultrasound Therapy To Tone Your Skin
Causes Of Loose Stomach Skin
Your skin contains collagen and elastin that gives it the ability to stretch and constrict as your weight fluctuates. So, when youre working out and gaining muscle, your skin will adjust to make room for the change in muscle mass. But, as you age or during certain parts of your life, your collagen and elastin may deteriorate. This means your skin wont be able to adjust as easily leaving you with loose or sagging skin.
Your skin can appear loose in a number of places from your face and neck to your stomach and legs. The most common reasons include:
- Age
- Yoga
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Luxe Spa Formula No 33 Skin Tightening Cream
This cream boasts an impressive all-natural ingredient list. Youâll want to apply this cream to your entire body! And with ingredients like aloe vera, naturally sourced caffeine, and retinol, youâd be doing your skin a favor. It works on stretch marks, scars, cellulite, and loose skin. No wraps or additional tools necessary â just apply this tightening cream and watch it do wonders. While itâs on the higher end of the price spectrum for these kinds of creams, be sure and check out the before and after photos to see why.
Common Areas For Loose Skin
We have to respect tuckshop workers for all their hard work in schools around the country but with all due respect, nobody wants their arms. Loose skin under the arms is a problem area for a lot of women and sadly, no amount of bicep curls will get rid of those tuckshop lady arms.
Many overweight men feel uncomfortable having fat around their chest without suffering from the hormonal imbalance that causes man boobs. Instead of Gynaecomastia, this is known as Pseudogynecomastia. Even after shedding the problematic fat, a man might still feel embarrassed about the feminine look of loose skin around his chest.
For women, having saggy breasts can be a common occurrence after losing weight or giving birth. Naturally, many women might feel a loss of shape to their breasts as harming their femininity.
Loose skin around the inner thigh is often associated with rapid weight loss in women and sagging buttocks also tend to be a common complaint. As women typically store more fat in their thighs and buttocks, loose skin in these parts of the body can be the most stubborn to get rid of. It can also be the most uncomfortable to live with, especially during those bikini-flaunting months at the beach.
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Exercising To Strengthen Your Stomach
Lifestyle Modifications To Tighten Skin
A combination of resistance training, aerobic exercise and a healthy diet can help you lose body fat, which will firm up your abdominal area. “Nutrition and exercise have a huge influence on skin elasticity,”Geoff Tripp, CSCS, ACSM EP-C, CPT, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and head of fitness at Trainiac, tells LIVESTRONG.com.
Once you’ve maintained your weight loss, Tripp says sticking to a healthy diet is key to keeping the weight off, especially since poor choices in your diet can lead to weight gain and an increase in fat mass, which has the potential to stretch out your skin again.
When it comes to specific exercises to strengthen your abdominal area, Tripp says exercise needs to be stressful enough to train your muscles to increase tone, so adding weights, bands, cables and other resistance tools instead of just working with your body weight can help. His go-to exercises for core muscle activation include:
- Prone planks
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How To Tighten Loose Skin
A variety of products, procedures and treatments are available to decrease skin laxity and stimulate the production of new collagen. Skin tightening methods can be categorized as:
- Topical treatments, such as creams and lotions
- Noninvasive procedures: treatments performed at your dermatologists office that do not cause damage to the skin and result in little to no downtime
- Minimally invasive procedures: treatments that require sedation or anesthesia, cause some damage to the skin and result in some downtime
- Surgical procedures, or plastic surgery: procedures that provide the most dramatic results, but at the cost of extensive side effects and downtime
Can You Prevent Loose Skin After Weight Loss
Before we get into some steps you can take to help your body deal with loose skin more efficiently, lets talk about how you can avoid this issue in the first place.
Crash diets and excessive amounts of time spent exercising can rapidly shed both muscle and fat, resulting in a double-whammy on your skin. Meaning that the supportive underlying muscular structure that holds skin against your body is lost along with the fat that keeps the skin stretched tight.
Any weight loss beyond 2-3 pounds per month is likely to be lean muscle, not fat.
Most weight loss programs, even the ones that claim to be slow, aim for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week. But most people can only lose 2-3 pounds of body fat per month. Any weight loss beyond that 2-3 pounds per month is likely to be lean muscle, not fat.
In a 2008 study, researchers found that small, cumulative changes in diet and activity produced slow but sustainable weight loss. That type of slow, steady weight loss also avoided pitfalls like loose skin.
In conjunction with losing weight slowly, make sure your weight loss program includes some type of resistance training so that you do not lose lean muscle. I have many articles in the Get-Fit Guy archives if you need some guidance on where to start with resistance training.
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Quit Smoking To Stop Pre
Should You Use Firming Creams
There are many firming creams that contain collagen and elastin. For example, this cream promises to tighten up your crepey skin. While this cream claims to slim, tone and firm loose skin.
These creams may temporarily give a boost to skin tightness. However collagen and elastin molecules are too large to actually penetrate the skin.
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Factors That Influence The Loss Of Skin Elasticity
Several factors contribute to loose skin following weight loss:
- Length of time. In general, the longer someone has had overweight or obesity, the looser their skin will be after weight loss due to elastin and collagen loss.
- Amount of weight lost. Weight loss of 100 pounds or more typically results in a greater amount of loose skin than more moderate weight loss.
- Age. Older skin has less collagen than younger skin and tends to be looser following weight loss (
17 ).
In a controlled study, skin elasticity, along with texture and hydration, increased significantly after 12 weeks of taking a liquid collagen supplement. The drink also contained vitamins C and E, as well as biotin and zinc .
Collagen hydrolysate is also known as hydrolyzed collagen. It comes in powdered form and can be purchased at natural food stores or online.
Another popular source of collagen is bone broth, which provides other health benefits as well.
Choosing A Cosmetic Skin Tightening Treatment
Fillers, RF treatments, ultrasound procedures and lasers each offer unique advantages and disadvantages that should be taken into consideration when deciding on the best option for your loose skin.
While injectables offer quick results by adding additional volume to a loose area, their effects are temporary and reinjection is required at least every 2 years to maintain results.
RF and ultrasound treatments offer comparable results. Both treatments require little to no downtime and provide more permanent effects than injectables. That said, improvements are more subtle than other nonsurgical options and appear slowly following treatment.
RF and ultrasound treatments are also not well suited to tackling all of the issues associated with lax aging skin.Skin texture, sun damage and surface wrinkles are not affected by ultrasound or RF, says Dr. Goldman.
Laser treatments offer the most drastic results of these procedures. Lasers smooth the surface and therefore produce a more significant change, but require downtime for healing, explains Dr. Goldman. If a patient has more wrinkles and sun damage, lasers are a better option.
It is also important to keep in mind that these treatment options are broad categories that encompass a number of specific tools and techniques, each with further points to take into consideration.
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It Takes Time To Tighten Loose Skin
It is understandable to become frustrated when youve lost a lot of weight and now have to be concerned about loose skin. Fortunately, others that have gone before you have tried all sorts of methods to tighten their skin and happily pass that information on.
Keep in mind that what works for one person may not work for you. You can try various ways to tighten your skin and see what is helpful for you.
Additionally, understand that skin elasticity reacts differently at different ages and stages in life. For the young mom who just gave birth and is contending with loose skin, it may only take a little bit of effort to tighten up the skin and keep it moving.
For the 50 year old who has just dropped 75 pounds in a short amount of time, it may take a bit longer for the skin to tighten and it may not get back to its original state due to the age. It is important to realize this and accept it wholeheartedly.
Reward yourself for losing the weight and accept your skins condition in the process of tightening it.
If you have loose skin on your arms and want to tighten and tone it, try these simple exercises for jiggly arms: 6 Simple Exercises to Get Rid of Jiggly Arms.
If you have stretch marks, there are effective natural ways to get rid of them.
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Coolsculpting For Fat Removal
While Thermage tackles skin laxity, CoolSculpting focuses on fat reduction via a process called cryolipolysis, known as fat freezing, to help reduce the fat cells in the body. Suction adapters are attached to the treatment area and the skin under the pads is cooled down, destroying the fat in the stomach. After the fat freezing session has taken place, the fat leaves the body naturally in the targeted area. Post treatment, a patient can resume their normal routine since there is no downtime.
CoolSculpting can target both the abdomen and the hip area, or love handles. Results appear a few months after the treatments take place. Sometimes, more than one treatment may be recommended since with each successive treatment more fat is reduced from the targeted area. Each CoolSculpting session can reduce the fat in the area by up to 25%, which can be a significant improvement.
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