Avoid Loose Skin While Losing Weight

We receive hundreds of testimonials from people on the Keto Zone Diet losing weight nearly effortlessly while improving their blood pressure,  cholesterol, and more to heal their bodies. Losing weight is a fantastic way to turn your health around and feel better. But today, we’re addressing a fairly common area of concern that comes up (from any diet): 

Below, you’ll learn why saggy and loose skin happens (note: it’s not just from weight loss!) and natural ways to support healthier, firmer skin on your whole body.

As you get older, it’s common to notice your skin getting thinner, less supple, and looser or saggier. You might also notice thinning hair or more ridges on your nails. When this happens, it means you’re losing an important component in skin health: 

How Do I Get Rid Of Loose Skin After Weight Loss?

If you lose weight, especially a large amount later in life, it’s common to experience sagging or loose skin after weight loss. This could be noticeable in your face as well as other places.

Without the same amount of elasticity as before, your skin doesn’t have the same potential to “bounce back” and fit your new body.

So, dealing with saggy or loose skin after weight loss is pretty normal—but chances are it bothers you. So here are some of the best preventative approaches to saggy skin. It’s best to already be utilizing these before and during your weight loss journey, but they are beneficial at any time in life.

How To Avoid Having Loose Skin During Weight Loss

Since you’re losing collagen every year, it’s always a good idea to support more collagen in your body. You can do this by taking a trusted collagen supplement.

Daily collagen supplementation can help boost your levels to not only reduce signs of aging but also help keep skin healthy, strong, and supple as you lose weight.

Some of the best times to take collagen are before bed or in the morning stirred into your coffee, but you can use it at any time.

How To Tighten Skin After Weight Loss

Crash diets that cause you to drop a ton of weight in a short period of time (unsustainably) can contribute to more skin sag:

This is why the Keto Zone Diet works well for so many people. You’re burning fat and losing weight healthfully and steadily while filling your body with health- and skin-promoting foods.

Collagen is at the foundation of your muscles as well! So daily exercise helps tone your muscles to reduce appearance concerns related to saggy skin.

Weight Loss And Skin Care: How To Avoid Loose Skin During Weight Loss

For best results, incorporate regular exercise (cardio as well as some weight lifting) into your weight loss routine to keep you toned and reduce loose skin resulting from weight loss.

Balanced nutrition and proper hydration matter a lot when it comes to skin health and appearance. Hydrated skin has a more supple and glowing appearance than dehydrated skin.

Make sure you’re eating a diet rich in healthy fats, vegetables, and good proteins (like the Keto Zone Diet!) and drinking plenty of water every day.

How To Minimize Loose Skin During Weight Loss

There are a few factors in skin health you can’t control, including natural aging and genetics. But the above tips focus on things you We tend to treat weight loss, particularly major weight loss, as the triumphant endpoint of a difficult journey. We divide weight-loss journeys into Before and After, often with a single photo representing the start and finish of that journey. However, this story only captures one aspect of what it's like to lose weight. What often gets left out of weight-loss stories is that when you move from a higher body weight to a significantly lower one, you may experience other unwanted physical changes, such as loose skin. There is absolutely nothing wrong with embracing loose skin—as individuals like Kenzie Brenna, an actress, writer, and body-positivity activist, have publicly done—in fact, it's an admirable goal and an indication of deep self-acceptance. That said, there's also nothing wrong with wanting to learn how to avoid loose skin after weight loss.

For some people, loose skin can be damaging to their mental health and self-esteem. It can also be physically uncomfortable, particularly during physical exercise. Once you develop loose skin, it can be quite challenging to reverse without plastic surgery.

Less invasive options do exist, however, many of which are most effective when put in place preemptively. Before sharing eight ways you can avoid loose skin after weight loss, we'll first cover some basic facts about the skin as well as risk factors that impact how likely you are to develop loose skin.

Can You Tighten Loose Skin After Weight Loss?

One of the pitfalls of the rapid loss of a lot of weight is the development of excess skin. A New York Times article covering a pioneering study that followed contestants from season eight of the popular TV show The Biggest Loser for 6 years after the series finale addressed this issue. Per the article, prior to the finale weigh-in during the show's finale to determine the winner, contestants dressed carefully to hide the rolls of loose skin that remained, to their surprise and horror, after they had lost weight. They wore compression undergarments to hold it in.

In order to understand why rapid, significant weight loss so often results in loose skin, you must have a basic grasp of how skin functions.

The skin—which is the largest human organ—acts as a barrier to keep your body safe from viruses, fungi, bacteria, and other potentially harmful contaminants. Collagen and elastin, two proteins found in the second layer of the skin, (the dermis), allow it to stretch and contract as we move and grow.

How To Tighten Skin After Weight Loss? Follow These 5 Tips

As an individual gains weight, those proteins must continually stretch to allow the skin to adapt to that change. This can cause the fibers of those proteins to become weak and damaged. Thus, when significant weight-loss occurs, the elastin and collagen in the skin may not be readily able to contract.

Skin stretches to form the shape of your body since it's an 'elastic' organ, Certified Exercise Physiologist Lizbeth Simancas summarized. Your skin may not contract back to its smaller shape if weight is lost too quickly. This can be seen most clearly for individuals who undergo bariatric surgery, but those who quickly lose a lot of weight through intense diet and exercise practices, like competitors on Biggest Loser, can experience this too.

The more weight is lost, the greater the demand on the skin's previously overtaxed capacity for elasticity. And, therefore, the greater the likelihood of saggy skin post-weight loss.

An Exercise Tip To Avoid Loose Skin From A 28 Year Old Who Lost, Regained, Then Lost 220 Pounds

Dr. Christine Choi Kim, medical and cosmetic dermatologist, underlines that fact that the skin is a living organ, and while it responds to weight gain by stretching and expanding, its ability to contract in response to weight loss is inherently more limited. Dr. Kim notes, too, that this ability to tighten depends on a number of factors, such as:

Understanding the factors that influence skin elasticity can help you avoid loose skin after weight loss. If possible, it's best to address this issue preventatively as it's far more difficult to tighten skin that has already begun to sag than it is to forestall the sagging.

According to Kim, Excess skin can lead to embarrassment and a lack of satisfaction with your body image—even after significant weight loss. Equip yourself with the knowledge you need to keep the triumph of achieving a major weight-loss goal from being marred by unexpected changes to your skin.

How To Prevent Loose Skin During Weight Loss?

First, it's important to be clear that there is no guaranteed way to avoid loose skin after weight loss. Depending on the amount of weight you lose, when you gained the weight and how long you carried it, as well as your skin's baseline elasticity, some extra skin may be unavoidable. However, the experts say that the following 6 practices can help you avoid loose skin after weight loss, or minimize the appearance of existing excess skin.

Perhaps the single most effective way to avoid loose skin after weight loss is to progress gradually toward your weight-loss goal. Slower weight loss makes it less arduous for skin to snap back into place.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends aiming to lose between 1 and 2 pounds per week. Not only will this make it easier for your skin to keep pace, but it also makes it less likely that you'll regain the weight.

What Should I Do While Losing Fat To Prevent Loose Skin?

Furthermore, a study published in the International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism found that losing weight slowly results in more favorable changes to body composition. Study participants were randomly divided into two groups—a rapid weight-loss group that followed a diet plan designed to produce a daily 1, 000- to 1, 500-calorie deficit and a slow weight-loss group whose diet produced an energy deficit of 500 to 750 calories daily.

While both protocols led to reductions in waist circumference, hip circumference, body fat mass, and more, individuals in the slow weight-loss group experienced more significant reductions to waist circumference, hip circumference, fat mass, and percentage of body fat, all of which are linked to improved health.

Adding exercise to your gradual weight-loss plan also increases the odds that your skin will be able to tighten up as your weight decreases.

Best Ways To Avoid Loose Skin After Weight Loss

Both strength training and cardio make important contributions. Cardio, or aerobic exercise, can be a highly effective way to burn calories, which will help