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.
“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.
Regular exercise, including cardio and strength training, will help you maintain your weight and tone your body. It also may help your skin look tighter. Talk to your doctor if you're concerned about extra skin.
Body Contouring Surgery
The most effective way to tighten loose skin after weight loss is by going through medical or surgical treatment. Natural remedies do not work when there has been significant weight loss. Surgical treatment is often necessary to deal with loose skin after major or extreme weight loss.
Getting rid of lower stomach fat
Exercises like cardio, yoga, and crunches may tone your muscles and strengthen your lower abs, but they won't “erase” fat deposits. The only way to lose fat on your lower stomach is to lose fat overall. A calorie deficit helps with this.
Exercise cannot cause muscles to pull skin tighter or shrink it back to size. However, as your muscles grow and develop, they can fill the excess skin left from weight loss, stretching and smoothing the outermost layers of skin for a more even, youthful and healthy look. Think of blowing up a balloon.
If the skin has been stretched out by extra fat for an extended period of time, the skin may lose some of its capacity to contract when the body loses fat. It is possible to reduce the appearance of loose skin by making up for the fat that has been lost through increased muscle mass.
Any workouts that build muscle mass or tighten muscles — especially around the stomach — can reduce the appearance of loose skin. Try incorporating exercises two to three times per week, including: Weight training. Resistance training.
Yes, you can tighten your skin without surgery because there is a range of non-invasive skin tightening modalities to choose from. These energy-based devices use radiofrequency, ultrasound, or laser energy to tighten loose skin.
Studies have indicated that supplemental collagen is beneficial for skin health, including tightening sagging skin (known as elasticity), boosting hydration, and lessening the appearance of wrinkles.
Collagen is a protein that serves as one of the main building blocks for your bones, skin, hair, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. "Collagen is what keeps our skin from sagging, giving us that plump, youthful look," says dermatologist Dr. Ohara Aivaz.
Also known as a pannus stomach or mother's apron, apron belly occurs when the belly and fat surrounding the internal organs expands due to weight gain or pregnancy, resulting in additional fat deposits in the omentum (an apron-like flap under your abdominal muscles and in front of your intestines.)
Your genetics prefer storing fat in your stomach area
Visceral fat—the type of fat the body stores in your abdomen and around your intestines and is mostly responsible for keeping people from a flat belly—can be partly determined by genetics.
Pooch bellies occur when the lower abs and pelvic floor do not coordinate well together, causing the abdominal viscera to sit downward and forward. Certain body structures have a natural tendency for the abdominal contents to sit in this area.
What is Sofwave? The Aivee Clinic's Sofwave treatment is the latest, most advanced, and non-invasive treatment using a 3D ultrasound technology that works best for skin tightening and lifting. It targets fine lines, wrinkles, and saggy skin usually found in the jowl, jawline, neck, eyelids, and brows.
Your body begins to lose collagen when you turn 30. The effects become noticeable after several years. Even though this is a natural process, it's possible to speed it up with UV exposure, pollution, bad habits, and poor diet choices. While it's possible to accelerate collagen loss, it's also possible to slow it down.
Most people start to experience skin laxity, or loosening, between the ages of 35 and 40 years . Skin laxity that occurs with age is mostly due to a loss of collagen networks, elastin fibers, and hyaluronic acid — a molecule that helps the skin retain moisture.
Build as much muscle as possible. When you build muscle, your skin naturally looks tighter. It may not actually get tighter, but it will definitely give the appearance of being tighter. Focus on doing exercises like bench presses, squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, military presses, and so on.
If you're not interested in surgery, skin tightening with BodyTite or Renuvion is a great alternative to achieve tummy tuck-like results. Radio Frequency Assisted Lipolysis (RFAL, among others the brands BodyTite and Renuvion) is a powerful and proven method to tighten and lift loose skin.
These are the average costs for the most common plastic surgeries for loose skin after weight loss, according to the 2020 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report: Panniculectomy: $8,000-$15,000. Lower body lift: $7,924.
Additionally, the skin, muscles, and fat of the abdomen were all repaired or altered during the procedure. These structures need time to heal and settle into their new positions. This causes inflammation, swelling, and other temporary side effects that can contribute to the look of the stomach.
CoolSculpting
This is one of the most popular non-surgical tummy tuck alternatives. This is an innovative non-invasive technique that aims to remove unwanted fat tissue from the abdominal region. The procedure was developed by scientists from Harvard University.