Tightening Sagging Skin After Weight Loss!
When people lose weight on low calorie, nutritionally imbalanced diets, they always look haggard as the skin wrinkles like old people.
When people lose a lot of weight suddenly, over a short period of time, they develop varying degrees of sagging of skin. When they do so after bariatric surgery or a ‘very low-calorie diet’ (VLCD), nutritionally defined as less than 800 calorie diets, they tend to lose fat and girth quickly and the skin sags a lot, some times so much that the skin around the waist may have to be folded and tucked in, like the folds of a saree!
Such people lose water, glycogen and body proteins from the connective tissue under the skin and from the muscles and finally organs all too quickly. This sudden loss actually causes sagging.
After bariatric surgery, people can hardly eat a few morsels of food before they feel full, and can’t eat anymore. This is the surgical route to a forced starvation based diet.
On starvation based diets under various names, cereals (chapatis, bhakri, rice, bread) and pulses (dals, curries, usual, pithla) are almost completely stopped or severely curtailed. The result is, people, lose inches from their girth quickly and our skin can’t keep pace with this quicker loss of girth and begins to sag.
Our skin is not just an envelope around our bodies. It is not a rubber sheath around the body. It is a live tissue made up of living cells and is wonderfully elastic and has the capacity to tighten up and adjust to the new volume of the body. But this process takes some time, even two or three years if you lose a lot of weight suddenly, so the sagging lasts for some time.
Most people on very-low-calorie diets, suffer from all kinds of nutritional deficiencies and can’t sustain the diet. They promptly regain all the weight they had lost, often ending up fatter than before, as soon as they begin to eat more. So the skin sagging vanishes.
People lose a lot of weight after bariatric surgery. They too suffer from nutritional deficiencies but they are put on ample nutritional supplements. They, of course, can’t go back to eating as they did previously, as there isn’t enough space left in the stomach, so the weight loss continues for a longer period. These are the people who suffer from the worst skin sagging.
People who are obese and ill enough to require bariatric surgery and also wealthy enough to afford it, can also consider plastic surgery to correct the loose skin.
After half a dozen years or so, these people too start regaining weight as the stomach starts stretching and allows them to eat more.
People who lose weight on healthy, normal, everyday food and moderate exercise, even as simple as walking, the weight loss is steady and that allows the skin to keep pace with the loss of the girth and they don’t experience much sagging of skin. In fact the skin becomes healthy and begins to glow beautifully as they lose weight on balanced, healthy food and cardiovascular exercises.
Thus to prevent sagging of skin, you must lose weight on healthy nutrition and moderate exercises and drink a lot of water and remain adequately hydrated. Dehydration worsens sagging while proper hydration prevents it.
Also get ample sleep during and after slimming.
You can use moisturising, rehydrating skin care products of reputed brands to keep the skin in good health, but your inner health is of paramount importance.
Also ageing people must accept the natural wrinkling of their skin gracefully and focus on getting healthy nutrition, adequate walks, water, and sleep, to keep their skin at its best, for their age.
Also read the articles ‘Simple Steps To Slimming’ and ‘Health Benefits Of Weight Loss’ on this website.