[pink clouds]

Originally Posted by Louis Dorman: "Battling Loose Skin, Stretch Marks, Gyno and Winning!"(excerpt)

There are lots of myths floating around about Stretch marks, Loose Skin & Gyno (Gynecomastia). I'm going to explain proper ways to either make these "blemishes" melt away, fade or become completely un-noticeable - either through surgery or by techniques done daily.

I know that you lost a lot of weight and you want to show off your new body, but you have a few "hang ups". Surgery should not be the only option. I personally lost over 100lbs. I did this over a period of one year.

When I got to a sub 10% body fat I didn't have any loose skin. However, I did have stretch marks. Below I will explain what I did to make these become less noticeable.

While growing up I had "man boobs" (a lot of people who are overweight have this). I'm not ashamed of it. I took the right supplements while building my chest muscles to develop them. In this article I will tell you the right products to use and help you gain more confidence about your body!

Stretch Marks

The only true way to really prevent stretch marks is to lose or gain weight slowly. These lines start out red and then evolve to a white depressed scar with a different advancement than adjacent tissue.

They are caused by breaking of collagen which then heals with a scar.

You don't have to be pregnant, fat, or big to get them. As a matter of fact, it is a very common skin condition, but most people who have them are embarrassed by them and keep them to themselves - some people have good genetics and some don't when it comes to skin elasticity.

Tips To Reduce Stretch Marks

The following tips may help you reduce their appearance. Surgery is always a last resort - following these tips could possibly give you results, but it does take time. Remember secrets to achieve success are found in your daily routine.

• Massage cocoa butter into the stretch marks - or a cream such as Barmon Stretchmark Cream with Cocoa butter as one of the ingredients.
  
• Exfoliate your skin with a loofah or skin brush when you shower to stimulate circulation. Doing this removes the dull skin and the dead cells in the scars that show as stretch marks.
  
• Massage Vitamin E oil or cream on your stretch marks. Rub it into your skin after a shower. Products such as Rejuvine includes Vitamin E as one of their ingredients.
  
• Speak to your doctor about prescribing to tretinoin cream (Retin-A).

What Is Tretinoin?
Tretinoin is used to treat acne and aged, sun damaged skin. A study in the Archives of Dermatology, May 1996, shows that 0.1% tretinoin significantly improves the appearance of early stretch marks. Tretinoin works best on stretch marks that are new or enlarging.

• Eat foods high in vitamins A, E, C. Also use supplements in addition to your diet that supplies you with these vitamins. These vitamins help form collagen - the supporting fibers in the skin.
  
• Zinc - Eat foods high in this or use a supplement such as ZMA. This vitamin helps form collagen - the supporting fibers in the skin.
  
• EFA's (Essential Fatty Acids), help make cell walls. Essential fatty acids can be found in many vegetables, vegetable oils and fish oils. If you don't regularly eat these try supplementing your diet with them.
  
• Drink lots of water! Make sure that you keep your skin hydrated!
  
• Laser Surgery has shown to be useful in reducing the appearance of stretch marks. They seem to work best on stretch marks that are still fairly new and are red or purple in color.

Loose Skin

When someone are overweight, the skin stretches to accommodate the increased volume of weight. After weight loss, the skin sometimes fails to tighten back, and becomes loose, hangs or sags. It often acts as a reminder of the weight you once had.

Unfortunately, this may be difficult if not impossible to remove through normal exercise or dieting. If you are young enough, the loose skin may regain some of it's elasticity. If you are older (and overweight for a long time prior to losing weight) the loose skin is likely to remain.

Skin Care

Start by exfoliating your skin daily in the shower. The outer layer of your skin is made up of old, dried, dead cells. Your skin is a pretty low-maintenance and takes care of the removal of dead skin cells all on its own. But, when you get a little older this process of natural exfoliation begins to slow down.

Exfoliating will help the skins circulation and the balance of skin growth. Then apply a cream such as Thiomuplex Cream to tighten the skin.

How much your skin will tighten depends on your age, length of time the skin was stretched and how much it was stretched, how much weight you lost (and to some degree how fast you lost it), the amount of elastin in your skin, and genetics.


Ingredients To Look For

Yeast Extract, Aloe Vera Extract and Soy Protein. These tighten the skin, induces collagen and elastin production and reinforces the natural skin defense system. Hyaluronic acid restores water to aged skin and is naturally found in our skin and depleted over time.

It Takes Time

The loose skin will get tighter as your body fat gets lower. Over time the skin gradually tightens up, at least partially, after a one or two year period where the weight loss is maintained and exercise continued.

This should not be a problem if you make this a lifestyle and not a diet.

Change Body Composition

This means working on the ratio of your body fat to lean body mass. You should gain muscle to replace some of those lost pounds while preventing loss of lean body mass when dieting - This will dramatically improve loose skin from appearing. Also, loose skin is one thing, but still having body fat is another.

This is important to getting tighter skin. Be honest with yourself and do that by taking your body fat measurement. This can be done with skin fold calipers or a variety of other devices or procedures.

Calipers might not be the best method if you have large folds of loose skin. Last but not least, only after you reach your ultimate body fat percentage goal, you should give thought to surgery.

I prefer the natural suggestions that he offers and I am not too keen on all of those products...especially Retin A as I heard it can be quite harsh on the skin. Just make sure whatever you do is under the care of a doctor. By way of my own conscience I did not post the entire article, although I did post most of it...not trying to censor what anyone is reading, but I cannot endorse things I myself am afraid of LOL...if you would like the entire article, please pm me and I will send you the link.

[pat536]

Im 5 foot 11 245 pound male and in the next year i plan on weighing 145 pounds. That how much i used to weigh when i was an athlete.

[cameraobscura]

I'm down to 213! yay! I, like everyone else, wish I was losing faster but along with the article Pink Clouds just posted I know you have to lose slowly so you don't get saggy skin.

Everyone's doing great with their weight loss! Keep it up and we'll all be at our goals in no time.

I've been slacking off on my exercising lately now that my boyfriend works nights my schedule has been all screwy. But now that I'm getting use to it I'm making myself get back on track. At least I'm still eating well, even if he isn't haha. The only difference is he doesn't gain weight, jerk.

[Kevi12]

A little update:
I started working out to speed up my metabolism a little
It felt good after working out yesterday! I can feel my muscles are very sore !!

[pink clouds]

Welcome Pat Best wishes on reaching your goal. I also have an aggressive goal of losing 75 more pounds this year..I hope I can do it.

CONGRATULATIONS Cameraobscura on losing more weight! Good job

Hey Kevi. Nice to hear that you are feeling much better and working out! I might soon start working out with the rest of you guys.

Have a good day everyone I hope I'm able to fully wake up in the next 30 minutes @_@

[Popcorn]

Yessssss! My first weigh in since I joined this forum and I'm down 2.4lbs - over 7lb (half a stone) in total! Feeling very smug and have just eaten a gorgeous - but totally allowed - whole grilled chicken breast and salad club sandwich. I can't decide whether to start my diary this week or wait till next: I'm off for a three-day break at a hotel this weekend, so I'm hoping I don't undo the good work by next week.
Keep on keeping on, everyone.

[Kevi12]

Good jobe popcorn!
I weighed in yesterday and it said i'm 211 lbs, but i wouldn't count that, because im gonna lose it aanyways hehehe

[pink clouds]

Way to go Popcorn!! Did you color in one of the circles already? I am so happy for you! A half stone already...that is soooo cool

Kevi with you...you will be losing that weight in no time

[ladyumbra]

Struggling to exercise efficiently today, my feet keep aching something fierce and I can't do more than 5 mins of ddr at a time. It's ruining my ability to get a good sweat going. on the bright side my fiance is measuring out my food at dinner so i'm not just ballparking how many calories i eat ^-^

I am going to get out of the 240's by sunday. I am putting in an extra half hour of resistance training to make sure it happens.

Mind you Valentines is coming and when tempted by chocolate it is so hard to resist.

[Popcorn]

Thanks Pink - I couldn't get to that chart fast enough! I feel like I've really 'started', now I've coloured in a square.

Ladyumbra - just a thought but why don't you ask for flowers instead of chocolates, and celebrate Valentine's with a bit of, er, "exercise", if you know what I mean? I'm sure your fiance would appreciate it, and it would help to burn off some calories!

[ladyumbra]

Popcorn- that's a very interesting idea. I'll have to try it .. or parts of it anyways.

today became splurge day because i walk 45 minute fricken knee high snow, no exaggeration, they didn't plow the area that lead to the courier post office so it was in the snow or on the busy road. I fell often, I cried, i discovered the sheer panic or sinking into snow drifts. suffice to say that I left the house at 5:00 and got home after trips to the post office and bank at 8:20 and that's only becuase we finally caught the bus part of the way home.

My fiancee made the walk with me and neither of us were ready to cook when we got home so it was pizzones and chicken wings and wedges when we got home.

I resisted complete temptation though, i said no to the single size mini Cadbury cake i got with my meal. Alex can have it tommorow. I splurged enough.

Not really certain how I feel now. I'm sorta dreading sunday becuase i ate so much better all week and then broke down after the stress of the trekking in the snow.

I'm like... shame and yet. success becuase i still did 45 mins of ddr just before i got on the comp and came here.

i'm not sure why i'm saying this here and not in my journal.

[ali]

Hi all...I have been away but it looks like everyone is having huge success!!! I am weighing myself sometimes next week, my weightloss has been slow so hopefully things will break through...

So I have been running on the treadmill at the gym and it gave me the false sense that I was actually doing pretty good at it so last night I got off the treadmill and tried to run on the track...I swear I left a piece of myself there...it is NOTHING like running on a treadmill. Harder and miles more painful. I am fairly stubborn and want to get better at it, but I hate that wanting-to-die feeling, although I am pretty sure that is how I felt when I started exercising...I guess I just have to remember that.

I just figured I would 'drop by' and give you guys an update of some sort even if it isn't the weight loss variety.

[nataliejo]

Hey peeps,
I have been ok. A little depressed, but not eating completely badly. I haven't been walking, the weather is horrid. I guess February will be the messiest month. BUT Tomorrow I am going walking for forty to forty-five minutes. I plan to just bundle up. Haven't been doing very well in school, lagging behind everyone else. I feel no motivation whatsoever .. I don't really know what to do, but I am hoping the walk tomorrow will yield good results ..so far for the VDAY challenge I have lost nine pounds... something I didn't think I was capable of .. I thought I would lose to 292 ...but VDAY is thursday ..so I think I will stay 283.4 ...

but I plan to lose ten more pounds to twelve more pounds by May ... so ...looking forward ... now just have to move forward ...

ttylater all
love yas
natalie jo

[Kevi12]

Gah! I've been pigging out lol and scared to get on the scale, but whatever I played 3 hrs of basketball yesterday and pretty much sweat out like 10 lbs of water haha.

I also found out that my knee pain is caused by my weight and been noticing improments since my weight loss

[pink clouds]

Sorry I have not been here guys I have been so out of it. I have been having some gastrointestinal problems since last year and now i am having some again. What it does to me....I cannot eat so much and have barely any appetite. As I write this now I feel sooooo nauseous

On a lighter note...I went shopping on Friday...not a massive mall shopping coz geez i cannot really take that now, but I just went into a Lane Bryant store on my way home from work. And guess what everybody....as suspected I am no longer a size 24. I am now a size 22 looking pretty hot too even though i feel so not.

Ladyumbra thank you for reinforcing the fact that i am a wuss LOL I could NEVER brave knee high snow for 45 minutes. I am sooo sorry you had to go through that!

Nataliejo happy to see ur post! I was actually hoping everything is alright with you

Ali glad to know you're still hanging in there. It'll come off don't worry.

KEvi you make me feel like taking up a sport...maybe tennis. Gotta wait until this "ack" feeling goes away tho

Take care everyone. I want to say so much more but i am so nauseous and grouchy