Okay. So I’m slowly losing weight with diet and exercise, and I’m losing fat while building muscle. However, I’ve noticed as of late that, even though I’m losing fat, the fat is now more obvious than it was before. My legs are more jiggly, and because I’m losing fat on my hips, my stomach now looks larger (even though it hasn’t gotten bigger) and more prominent. I look even more now like I’ve got cellulite, and it’s a bit disconcerting. 
Is this a normal result when one is midway through a weight loss program and still overweight but not as significantly overweight as before? Am I losing fat that’s in one region [say intramuscular vs. subcutaneous] and it’s making the rest of the areas look looser in comparison… or actually giving them less “support” than before?
Not sure how to answer your question, except to note that fat generally comes off in the reverse order of how it went on. So if you built up belly fat first and then plumped out on the legs and hips on the way “up”, then on the way down you will also have a stage of having lean legs and hips but a bulging belly.
When you gain enough weight to change the shape of your body, your skin and subcutaneous tissue also expands to cover it all. When the underlying fat disappears, the skin doesn’t shrink immediately. No amount of willpower can make it go away. I’ve heard it takes from 5 years to never. Sorry to break that news, but if you lose enough weight for the skin folds to be unsightly, I’d say you are totally justified to treat yourself to some cosmetic surgery to fix it.
In trying to make sense of all the conflicting exercise advice out there, I found a couple of sites saying that it is impossible to build muscle while you’re loosing weight, because to build muscle you must be taking in more calories than you are expending, and you can’t loose weight doing that. They did say that you can help retain some muscle that’s already there by doing resistance training. This has little to do with your question, I just wanted to throw it out there that just about anything you read about exercise and weight loss is contradicted by something else you read, and it’s annoying.
In an attempt to be more helpful, I will say that Jergins skin firming lotion does seem to have good effects, and has gotten excellent reviews on other websites that deal with beauty products, so it might be worth a shot. Keep going; you’re probably just at an awkward stage right now.
I’m not an expert, Renee, but I’m guessing that your body can make muscle with the calories that it liberates from fat cells, so that building muscles can help mobilize what’s in storage. I’m also thinking that you need to be eating enough protein to make the muscle and that you can’t be on a diet that’s so low calories that your body goes into desperate save mode. But you’re not supposed to be doing that anyway.
Congratulations on your success, nashiitashii. I’m sure that you don’t look more fat to others. Other people don’t feel the added sway that you’re experiencing and therefore probably don’t notice it. Other paople are more likely to notice your increased grace and improving posture as your strengthening muscles have less and less to manage.
I say that I’m impressed with your accomplishment and that you look great!
Sorry. I wasn’t being very clear. I put on some extra muscle, and then started losing weight afterward. It’s a little weird because my body is morphing in different ways, but it hasn’t made a difference to the point where I’m actually going down clothing sizes in general. (Low rise pants don’t quite stay where they’re supposed to, but I’m still way too big for the next size down. I’ll just stick to medium rise pants for now.)
Yllaria: Yeah, I’ve been consuming a larger protein to carbs ratio lately, but it’s mostly that I’ve been eating protein when I feel that I need it and eating a lot more vegetables than starchy carbohydrates over the past few months. (It’s a good thing that my guinea pig and I like most of the same fruits and veggies; buying produce for him every week makes picking out healthy snacks for me a lot easier. I just have to watch out if he’s on the kitchen counter, as he’ll steal food for himself if he likes something on my plate/on the counter.)