Oh, hey, now don’t go getting depressed! Depression can lead to binge eating which leads to, well, you know! I’m in the same boat at Zev. Actually, I’m in a bigger boat than him! Hopefully, when all is said and done, I will have lost at least 120 pounds, and I don’t recon I’ll ever have a flat tummy or nice upper arms without surgery. Am I going to have the surgery? The jury’s still out on that one, and as it may take me another 2 years to lose the rest of the weight, the jury could stay out for quite a while! Anyway, Aesiron, what would you rather be hauling around. . .rolls of loose skin, or pounds of fat? Me, I’ll take the loose skin any day!
As to the OP, Go, Zev!! And yeah, it’s probably loose skin. I wouldn’t do anything radical too quickly. You look fairly young, and with some exercise and time, a lot of that skin could tighten up on its own. I’d give it at least six months before even considering going under the knife!
Keep an eye on the bigger picture, zev. The real reason to lose weight is so you live longer, have a stronger heart and don’t get diseases like diabetes. You’ve almost won the battle!
Fat disposition is genetic. Probably most of the fat you have is on your stomach, which is where many men store excess fat. You probably have comparatively little fat on your bum, hips or limbs. Since you’ve already achieved most of your goals, I wouldn’t consider surgery – if you store fat naturally on your stomach, it will come back there. Surgery does not solve problems, just symptoms. If you stick to your diet, your stomach will become smaller. Contrary to ads, not everyone can get a washboard stomach. And most folks don’t need one. Ask yourself what you have gained by your remarkable success, and don’t sweat the small stuff. Congratulations!
Yeah man! You look great. As far as the 15% goes that is a little high. In order to have a tight stomach you need your bf% to be closer to 10% or so. 15% you wont have a gut, but you will still probably be soft, especially if you carry your weight in your gut.
If you lost that much weight it is almost certainly skin though, and there aren’t many ways to get rid of that much xtra skin short of surgery, and from what I have seen on tv those skin removal surgeries leave quite a scar.
Some people in this thread have been very stupid in their remarks. Fact is if you keep fit and eating sensibly and lose that extra 4 pounds, over time your body will get back to normal. If I was you I would completely ignore all those people who suggested surgery (liposuction etc). Tends to not work very well anyway and can end up looking worse. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You will notice the belly will go, but it will be gradual. Better than a quick fix though.
Griffin, you sound incredibly naive. What you say is NOT true. People who lose large amounts of weight can end up with big folds of skin that will NOT go away with any amount of exercise or deiting. Especially if they have been overweight for an extremely long time.
A “tight stomach” depends upon the musculature, not the fat content. If you do abdominal exercises regularly, you will have a “tight” stomach with 15% or 20% fat. You can have a tight stomach with more fat, but it would be obscured by the fat.
I’m sorry stinkpalm, but what you say simply isn’t true. It’s what cosmetic surgeons want you to believe. Human skin is incredibly elastic, and those cases that you are talking about are rare. As I said you have to be morbidly obese for a long time which clearly isn’t the case with Zev. Skin takes many months to spring back to its former shape. What’s more, if Zev does weightlifting exercises, he can replace that fat with muscle in his abdomen. This muscle will fill out the area formerly occupied by the fat. It just takes a lot of work. I’ve seen plenty of before and after pictures where people were much more overweight than Zev, and they managed to develop a washboard stomach.
Zev, so did you get that bodyfat percentage test? Are you lifting weights? Are you prepared to do lots of crunches?
It is really upsetting to see so many people even considering the “easy” way out with surgery. I think it’s very sad.
Despite a loss of 85lbs and 2 years of situps (50 3X a week) I still have skin and fat on my abdomen. BUT, I have great muscles under all the blubber. Age is a great factor; after the early 50’s (I estimate) the skin won’t go back.
[pet peeve] Why is it the ‘easy way out’ whenever surgery is mentioned in conjunction with weight loss or skin removal after large amounts of weight are lost? Is it the ‘easy way out’ to get chemotherapy for cancer or to get a skin graft if you’ve been badly burned?[/pet peeve]
I agree! I’ve had a number of necessary surgeries (3 babies by C-section, and a gall bladder removal back in the days before the laparascopic option was available). Surgery is certainly not “easy”. In fact, it’s damned hard, which is why I don’t know if I want to have it, even after I reach goal weight. If it was so “easy”, I should think more people would be doing it!
And, playing devils’ advocate for a moment, let’s say it is the easy way out. So what? Do people who think it’s “sad” to take the easy way out use washing machines instead of washboards to get their clothes clean? Cars instead of walking or biking to get to work? We’re fortunate to have so many technological advances. I don’t see a damned thing wrong with using them!
Because you get better results if you weight train than if you snip your skin, leaving scars and lumpiness. Weight training is hard, getting liposuction and surgery is the easy way out to a distorted cosmetic problem. Who said anything about cancer??
To illustrate here are some pictures of the types of surgery you’re talking about. All of the people in these pictures look to me like they could have used some exercise before getting the surgery.
Rusalka: with all due respect, unless you are a doctor who is intimately familiar with the patients’ case histories, I don’t think that you are qualified to make that assessment. In fact, even if you are a doctor or exercise physiologist, you are not qualified to make that assessment unless you are familiar with those patients’ case histories. I am a staunch supporter of exhausting all non-surgical solutions to medical problems, but I know that there are cases where no amount of exercise (aerobic or anaerobic) can provide a satisfactory result.
I mentioned cancer and the chemo treatment by way of analogy; it is a medical problem with a viable surgical solution…and I was including not only abdominoplasty but all weight-loss surgical procedures as well when I asked why people consider that the ‘easy way’, and by extension why people think that the ‘easy way out’ is somehow dishonorable. No one would consider a cancer patient who seeks chemotherapy to be dishonorable or foolish, or say that they ‘took the easy way’, would they?
Now that I’ve said all of that, I will readily concede that there are many people who have abdominoplasty done for purely cosmetic reasons; they aren’t suffering from recurring yeast infections, open sores, or chronic rashes, they simply want to look good in a bathing suit and the excess skin (which, in some cases, will never slip back into shape) gets in the way of that. That’s a personal choice they are making, and I hope they are honest about their decision. I personally would not undergo surgery that is not medically necessary. However, if I reach my goal weight (starting at 389 and hopefully down to 200) and the excess skin is causing problems, I will seek any and all solutions to the problem, including surgery.
Hey, Rusalka, come back and talk when you have lost 100 pounds, okay? I dieted and exercised my ass off, and the belly skin was not going anywhere. I wish you could see my calves–a former weightlifter once told me they were a “gift from God” and lots of people who see me in shorts have been known to comment on how muscular they are (ask Cranky!)–but despite all the walking and exercise I do, the skin pouches on my thighs wouldn’t go away. Sorry, but you do not have to be “500-600 pounds” overweight for the skin to simply refuse to snap back. And I hate the fact that I had to have surgery. It is not the easy way out.
Sure, exercise may help Zev, as I said, but it may also take surgery. None of us (even you) can know without knowing more.
Well to the OP, I lost about 70lbs a couple of years ago (I’m a 5"6’ female & went from 200lb to 130. My skin isn’t as tight as it used to be and it is harder for me to keep my tummy flat than it was before I gained the weight but there isn’t enough that you could chop any off! It’s improved a lot this year and I think there are a couple of factors that make it poochier besides skin. One is I was 25 the last time I was this thin and I’m 31 now. A lot of my friends without weight problems are starting to look flabby in the belly just because they’re getting older and it takes more work to keep those girlish proportions. The other thing is that it is very difficult to maintain good posture when you are overweight and spending time being fat changes your posture. I’ve had to make a conscious effort to get my back and abs back into some semblance of shape. I look approximately the way I did before but I always have to work at my posture now.
Rusalka, sorry for the pile on but your advice isn’t for everyone. And how dare you assume that people who have had various types of surgery haven’t tried other methods first. I’m sure they didn’t consult you before making their decisions.
I have had two children, and the skin on my tummy has not “snapped back” as you describe (I went from maybe 150 to 115). It may never do so. Will I get surgery? Probably not. Will I be able to weight train it back? Probably not. Will I be able to diet it back? Nope, it’s skin, not fat.
Anyway, I realize that there isn’t much “meat” in this post, but your posts pissed me off and I wanted to respond.
Surgery may not be the “easy way out”, but it is certainly worth asking yourself why exactly you “need” it. The fact is, it generally treats a symptom, not the problem. Many people with surgery go back to the same body fat storage problems, which are genetic. Averages are just that, averages. I see no reason why, with time, zev wouldn’t continue to be successful on his new diet and lose his belly. He has already done very well.
Well, Dr. Paprika, Zev certainly has done an excellent job of losing weight. It may be that the remaining bit is fat which is just stubbornly clinging to him, or it may be that it is loose skin which may or may not ‘snap back’ into place. Unfortunately since none of us are able to examine him with the benefit of relevant medical expertise, we can’t really determine the best course of action for Zev. If it is loose skin that won’t ‘snap back’ then his docs would have to determine if an abdominoplasty would be a medical necessity or not.
For some people, an abdominoplasty after losing large amounts of weight is considered to be a medical necessity if certain conditions (rashes, sores, recurring yeast infections) are met. Even if there are no physical symptoms to treat with an abdominoplasty, it is possible that Zev (or others) might find that they have a more positive self-image and more self-confidence if they get rid of the excess skin. It may not qualify under insurance guidelines as medical necessity, but from a more holistic viewpoint the mental well-being of the patient would be served, and who then can rightfully condemn it as vanity to have an abdominoplasty or pannilectomy if the patient’s self-image was lowered substantially by the presence of the excess skin?
Again, none of us are in a position to give Zev a proper diagnosis. I’m afraid that all we can debate are “ifs” in this thread.
I just want to emphasize that I don’t mean any offense to anyone in this thread; just that there are some arguably good reasons to get an abdominoplasty or pannilectomy done in certain circumstances, but I don’t think any of us are in the position to make that call for Zev…