Tightening Loose Skin: Stop the Crunches! Five Solutions to A Tighter Tummy
March 1st, 2010
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by Jodi · Filed Under: Nutrition
****Warning: Language may not be suitable for those in denial. No sugar coating in this article at ALL.****
If you have recently lost a large amount of weight and find yourself with your own built in hammock on your tummy (no, I’m not being funny, I’m being serious here) and are wondering (translate that as ‘panicking while searching for answers’) if there is anything you can do about it there is…wait a while. In time, it will resolve itself. Make sure you are eating right and exercising and it will begin to tighten. However, if you have not recently lost a large amount of weight and have gone through the waiting period and that kangaroo pouch (again, if you have never seen this you need a visual to understand how upsetting this can truly be) is still there and now you are no longer fervently searching the web but instead slowly searching for a real solution because you are tired of the gimmicks…read on.
Excess skin on the tummy is unsightly and frustrating. When you first started out on your journey to being hot you honestly thought the only obstacle you had was being fat (however you want to dress that up, go ahead, and trust me—I can relate). Suddenly, you find yourself at your goal weight but now instead of being hot, you now have your dream body with parts of a shar pei stuck to it. Not fun.
Loose skin is a combination of dieting, muscle loss, genetics and deficiencies. You can do something about 3 of those issues, I’m sorry but I have no cure for who you have as parents, but you also have to realize that you may not be able to achieve all of what you would like so be ready for that.
The most common place for loose skin to appear is on the tummy, in the gluteal fold or on the back of the arms. (For all intents and purposes in this post, we’re going to tackle the skin on the tummy.) Usually I see a woman frantically performing hundreds of crunches in the gym in an effort to change the appearance of loose skin and I am always amazed at where this myth came from. If you want to rid yourself of that skin, doing crunches isn’t going to do anything for you so please stop thickening your waist and wasting your time. Instead focus on your food choices, supplementation, water consumption and attention to detail. The girl who can dot her I’s and cross her T’s is going to cross the finish line faster than anyone else in this race. Let’s pick apart what you need to do and why:
1) Give it more time: What? Girl, if I am reading this then I have qualified myself as one who has “gone through a waiting period” so stop yanking my chain! Well I beg to differ. Have you really been patiently waiting? Have you been on point the entire time and have seen no change? Are you tracking your body fat percentage accurately? Did it take you 3 months to lose 70 pounds and now 2 months later you think you should look amazing? Has it been longer than 6 to 9 months at your current weight with steady changes in body fat levels? Are you dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s? Do you know what you are eating daily and do you track what you do in the gym? No? Ok, take a ticket and step aside. I’m serving #2 right now and your number is 1015. It’ll be a small wait.
Honestly, changing body composition on a level such as this can take upwards of a year of consistent dieting and exercise. Not weight loss dieting, just healthy maintenance eating.
2) Lose more body fat: Are you kidding me? I look like an accordion was fastened to my stomach and you want me to increase that more by losing more fat? Yes. And notice I said body fat and not weight. Big difference and also why I said above that you had to wait some time before you really had exhausted all of your avenues. Losing body fat takes time and the leaner you are, the more resistant your body is to giving up the last little bit. It can take months for your body to re-compose itself and during that time, you will see your skin slowly but surely tightening. You cannot control where your body loses fat so if you want a particular area to have less body fat, then you must lose it overall. Sometimes this is easier said than done. Your best defense: increase your lean body mass. Who wants me to go through this rant again? I didn’t think so. Get to liftin’, girl, and you will see your body comp change magically—but not overnight.;)
3) Something’s fishy about this article: Yeah, it’s printed on salmon colored paper with olive colored ink. You know where I am going here and if you are new to reading my blog (welcome, btw) you will soon find out that I am obsessed with good fats. Why? Because they are the fountain of youth! Our skin is composed of layers and as we age the fat cells in some of the layers begin to thin out causing wrinkles, drooping, loss of elasticity, etc. EFA’s fill in the gaps and help skin to have a smoother, tauter appearance. Want that dewy skin we had when we were kids (some of us had; some of y’alls just didn’t wash regularly therefore lacked a dewy look but we can bring that up another time), then start throwing back flax oil like it was Zarex in black plastic bottle and you’ll be on your way.
If you are severely lacking in EFA’s (and many of you are), you will notice a difference when you eat more than the normal 1 serving per day of omega 3. Some of you will see great results just going up to two servings in a day. Some of you may need to put a piece of salmon in a bong and smoke it like crack because you need so much. Make sure it’s Wild Alaskan when you stuff it in the jar…
4) Supplement for success: Again, you may not know how I feel about calcium (and if you go here and throw in your email addy, you can pick up my free report on it) because you are new, but if not you know in my past life I was married to it. Calcium, fish oil, magnesium, BCAA’s and multi vitamins are your best secret weapons in the fight against stubborn body fat. All of them in some way, shape or form increase your metabolism—some of them on the cellular level way down deep inside. That’s some good stuff right there and when you are talking about losing more body fat, needing your body operating at optimum levels or requiring top conditions for cell production/skin regeneration, you need all the help you can get.
Hold up, though! Do not go to the Vitamin Shoppe, pick up a ton of vitamins and start popping them like candy. No, find out from your doc what’s good for you and what’s not first. From there, do your homework and be responsible.
5) Exfoliate and massage the skin regularly: This is number 5 for a reason. Although worthwhile, it’s not a deal breaker. But exfoliating and massage cause your skin to have to regenerate at a faster rate. If you begin to be incredibly regimented about the amount of water you drink, the fat you consume and the overall healthy diet filled with endless variety while scrubbing and rubbing yourself silly, you will be on the right path to a smoother belly and should truly see some progress within 3 months or so.
The following steps are what you need to be doing for at least 3 to 6 months religiously before you can even say you have done all that you can and throw in the towel. What’s missing in this article? What NOT to eat when you are trying to tighten the tummy and/or any other kind of loose skin and we will get to that soon enough. Woop woop!!:o)

