The following tummy tuck forum question is from a man and his concerns with loose and excess skin before having a tummy tuck operation in Singapore. He is looking for tips to improve the appearance of loose skin before his surgery.

Date: 12/22/2010 Submitted by: George

Hi,

My name is George and I am 21 years old this year. At my heaviest I weight 230lbs. Right now I am down to 170lbs. I am going to use the next year to lose my extra 15lbs and gain some muscles along the way. My body fat percentage is now 20% and I hope to bring it down to 10%. From my understanding so far after all my research. Our skin stretch to cover a bigger surface area so as to fit our body size during our weight gain. This causes the skin to loose its laxity to a degree. And when we slim down, there will be excess skin as we do not need that much surface area to cover our body anymore. Although the skin can shrink back to a small degree, we are left with not just loose skin but also excess.

Like many people who has lost their weight, I gained a lot in many other ways. I feel much more energetic and my previous hypertension has now all gone away. But also like many others, I am left with loose and excess skin. For my case, it is mostly on the areas of the abdomen and inner thighs. I am going to get the abdominoplasty after I reached my ideal weight in a year’s time. For the inner thigh, a thigh lift may sound too extreme for me and I am probably going to learn to live with it. From some online sources, I heard that increasing your muscle mass can aid the appearance of the loose skin. However, I also know that muscles occupy less space that fats so it doesn’t make sense to me. However, for general health reasons and also pre-operation health reasons, I am still going to reduce my body fat percentage to 10. I was wondering will that make a improvement to my loose skin? I don’t expect it to do wonders especially for the abdomen but I hope it can helps my inner thighs and arms. Lastly, do you have any tips on how to improve the appearance of loose skin? Any help will be much appreciated! Congrats on your successful surgery!

Regards,
George

RESPONSE

Date: 12/22/2010 Submitted by: Tanner

George,

You sound like a smart guy who has done his homework. Your research and understanding is right on the money and you seem to have a good plan to improve your life.

I too was also puzzled about the “increasing your muscle mass can aid the appearance of the loose skin”. From what I can tell, it’s not the increase in muscle mass but rather the toning and strengthening of the muscles that may help improve the appearance of loose skin (slightly). The muscles will get tighter and therefore the attached skin may get “held in” a little bit more and not have as much of a paunchy look to it. Like when you tighten your stomach or relax your stomach. The excess skin still hangs but not out as far. I cannot tell you for sure if it helps or not because since I didn’t believe it would help that much I never concentrated my exercises on my abdominal muscles. Related note – When I went in for my tummy tuck consultation with the surgeon I told him that I exercised daily and asked him if it would help with the operation if I concentrated on exercising my stomach muscles. I was surprised when he said no, not to worry about it. Maybe it was too late for me.

As far as providing any tips on improving the appearance of the loose skin, I have tried massaging, skin lotions, exercise, vitamins and supplements. Nothing that I have tried helped to any degree that I could see. The tummy tuck for me was the only solution.

Suggestion. Buy a compression garment and wear it before you get your tummy tuck. Depending upon your individual situation, if your loose belly skin hangs over your belt and is embarrassing when you go out in public, wearing a light compression garment beneath your clothing will help with your appearance. It will also give you a good idea for what to expect after your tummy tuck.

Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns that I can answer. I would be curious to know about your experience and how it turns out for you. Good luck.

Tanner