excess skin

Yay! 225! Hurrah for skipping dinner, haha. I'm just 5 pounds away from that goal!

After watching that vlogger last night, I'm thinking about excess skin.

Let me first mention that I was pleased to notice that this particular vlogger remained quite buxom after her weight-loss surgery. Still, she didn't come out with a particularly feminine shape. Something about her back and her hip-waist ratio. She did have a long torso, though. My torso is a little more in proportion to my height. Still, I wondered if her eventual outcome had much to do with the rapidity of her weight loss, and the artificiality of the tummy tuck.

From http://weightloss.about.com/od/obesityhealth/a/blexcessskin.htm

Factors having to do with skin elasticity rebounding from weight loss:

-do you have 100 pounds of weight to lose?

Well, yes. Since I started at 285, I can definitely see myself getting down to 185 or even a little less in the quest for a waist.

-rapidity of weight loss

While I lost weight a bit faster in the beginning of the process, it has slowed and I have to say I'm pleased about the little bounces and humps on my weight loss graph, I intuit that these humps and plateaus give my skin a chance to catch up to my weight loss. (On the other hand, maybe they keep my skin from reducing as effectively.) I'm pretty much down to the 1-2 pounds a week thing now.

-how long have you been overweight

Oo, bad news for me. I have had this bulging belly my entire adult life. My adult body, if it has any sense of these things, is quite accustomed to having all that extra skin out there.

-age of dieter

Hm - At 36, I'm not exactly young, but I'm not quite "middle-aged" so I think my skin still has some elasticity to it.

-

I've decided I want to try to avoid the excess skin. So - http://searchwarp.com/swa25902.htm

- lose weight slowly - check. In fact, I'm thinking way more seriously about taking some time off once I hit 220 to give my body a chance to catch up to the weight loss and to focus more on my muscle tissue.

- eat nutrient rich foods - check. Also this guideline includes commentary on eating avocados, olives, nuts, and fish, all of which have been prevalent in my ediets meal plan! Unanticipated bonus!

- preserve muscle tone - yeah, I'm not sure how much my muscle tone is preserved. I will have to use my time at 220 to work out.

- keep skin hydrated (particularly with water and not so much the fizzy drinks.) Ok, drink diet soda predominantly. Other than that, maybe herbal or Crystal light tea. Milk and soy milk when the meal plan calls for it. Sometimes coffee or black tea. Rarely straight up water. This guideline recommends 2 liters per day. I do like my fizzy drinks and coffee, but I also want my skin to tighten up, so I will have to focus more on this.

- lose weight sooner rather than later Well, it is what it is. As I said, I'm still pre-40, so I may still be okay on this front.

I feel a little better after typing this. I was feeling sort of full of dread, and feeling like it was hopeless to go through all this weight loss stuff, that I'd only end up worse off at 175 as I was at 250, and that I wouldn't like being slender after all, and not just because of the potential for the body to get slender in unattractive ways, but also because I wouldn't like being a slender person. Differences in male attention, or no longer being able to use "fat" as an excuse or as a way to be different or who I am, or just having it all over... not sure exactly but there was a feeling of dread and it could be totally related to job stress and how much sleep I'm getting, and less about the weight loss really.

Anyway, back to work!