How To Avoid Developing Excess Skin Diet
Flabby underarms, jiggly thighs and excess belly skin are all issues that tend to show up after significant weight loss or gain, but sometimes these issues seem to come out of nowhere. For young
women, noticing these subtle changes in your body as you leave your teen years can be quite upsetting. For other women, these kinds of changes are likely to occur after giving birth or after following an intensive workout program. Although there are treatments that can help solve excess skin should it develop, it is always nice to be able to avoid it in the first place. Here are a few tips to make sure that you stop the development of excess skin in its tracks or prevent it altogether!
Diet
Of course, it is common sense that a healthy diet can improve many aspects of your body and overall wellbeing, but it is also essential to keeping your skin taught and healthy as you age. Making sure that you get enough quality protein and antioxidants from the foods you eat on a regular basis helps guarantee that your body has what it needs to repair any tissue that may become damaged, such as stretch marks that may start to form through rapid weight gain or pregnancy. When your body has what it needs, most skin problems are taken care of naturally. Having proper nutrition also makes sure that rapid weight gain and weight loss are less likely to happen in the first place. Avoiding unhealthy foods is just as important as eating the right ones. By eating foods high in trans-fats or salt and sugar, you are putting yourself at risk of gaining weight that is hard to get rid of. This excess weight puts pressure on the skin, even when gained slowly, which means that losing weight afterward increases your chances of having stretched out sections of skin. Poor quality foods can also cause water retention, which adds weight to your body unnecessarily and can have a similar damaging effect as extra fat if the water retention is a constant problem.
Exercise programs
When it comes to excess skin, losing weight is a two-sided coin. Losing weight is a smart move if you are worried about extra fat causing loose skin down the road. However, losing weight too quickly almost always leads to saggy skin, especially under the arms, around the thighs and across the abdomen. None of these areas are flattering for excess skin, which is why it is crucial to losing weight at an appropriate pace. Generally, people should aim to lose no more than 1-2 pounds every week. Exercise programs not only keep the weight off, but they promote muscle development. Muscles can hold your skin in place and prevent it from becoming stretched out as you age. It may be possible to lose significantly more in one week if you have made a radical change in your diet. For example, changing from burgers and milkshakes to strictly lean meat and vegetable diet can cause weight loss to happen much faster since the body is used to getting many more calories in one day. For this type of scenario, it is important to change your diet at a slower pace and to avoid crash diets. When the weight comes off slowly, your skin has time to adjust and heal without becoming saggy or damaged by stretch marks.
Water
Water is an excellent way to keep your skin as elastic as possible, which means that your skin will be able to bounce back much easier after stressful scenarios such as childbirth or rapid weight gain. Skin that is dehydrated is also more prone to stretch marks, so staying hydrated is key to keeping your skin in amazing shape. Many people turn to sports drinks in order to stay hydrated, but this is not an ideal solution. Many sports drinks are filled with sugar and food coloring, neither of which are great for your skin. Added sugars will only contribute to weight gain, so sticking to water is always best. If plain water gets too mundane, sparkling water is available in a wide variety of sugar-free flavors.
Strength training
As mentioned above, gaining muscle is an important factor towards keeping your skin taught. Many people who want to lose weight focus solely on cardio exercises, but this can often lead to weight loss that doesn't add any muscle at the same time. By losing fat and not gaining muscle, space where the fat once was is not replaced or supported in any way. This is a dangerous situation for the development of saggy skin. Some people are discouraged by strength training because they don't see the numbers on the scale go down as quickly as they would with a cardio training plan. This is because muscle weighs more than fat and will keep your weight more stable as you lose fat since you are gaining muscle at the same time.
The best way to avoid developing saggy skin is to carefully plan your weight loss journey and to eat healthy when you know you are going to embark on a journey that causes you to gain weight, such as an upcoming pregnancy. With a little bit of planning and determination, it is possible to avoid developing saggy skin over the course of your lifetime. Should you develop saggy skin despite your best efforts, there are always surgical options available to help get you back into the shape you desire.
