Weight loss advice

[magax]

Has anyone managed to lose a lot of weight quickly without having excess skin?

I have gone from 23 stone to 19 stone gradually and can’t seem to kick myself into gear to loose more, I want to get to 11 stone.

I’m 42 and from what I can tell my skin still has good elasticity.

Any tips on how to lose weight quickly and prevent excess skin? I’ll try anything!

No, but the way I thought about it is this: we already have excess skin. It's just tight with fat underneath.

So, all that changes is that you lose fat which has to be a better outcome.

I agree with @ChubbyGroundhog essentially the loose skin is already there, and you will only know if you get any by losing the weight. Losing weight quickly is likely to initially make any loose skin seem worse as your skin won't have had time to regenerate and potentially shrink, if it can. But that will then catch up eventually.

Losing weight quickly also runs the risk of being unsustainable long term, and rebounding and regaining weight is liable to make any loose skin worse, due to the additional stress it's put under.

People will talk about taking collagen supplements, but there is no good evidence that they make any real difference.

What was your approach to losing your first 4 stone? Congratulations on that weight loss as well!

You can't lose quickly AND avoid loose skin. Why are you so concerned about the speed of loss? It's much better to lose steadily and safely.

This could be one of those massive old wives tales but I'm sure I've read that to be sustainable, it's good for the weight to come off slowly.

I'd imagine, but I'm guessing, if it comes off slowly, your skin has more chance to go back. But if you do lose over half of your body weight, which is what you're talking about, there is a good chance you might still have that loose skin and would need surgery to resolve it.

I guess other things you can do is focus on building muscle at the same time. It won't impact the looseness of your skin but might help aesthetics overall (and it's good for weight loss and wellbeing anyway).