If you’re losing or have lost a lot of weight you might be wondering about this. Does loose skin go away after weight loss?

The good news is that it can. The bad news is that it requires some very specific circumstances for it to either go away entirely or be almost unnoticeable.

My Own Issues With Loose Skin

I’ve written before about my issues with body image and with body dysmorphic disorder. I’ve never had a great perception of my own body and struggle with it a lot even after losing over 140 pounds.

That’s because I have quite a lot of loose skin and not being able to shift it.

So the big question is does loose skin after weight loss go away?

Factors Which Affect Whether Loose Skin Will Go Away

You don’t need me to go into a huge amount of detail on these but here are the main factors that will affect if you will have loose skin after weight loss.

How much weight you lose is possibly the biggest factor. The more weight you have lost, the more your skin is likely to have been stretched before you started that journey. So you’ll be more likely to have loose skin afterwards.

How long you were at your starting “size” is probably the second biggest factor. Skin is elastic, but over time if it is stretched past a certain point, it can also lose its elasticity. If you have been at your starting size for a while, this is more likely to be the case for you.

If you lose weight quickly, your skin may take some time to adjust to the size you’re at at the end of your journey. So there is a strong chance of having loose skin if you go through rapid weight loss.

There are other factors which will have an impact, like how well you look after your skin in terms of moisturising and exfoliating and that kind of thing.

To be completely honest, I don’t actually even know what exfoliate means.

But long story short – if you have a lot to lose (and “a lot” is specific to you) and have carried the additional weight/size for a while (again, specific to you) then there is a pretty good chance you will have loose skin.

My Own Experience With Loose Skin After Weight Loss

To give you some context on the above factors, let me explain my own circumstances.

From my heaviest to my lightest (so far) I lost around 140 pounds.

I had been overweight growing up and when I became a teenager I reached morbid obesity. I have stretch marks across my stomach from that period.

In other words, I gained weight quickly and held onto it.

I started losing weight when I was 19 and lost my weight over a few years.

Some of my loose skin did go and some areas did tighten up over time, mainly my arms.

But I still carry a lot of loose skin on my stomach, and some on my thighs too (Update – I did get my skin removed in March 2022).

For me, the worst area however is definitely my chest. I carry a lot of sagging skin and some fat on my chest as a result.

So it is something I am battling with and need to give myself some regular body positive affirmations to remind myself how far I have come in my own journey.

Does Loose Skin After Weight Loss Go Away?

If you have lost a lot and your skin was stretched for a long period of time, it is more likely you’ll be left with loose skin.

The sad truth is that won’t always go away. At least not without surgery.

But if you have lost weight as a result of making some substantial lifestyle changes to improve your health, then that is still something to celebrate.

And while you might not like how it looks – the same way I feel about my appearance – it is a testament to the hard work and dedication you made to yourself.

As well as the journey you’ve been on and the health changes you’ve made, that is still something worth celebrating.