Loose skin: A frank discussion....

Let's tackle the elephant in the room. This isn't an easy issue to talk about, but it's there and it's real:

So with large amounts of weight loss comes loose skin. Think of it this way:
If you put a brick in a garbage bag for 5 minutes and suspend the bag so the bag is hanging, the brick will cause the bag to sag. Take the brick out and the bag will mostly go back to its original shape and not be saggy.
Take that same bag and same brick and leave it in there for a long period of time then take the brick out, the bag will remain saggy.
The same is true with skin. You lift weights when losing weight to help alleviate that, but there will always be loose skin.

I have loose skin. I do. My arms don't have loose hanging skin because I lift a lot of weights. The same is true with my chest. I don't have droopy man-boobs because I've been lifting.
However, even due to countless crunches and back extension exercises, my stomach and my back have loose skin. I put a lot of weight on around the midsection, so it got loose when I lost the weight. The only thing you can do about that is have surgery.
One of the guys that works out at Mercy Wellness Center had gastric bypass and lost a ton of weight. He doesn't do much lifting. He recently had his tummy tuck surgery scheduled at Des Moines Plastic Surgery (I think it was there). I haven't talked to him since as I don't make it over there to work out these days as I go to Anytime Fitness in Urbandale. We talked about it a bit before he had the surgery. It was going to cost him $7,000 as insurance doesn't cover it in most cases. And that $7,000 has to be up front. I hope at some point to have a tummy tuck to get rid of the skin around my stomach and back. It's not terrible, but it's there.

I have abs under this skin and want to see them!
I'll have to follow up with Mike at some point and see how his surgery went!