How to Tighten Loose Skin After Weight Loss (7 Best Ways)

You’ve worked hard to lose weight, but now you’re stuck with the frustrating leftovers… loose, sagging skin! Wouldn’t it be great to tighten this loose skin naturally and without surgery?

It can be really discouraging to see the excess skin left behind after losing weight. Many start to feel more insecure about their body after the weight loss despite losing so much weight. You can be making such good progress losing weight, but it can be so demotivating noticing all the loose skin.

Will this skin stay loose and saggy forever? The good news is that you can use these natural remedies to tighten loose skin at any age (even after 50). It can be cruel to see the loose excess skin hanging on after weight loss, but you can tighten it up.

If you’re ready to tighten up the loose skin, then keep going to discover the best proven natural methods here. You’ll uncover the best exercises, foods, supplements, and natural remedies to tighten loose skin after significant weight loss.

How Significant Weight Loss Causes Loose Skin

The loose skin that happens after losing a lot of weight is basically caused by the skin being overstretched from being overweight and then not being able to snap back into place.¹

When your body gains weight, the skin stretches to accommodate the increased mass from excess fat stores. This leads to changes in your skin’s elasticity over time. Your skin elasticity is its ability to stretch and then snap back to its original shape, like a rubber band.

If the weight you’ve gained happens over a longer period of time, your skin will remain stretched. For many, if you lose a ton of weight too quickly, your skin may not shrink back down at the same rate, leaving the dreaded loose skin behind.

Factors that affect your skin elasticity and its ability to snap back after losing a lot of weight include:

Decreased Collagen and Elastin Production

Collagen and elastin are the main proteins in your body responsible for skin elasticity.² These proteins can become damaged after being overweight for a long period of time.³ This is reflected in the loss of the skin’s ability to snap back and retract after weight loss.

Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body, and dermatologists call it “the support structure for your skin.” In our younger years, collagen production is abundant but slowly declines with age resulting in the aging of your skin.⁴

With less elastin and collagen production your skin will lose its smoothness, firmness, and stretchiness. Then signs of skin aging appear like wrinkles, crow’s feet, crepey skin, and loose skin.

This loose skin becomes even more apparent with a lot of weight loss as the skin can’t snap back to its original shape. This is why taking a collagen supplement is so important as you get older. Studies have found it can quickly replace lost collagen stores and help improve skin elasticity.⁵

Amount of Weight Lost

The longer your skin has stayed stretched out to accommodate the excess fat, the more likely it is to cause loose skin. Gaining weight over many years causes your skin to stretch out to cover the extra fat. The longer it stays stretched out, the harder it is for it to snap back to its original shape.

Losing a substantial amount of weight (100 plus pounds) makes it more likely that you’ll be left with loose skin afterward. If you only lose a moderate amount of weight (up to 100 pounds), then you’ll be less likely to have loose skin afterward.

The longer one has been overweight, the more collagen and elastin they’ve probably lost too. If you’re in your younger years, gained and lost a lot of weight in a shorter period of time, then you’ll be less likely to have a lot of loose skin after.

Rate of Weight Loss

It’s true that rapid weight loss doesn’t give your skin the time it needs to adjust. This can result in more loose skin after weight loss because it doesn’t have the time it needs to retract and snap back properly.

This is why extreme diets and trying to lose a lot of weight in a very short amount of time aren’t the best ideas. Your skin needs some time to adjust to the new body size. Otherwise, it won’t have the time it needs to tighten, and the rapid weight loss will leave behind loose, drooping, saggy skin.

You’ll also lose muscle mass with extreme and fast weight loss.⁶ Muscle helps to fill out your skin too, which helps reduce loose skin as you burn fat. This can keep your skin from becoming “deflated” as you lose weight, reducing loose skin afterward.

Age and Genetics

Your age will play a big role in how well your skin tightens back up after weight loss. As you age, your skin naturally loses collagen making it less elastic. This is why older individuals who have lost a lot of weight are more likely to have looser skin.

Your genetics could also influence how your skin responds to weight loss. Your skin’s integrity and elasticity are highly influenced by your genetics. So you could have a worse response after losing a lot of weight with sagging skin and excess skin after.

If your skin has overstretched to the point that the collagen and elastin fibers have been damaged for a long period of time, then they’ll lose their ability to snap back into place.

But the good news is that collagen supplementation can help replenish the lack of collagen due to age and genetics and even help rebuild the damaged collagen caused by overstretching.⁷

Can You Skin Tighten Up After Weight Loss?

If you’re just starting to lose weight, I recommend doing so slowly and at a controlled pace. This will help prevent loose skin from occurring, as it gives your skin more time to adjust to the weight loss.

Your skin will have more time to pace itself and adjust to the slower weight loss. This will allow your body to maintain better collagen and elastin levels, which are crucial for your skin’s elasticity. This will give your skin more flexibility to tighten up naturally.

It’s not impossible to tighten loose skin naturally after significant weight loss. The extent of the loose skin and how well it tightens will depend on your age, genetics, how much weight lost, and how long your skin was stretched.

While surgery may be the only option in extreme cases of excess skin, there are natural remedies you can use to improve your skin’s elasticity and tighten loose skin with time.

How to Naturally Tighten Up Loose Skin After Weight Loss

If you’re still in your younger years (up to 30 years old) then you’ll have an easier time tightening loose skin. This is because your collagen production is still going strong and it’ll improve your skin elasticity.

But if you’re older than 30, then collagen production has already started to decline. This worsens your skin elasticity and makes it harder for tightening skin. Yet, there are still ways to get rid of this excess skin despite age.

Here are some natural ways to tighten loose skin:

Hydration

About 64% of your skin is water. Water plays a big role in maintaining your skin’s elasticity, hydration, and overall health. This is why staying hydrated is important for keeping your skin looking smooth and firm.

A general rule of thumb is to drink at least half your body weight in fluid ounces daily. So if you weight 160 pounds then you should at minimum be drinking at least 80 ounces of water. A glass of water typically holds 8 ounces, so you should be drinking ten of those per day.

Strength Training

Focus on building muscle mass with strength training to “fill out” the loose skin. The toned and firm muscle mass you gain underneath your skin will improve its support, making it appear fuller.

Muscle will help to replace the fat lost after significant weight loss. When you lose weight you lose the fat that filled out the skin, leaving behind saggy skin. But strength training builds muscle and this will give your skin a more toned and firmer look.

With major weight loss, you’ll also lose a lot of muscle along with fat. This can cause the skin deflating effect to become even worse.

This is why it’s a good idea to lose weight slower by combining it with strength training. It’ll help prevent a high strain on your skin since there will still be muscle to help keep it filled in.

Be sure to consume a high-protein diet since protein is needed to build muscle mass.⁸ Experts recommend 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily.⁹ Try using a low-carb protein powder to reach this daily requirement.

For a complete strength training workout plan that combines fat burning then check out my Flat Belly Formula program.

Proper and Healthy Nutrition

Eating a healthy diet and following proper nutrition can help to not only improve your overall health, but also your skin health. The healthier your skin then the better it’ll tighten and continue to loose excess skin.

A diet rich in nutrients like protein, vitamin C, and amino acids are needed for collagen synthesis.¹⁰ Collagen is the primary structural protein in your skin, and increasing its production with your diet will improve firmness and elasticity.

Healthy fats like omega-3 fatty acids found in fish, nuts, and seeds can boost skin health.¹¹ They reduce inflammation and support cell membrane integrity.¹² Just stay away from processed bad vegetable oils (aka seed oils) that can cause skin inflammation and possible make excess skin worse.

Intermittent fasting helps tighten loose skin due to the autophagy effect. Autophagy is how your body cleans out old damaged cells and regenerate new ones. This process helps create new healthy cells for your skin to improve tightness and elasticity.¹³

Eat a low inflammatory diet for continuing weight loss but while tightening skin. Body inflammation caused by a bad diet can accelerate skin aging and damage collagen production.¹⁴ Eat foods high in antioxidants to neutralize damage-causing free radicals that further damage your skin’s elasticity and structure.

Healthy foods that fight inflammation and boost skin repair include lean proteins, vegetables, low-sugar fruits, and healthy fats. Stay away from inflammation causing foods like processed foods, sugars, refined grains and carbs, excess alcohol and fried foods.

You can find my complete list of healthy foods that fight inflammation (and bad foods to stay away from) in my Food List Cheat Sheet.

CLICK HERE: Get the Food List Cheat Sheet ➔

Collagen Peptides

Researchers have found that taking collagen peptides can quickly help replenish lost collagen production and stores. This results in improved skin elasticity and tightened loose skin.¹⁵

Collagen peptides are the pre-broken down form of collagen that makes it easier for your body to digest and absorb. They’ll support your body’s natural collagen production and boost collagen levels.

These collagen peptides contain the building blocks for your body to produce more collagen. This will help to improve your skins firmness and even enhance moisture levels that’ll smooth out your skin

Be sure the collagen peptides you take are hydrolyzed. This means that the collagen has been fully broken down into even smaller chains of amino acids via hydrolysis. This makes them much easier for your body to absorb, giving you better results.

Skin Tightening Creams

Try using a skin tightening cream that contains active ingredients such as retinoids, peptides, and hyaluronic acid. Retinoids stimulate collagen production to help improve skin elasticity and firmness.¹⁶

Peptides can help to repair and regenerate your skin, resulting in improved tightening of loose skin after weight loss.¹⁷ Hyaluronic acid aids in moisture retention to help promote your skins plump and hydrated look.¹⁸

Here is a more complete list of effective skin tightening ingredients found in creams:

• Retinol (Vitamin A)
• Hyaluronic Acid
• Peptides
• Vitamin C
• Caffeine
• Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)
• CoEnzyme Q10
• Alpha Hydroxy Acid (AHAs)
• Dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE)

Cold Water Therapy

If you’re looking to try everything under the sun to help tighten skin, then try cold water therapy. Cold water therapy improves circulation and stimulates blood flow.

When you expose your body to cold water then it’ll cause your blood vessels to constrict and dilate. This boosts circulation and blood flow that can help deliver nutrients like oxygen to your skin cells.

Cold water also causes your skin to temporarily retract, making it feel tighter after you’ve been in cold water. Inflammation and swelling are also decreases from cold water helping the skin to heal faster.

You can also help stimulate collagen production with cold temperatures. And the cold can also boost your metabolism since your body has to burn more calories and fat to increase body temperature.

Some forms of cold water therapy include:

• Cold showers
• Ice baths (cold water immersion)
• Cryotherapy
• Cold water swimming
• Cold plunges

But cold water therapy probably only has a smaller effect on tightening loose skin than the other factors above. Cold water therapy can cause stress if you’re not used to it, so if you’re already stressed out from life then cold water therapy might not be the best idea.

Give It Time

The longer you had excess weight then the more time its probably going to take to tighten your skin. I know it can feel urgent to get rid of it right away especially after losing so much weight, but it’ll take some time to tighten it back.

And any good self-respecting surgeon won’t even consider surgical treatments until you’ve been at a lower weight for years. Your body composition takes time to settle back in after such extreme weight loss.

Consider wearing shape wear while you wait for your skin to tighten. Shape wear can help hold in loose skin and can make such a difference with reducing the appearance of loose skin.

Your skin elasticity will start to adapt with time. Shrinking your skin back down will require time (give it at least a year), but there will be improvements. Especially if you stay consistent with the natural skin tightening tips here.