How to Get Rid of Saggy Skin?

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Do you worry about the growth of wrinkles, fine lines, and saggy skin on your face? Or You recently had a baby, and now you're eager to return to your pre-pregnancy shape. However, you can still see skin folds on your abdomen, waist, and upper arms when you view yourself in the mirror.

Don't worry, you're not alone. We are all aware that getting the perfect figure will take time. Although your body has incredibly adaptable capabilities and can evolve, it might sometimes lag behind and take time to recover.  

Let me illustrate this with an incident. I used to get my legs waxed when I was 16-17, and it was incredibly painful. The aunt who used to wax my legs said to me, "Palak, we've watched you fall and get hurt all these years, but you've never complained about the pain." then why are you feeling pain now?  The helper with that aunt informed me that I had loose skin and was suffering pain as a result of it. Why was I having loose skin?

I used to play basketball in my teens and was quite slim because I didn't know anything about nutrition at that time. Why was I so much skinny? Because the fat under my skin had disappeared because I was not having enough protein in my diet. 

Today, I have all of the research with me, and I have tightened my skin throughout the years, but it does not take long to tighten your skin. Although we cannot see it, our skin renews itself every three months. The new skin requires information about our lifestyle, the activities we perform, and the nutrition we follow, and the body generates skin cells accordingly.

If you've dropped a lot of weight quickly, you might still have some saggy skin hanging around. Although this is normal, it can have a big impact on how you see your own development, and even after significant weight loss, you might still feel self-conscious about how you look.

In this blog, I will discuss how to cure saggy skin, how to prevent saggy skin after weight loss, and skin tightening remedies. Keep reading this blog, till the end if you want to tighten your skin. 

What do you mean by Saggy Skin?

You may be aware of the all-too-common effects of sagging skin if you've spent hours at the gym trying to lose weight. Fat loss and sagging skin on the face and torso are frequently linked.

Saggy skin is a result of the slow decay of skin elasticity caused by the degradation of skin proteins like collagen and elastin. Our skin is made up of three layers: the epidermis (the top layer of skin), the dermis (the middle layer), and the subcutaneous (the deepest layer). The connections between the layers of the skin also weaken with the loss of collagen. All of these factors contribute to fine lines, wrinkles, and eventually sagging skin. The eyelids, cheeks, chin, and throat are the main parts of the face that are affected by this.

What Causes Saggy Skin?

Stretched skin can quickly return to its original state if it is firm and elastic. But as soon as it starts to lose its elasticity, it begins to sag and become loose.

Your skin may sag for a number of reasons, including:

  • Age

Collagen and elastin are the two vital proteins made by your skin, which start to disappear as you get older.

Your skin has the capacity to return to its firm state after being stretched. Your skin's capacity for stretching is due to elastin.

Your skin produces collagen with the support of fibroblasts (cells that connect the organs to the body). Its tightly woven fibers help your skin maintain its elasticity and shape. Both the production of collagen and elastin starts to decrease as we age and hence results in saggy skin. 

  • Weight Loss

Being overweight or obese for a long time can harm your skin's elastin and collagen fibers. When you lose excess weight, it becomes more challenging for your skin to return to its normal state. Saggy skin in several places of your body, including your face, may develop from losing excess weight.

Rapid weight loss treatments and the wrong approach towards weight loss might result in sagging, loose skin that falls on your body. Because younger skin can return to its original form more quickly, the age at which you lose weight may influence how thin your skin becomes.

  • Pregnancy

As your body changes physically during and after pregnancy, it is usual to have loose and saggy skin. [1] Those who have twins or triplets during their pregnancy may have more loose skin near and around their bellies than those who merely have a single pregnancy. The age at which you get pregnant can also play a part in the sagging of your skin.

  • Years of Sun Exposure

The sun has a significant impact on premature aging. UV exposure has been proven to be responsible for over 80 percent of evident facial aging indicators. [2] Wrinkles, vascular problems, and drooping skin are all examples of this. These rays damage and degrade the skin's elastin over time, causing premature sagging. Years of sun exposure even can cause the epidermis, the skin's outermost layer, to thin.

Aside from the sun, the skin is exposed to additional free radicals that can degrade collagen and elastin fibers. Toxins, pollution, and even the food you eat are all examples.   

Skin Tightening Home Remedies 

  • Intermittent Fasting

Did you know your body eats itself on a daily basis? That may sound unusual, but it's a process that starts the moment we are born—and it's not as terrible or weird as it sounds. Every day, your body performs it without your knowledge. 

Autophagy is a bodily function that cleanses your system of old or damaged cell components and promotes the regrowth of healthy cells. 

The most common cause of loose skin is weight loss, which leaves the body with excess skin it doesn't know what to do with. Because it targets body fat rather than lean mass, intermittent fasting can help you lose weight without having to deal with excess skin. Furthermore, autophagy can aid in the prevention of skin elasticity loss. [3] 

  • Green Tea

Green tea has skin advantages from both consuming it and applying it topically and can help you against the process of aging and make you look younger. 

Green tea and green tea extract can not only assist with acne and make your skin look younger, but they may also have other benefits.

Green tea contains the main polyphenolic ingredient EGCG, which has been proven to have a wide range of medicinal qualities, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects that benefit your skin and immune system. [4]

You can also take Matcha Tea which has 60 times more EGCG content in it. 

  • Consuming Food Rich in Lysine 

The formation of collagen in your body depends on the amino acid lysine, which is one of the building blocks of protein. Lysine-rich foods can fight sagging skin and slow the aging process.

Foods high in lysine include eggs, fish, cottage cheese, chicken, beans,  lentils,  pistachios, and other nuts and seeds.

Your body begins to produce less collagen as you get older. Skin thinning, drying out, and loss of elasticity. The deterioration of collagen causes wrinkle development. After age 30, your body starts to lose collagen. Start giving your body an anti-aging and skin-tightening ingredient called collagen

  • Face Yoga

For people who desire beautiful, youthful skin, facial yoga might be quite helpful. Numerous studies have found that short-term facial muscle exercise training reduces facial wrinkles and inhibits the sagging of the face in middle-aged and older women. [5] It is one of the effective skin tightening home remedies for face.  

Some of the effective Facial Yoga exercises include:

Extending the Eye Lids

  • Raising your brows at the same time as looking upward.
  • Then, as you continue to look up, gently shut your eyes.

As we age, our eyelids tend to droop, so this stretching exercise can keep them firm.

Cheek Yoga

  • Inhale through the mouth and spread your breath from cheek to cheek and then exhale. 

These simple activities will assist the cheek muscles to become stronger and prevent them from seeming hollow. Use this exercise frequently to have lifted, plumped cheeks.

  • Choosing Right Sunscreen

Early aging symptoms may occur from sun damage. The sun's rays can dry out your skin, making it appear flaky and wrinkled. Additionally, it may exacerbate sun and aging spots.

Sun rays come in two types (UVA &UVB) that can harm your skin differently. Sunburns are caused by UVB rays, whereas UVA rays can cause aging and the growth of skin cancers. Sun exposure reduces collagen, which is responsible for keeping the skin soft and firm. 

Broad-spectrum sunscreen is the best sunscreen because it protects you from UVB and UVA rays, which cause sunburn and skin cancer.

Using a broad-spectrum sunscreen with a minimum SPF (sun protection factor) of 30 blocks approximately 97 percent of UV rays and is found to be beneficial for skin texture and anti-aging. [6]

References

[1] https://record.umich.edu/articles/what-happens-your-skin-when-pregnancy-gives-you-stretch-mark/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3790843/

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6682604/

[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378874117309893?via%3Dihub

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885810/

[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27749441/

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