One of the things I have been most concerned about as I plot my healthy eating and exercise regime for next year, is what will happen to my excess skin? As I am presuming that I will have some, being some 3 stones overweight and knowing that once the fat is removed from me, and having been overweight now for a quite a while, I understand that the elasticity of my skin will be greatly reduced due to those reasons mentioned.
Having read a number of articles on this over the last few days, and also asking my wife to research it a little, it seems that there are three main elements that keep your skin tight, even if you have been overweight for a while. The first is time, or age. There is nothing I can do about this, I am getting older and will continue to get older, not younger. therefore, unless I can find and drink the elixir of youth (something I feel is a little ambitious), then I can discount this as a way of shoring up my skin once I lose the weight.
The other two are elastin and collagen (well, there is also surgery, but firstly it's expensive and secondly I don't really want to do that).There are, apparently, creams that can replace this is your skin, but they are only, and excuse the pun, skin deep. Apparently the particles of elastin and collagen in creams work only as long as you are using them, as they are too big to go into the pores of your skin. Therefore, if you want elastin and collagen to work, without the expense of using (expensive) creams for the rest of your life, then eating foods rich in both these is the way to go. Thankfully there are a number of foods that are rich in elastin and collagen, and you can read the articles here, here and finally here. Obviously there are far more sites and articles out there but they all give the same foods, although some talk about other aspects of these foods as well as which foods are rich in these nutrients.
Obviously I will be doing more research as I go through my journey, but it's always good to get some knowledge before you start, so that you can add essential foods to your diet, so that you feel great about losing the weight, but still extremely self-conscious about the way you look because of excess skin. Most of the foods mentioned are healthy foods anyway and, although there are supplements that can be used instead of foods, eating healthily in order to get that extra boost of collagen and elastin is far better than a chemical supplement.
As I find out more about this subject, and it is a fascinating subject, I will obviously post more on it and hopefully this will help some of you as you lose weight.
As a final part of today's blog, reflecting on my own day...I have relaxed, done some research, continued my stretches, gone for a short walk and had a good protein rich breakfast and I am now just about to have dinner of crackers and left over turkey and cheeses and maybe a sneaky whisky. What can I say, I am still on holiday mode. I hope that you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward, as I am, to the new year, which always offers those that need it (like me) a fresh start and a chance to do something right.
Until tomorrow, stay strong and enjoy the day!
Thanks for reading.
Sean.
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