Loose Skin?

Is this a topic you have wondered about? Me too. I use to read people's blogs and see how much weight they have lost and wondered.....do they have loose skin? If so, where is it? Especially people who have lost over 100 pounds. It occurs to me now that I am one of those people I used to wonder about.

Loose skin is not always obvious. The lady at my gym who had gastric bypass surgery and lost 200 pounds has lots of loose skin hanging from her arms (poor thing....she works her ass off). Some people have so much extra skin on their stomachs that they have to tuck it into their pants (you know you have seen it on TV). It seems to me the only cure for those is cosmetic surgery.

For those of you who do not know, I have lost my weight slowly with lots of exercise. I am down to my last 10 to 20 pounds (I think). I have lost enough weight that now I can really play with shaping my body (this is actually fun). Over the last four months I can really see toning in certain areas. I no longer have back fat or fat on the high side of my hips (it used to be part of my shelf butt). My face and neck have slimmed. My arms are looking almost normal now (a bit muscle-y but they still need more toning). My legs are athletic (but I will take that) for the most part.

As I have lost weight and thought - I want to lose another 30 pounds - I tried to think of where it would come from. That was always easy. Until now. There aren't many places left. Thighs and stomach. I thought for sure I had another 20 pounds I could shed from there. Until......I bent over the other day and saw my sagging stomach. It was wrinkled and waggily like an EXTREMELY elderly butt. This is when it occurred to me. This might not be just fat.....this maybe that loose skin people talk about. It is hard to know the difference. Also, my inner thigh has some swag to it.

I am not ready to say it is definitely loose skin (I can always have hope). So I have decided to try to work on toning those areas for a while to see if that helps. I workout daily with strength training 3 days per week. I am working on making a new routine for myself. I am going to take what I know...add in some new, harder crap.....give it a good stir.....pull it out of my ass....and hope for positive results. I am going to try some of the strength training and toning from P90X. I have heard nothing but amazing things about this program so maybe it can help me as well.

I am also going to be changing my cardio a little. I happened upon a class yesterday that was supposed to be turbo kick boxing (600 calorie/hour burn) but it was being substituted with body combat (900 calorie/hour burn). Not really what I was looking for since I am still recovering from the Mud Run but it was great! It was cardio but there was one song that had us doing 104 push-ups. Talk about dripping on the floor. I think it maybe what I need but I am may need to join another gym for it. Oh well. The results maybe worth it, right?

Do you have any loose skin? Any suggestions on how to fix it without surgery?

Also, I am looking for some good low-fat recipes for Thanksgiving sides. I have a few weight-watcher ones from the past that are great but I thought you all might have some super-tasty suggestions.

I know this post maybe TMI, however, I wondered about it so why not be honest? I will take the way I feel today with a side of loose skin over the way I felt before.