What follows is Part II of the wonderful research Doreen has done and saved all us lazy people a whole lot of effort! LOL!
Part 2.
Water Water Water
Drink a lot of water. Keeping your skin well hydrated is essential in improving skin elasticity. If you are not properly hydrated your skin will not have the "Bounce Back" that it once had.
Think of a wrinkly raisin: the reason for the wrinkly exterior is due to the absence of water from the fruit. Your skin operates in a similar manner. Keeping your body hydrated enables fluid to flow between cells, which allows your skin to stay flexible and elastic.
Do not chug a gallon of water and eat nothing but fruit for a week and expect to see instant results. Gaining weight was a minimum nine-month process, so expect that same amount of time to see tangible consequences. On the bright side, a good diet has a number of other benefits, such as improved mood, weight loss, improved hair and nails, and other great side effects.
Skin Care
Moisturize Daily. Moisturizer adds up to 70 percent of moisture to your body and will help your body keep elasticity as you lose weight. Using a moisturizer each and every night will really help you tighten up that loose skin and make it seem less flabby. In order to help keep the moisturizer on your skin you might want to wear cotton long sleeves and pants while you sleep. Before we have a discussion of specific ingredients a moisturizer should have, it's important to educate ourselves a little bit more on skin itself and what makes a product good or poor.
The biggest reason our skin, whether on the face or the rest of the body, develops lines and/or starts to sag, is that the collagen and elastin in our skin begins to break down. This is the most technical this page is going to get, so bear with me for just a sentence or two.
Collagen is a protein that is fibrous in nature. What makes collagen different from other kinds of protein is that it possesses great tensile strength, which means, among other things, it provides firmness to the skin. You don't need to be a scientist, therefore, to understand that as collagen breaks down due to aging, the firmness of our skin becomes...well, less firm. Wrinkles appear and skin starts to sag. You would think that buying a product with collagen in it would be a great thing. And the marketers who sell products that contain collagen know this. But it's a bogus ingredient because collagen molecules are much too large to penetrate into the skin when applied topically.
Elastin, too, is a protein that helps skin stay "flexible" and firm. If your skin is stretched, elastin is the protein that helps it return to its original position.
What all of this means for you is that you do not want to purchase a skin care product that is nothing more than a cream that fills in fine lines and wrinkles, giving the appearance of temporarily nicer skin when it's on...but the illusion shattered when you wash it off. You want a product that contains ingredients that actually stimulate new collagen and elastin production in your skin. If you achieve this, you will, in reality, begin to turn back the clock.
Long, Hot Bath
At least 2 to 3 times a week, relax yourself with an hour-long hot bath. Add ½ lb of pure sea salt or a couple cups of epson salts in the tub, as the water is being drawn. Let the salts dissolve properly and then enter the water. The hot bath will help you relax your entire body and muscles, remove toxins from the skin, and improve your skin's tone.
Use a loofah and a good body scrub at least four times a week in the shower to help tighten your loose skin. Using body scrub will help peel away the dead skin and make the new skin regenerate itself faster which will be tighter than the layer of dead skin. A loofah is a great shower tool to use because it helps scrub away the dead skin gently and it is very soft. You can get both of these items at your local retail store for about seven dollars.
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