ObesityHelp

Myth.

But if you think it will work, then keep exercising. It certainly won't HURT.

 My sister and I both had RNY 2 weeks apart and we were the same weight going in.  Both of us have been heavy all our lives.  
I started walking and working out almost right away after the surgery and she did not.  Almost 1 year later we are basically the same size having lost 230 lbs combined.
Our thighs and arms look pretty much the same except that when I flex my legs, you can see the underlying muscle and the loose skin doesn't look so severe.  Arms the same.
The only difference that it's noticeable is our bellies.  She has way more loose skin there than I do.  But I don't think it's because of exercise, just the way we were built.
I wish exercise could cure my loose skin issues, but I don't believe it will ever be 'normal'.  I am planning on weight training all winter long so that when I have plastics on my arms and stomach, there will be good muscle tone underneath.  
As for my legs?  Long shorts are a blessing, lol.

What kind of dog is that in your avatar?

The thing I dislike about this supposed debate is (1) I believe it is a myth that exercise can eliminate ... for example.... batwings. If it is a myth, then we, as formerly obese people, are now faced with yet another set of false assumptions that lead down the road of "You only have baggy skin because you're lazy, it's all YOUR fault'

As a person who was NEVER successful at dieting, who NEVER lost weight despite many efforts I was always ticked off by people who would shovel food in their mouths, remain slender, and act like it was MY food control that was to blame. Pissed me off that people could eat five times worse than me, and be skinny little you-know-whats, and get all judgemental about what I ate.

Now exercise freaks are going to say that my bat-wings are my own fault because I don't exercise much? Puhleeze! 

Jesse, I'm a scientist too. This isn't my field, not even remotely, but I do appreciate quantitative data just as much as the next science nerd. Here's what I found.

I found one study that looked at Retinol-A for fine wrinkles to deep wrinkles and rough skin. It was shown to have an improvement in their study. However, I did not find the statistics or the methodology to be particularly significant since there was little in terms of actual data. It seemed too subjective, still there are many studies that have similar conclusions. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921764/ ) However, the anecdotal evidence suggests that Retinol-A may help a bit because it seems to help promote collagen and elasticity. It does not get rid of excess skin but it may tighten up what you have. It does carry its own risks in terms of skin health though, because of the sunburn risk.

There are other articles where Recombinant human erythropoietin (stem cell activator) is used as a topical agent in the reversal of wrinkling and skin traumas, but I couldn't get the full text on that. It would stand to reason that stem cells with their rejuvenation effects and potential for regrowth would revolutionize skin care as well, especially scars after surgery and plastics. 

There's also the critical effect of nutrition. Sugars like fructose and glucose appear to have a strong negative effect on the skin's collagen. ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20620757 ) Simple sugars seem to break down the collagen more when activated by UV especially. In fact, UV is one of the worst things for your skin's elasticity.

Anyway, I am not a dermatologist or even in the biology field, and most of what I have read is only talking about minor to moderate wrinkles and elasticity. Once you have extreme extra skin though, the best you can probably do it have a highly scar-reducing plastic surgery. I saw some articles on laser skin tightening, but I didn't look into it since it's an after-the-fact situation. 

Maybe if you ate few simple sugars while growing your excess skin it will have a greater chance of rejuvenation if the obesity duration was not too substantial. But there are so few articles on this, because the current thrust of the research is into anti-aging, where Retinol-A seems to have the most scientific umph (from my cursory browsing). I do think stem cells would provide an interesting and potentially amazing benefit for skin damage like this, because like regrowing teeth, the benefits are revolutionary. It could make the scars from plastics essentially disappear, and return collagen elasticity regardless of age. Definitely something to watch for in that and related biomedical fields.

One interesting article that was not fulltext available, was talking about the causes of tobacco use in premature skin wrinkling. It is, along with UV, the most damaging thing you can do to your skin. If you are a smoker and a tanner, well, you'll probably look like the Marlboro man and there's not all that much that will help with that. However if they can understand why it causes premature aging, it is possible that a derivative may yield an agent to cause delayed aging. I couldn't find anyone who is actively researching this, though.

I did not see any articles on my brief pubmed tour that indicated that exercising had any effect on skin elasticity at all, though. Most of it seemed to indicate that UV, smoking, nutrition and age deteriorate skin elasticity to some degree. But at some point it's beyond simple elasticity and into new skin entirely, and the current research for that is all plastics, plastics, plastics.

I hope this is enough information for you to branch off and investigate further, as it is not my field of expertise.

It's BS.  I'm down to doctor's goal and I"m about 13 pounds from my goal

I have done weight lifting 3x a week with a trainer, yoga 3 times a week with a trainer and cardio 5-6 times a week since I was about 8 weeks out....  I have more saggigng skin than a sharpei puppy...

I need my back done
I need my thighs done
I need my butt done
I need my belly done.
I need my boobs done

about the only thing I don't need done are my arms and my face but I did not carry a lot of weight in my arms...

It's not a matter of tightening the skin.  Resistance/weight training grows muscle mass, which fills out the deflated areas where flappy/loose skin occur.  If you lose fat and muscle during weight loss (and you will), and don't bother to try to bring that muscle mass back, your skin will appear to be more loose than the person who is actively building their muscle mass back to toned or normal levels.

Cardio will not likely help as much with this, as it is primarily a fat-burning activity.  Weight resistance training (combined with a diet sufficient in protein for your surgery) will help fill the void and give that skin something to wrap itself around, but even WR training can only do so much.

"I'm a scientist and I want to collect some real data..."

As a "scientist" you know very well that anectdotes from the internet mean nothing.  If you truly are a scientist doing RESEARCH you know already that you should be in contact with your local bariactric clinics to see if they'd be willing to help you with your "data collection."

Myth.

Exercise is going to build muscles which fill out your body a little and, in turn, make your loose skin slightly less severe. It's genetics, age, how much skin we had to begin with, etc.

I didn't exercise at all for 6 months following surgery (I'm seven months out now) and my skin is really not that bad. I thought it would be much worse seeing as how I'm almost 40 and have yo-yo'ed my whole life and had two huge babies, but at this point I don't have plastics planned since it's not severe enough.

It's the luck of the draw.