Aim:

• Deal with loose skin and tighten it up
• Avoid surgeries and more invasive type treatments

What Is Loose Skin?

• Skin that has been overstretched to the point where it has not come back to it's original form

There are 2 main problems associated with loose skin:

• Collagen
• Deeper fiber called Elastin (supposed to give collagen some elasticity)

This problem normally comes about from:

• Getting older
• Losing a lot of weight
• Excessive sun exposure
• Pregnancy
• Smoking has a risk factor
• Being a diabetic can give you a lot of loose skin
• Stress

What Can You Do About It?

Hormones:

• One type that builds up your collagen and elastin
  • Growth hormone (Anabolic):
    • High intensity interval training (HIIT)
      • Sprinting
      • Hopping on some sort of elevation
      • Spin bike
      • Anything that involves high intensity. The key is to keep it short though.
    • Low carb Ketogenic diet
    • Getting enough sleep (also assists in reducing stress)
  • Insulin is another anabolic hormone
    • Triggers new elastin
    • Low insulin can reduce your ability to receive nutrients and amino acids (the very building blocks of proteins for collagen)
    • How to get more insulin (if you need it)
      • Ketogenic diet
      • Intermittent fasting
      • Exercise
• One type that breaks down the collagen within the skin
  • Cortisol is the main hormone that does this. It is a catabolic hormone (breaks tissue down)
    • Stress activates cortisol

Cofactors that help the development of collagen and the creation of elastin:

• Vitamin A (specifically Retinol) is the most important cofactor.
  • Only comes from animal products
    • Egg yolk
    • Cod liver oil
    • Fatty fish
    • Butter

• Vitamin C
  • Sauerkraut
  • Peppers
  • Berries
• Low fat diets are bad for skin health
  • Less fat-soluble vitamins

• Iron (More available type of iron called Heme iron
  • Red meat
  • Shellfish

You need a diet that contains some animal fats so that you can get both the (proper) retinol and iron

Exercise:

• Neovasculisation
  • New blood vessels
  • Carrying more nutrients
  • More circulation
• Build up more muscles just underneath the skin to fill in the gap that occurred from the overstretching of skin.

Prolonged Fasting:

• Epigentic effect on skin
  • Recycling old damaged proteins

Hormesis Effect:

• Adding a little bit of stress to the body to cause the body to adapt
• Heat and cold therapy
  • Ice cold water followed by hot water (within reason, don't burn yourself!) can create this hormetic effect
• A little bit of sun (the point before you burn) is good for your skin. Also depends on how much melanin you have, the colour of your skin

TLDR;

• Most important way to reduce loose skin is to do intermittent fasting
• Ketogenic diet
• Exercise
  • HIIT
• Diet that is high in Vitamin A / Vitamin C and Iron
• Add a little bit of heat and cold stress to your body
• A little bit of sunlight

Reference: