6 tips to tighten loose skin after pregnancy
New moms and their post-pregnancy bodies can have a complicated relationship.
We often look in the mirror with the most critical set of glasses and make the most negative and degrading judgments about ourselves!
That may be why “How to tighten loose skin on stomach after pregnancy?” is one of the most common questions I receive.
During the nine months of pregnancy, the skin on your belly has been stretched and stressed to its limits.
Once the baby arrives, don’t feel discouraged if your belly skin doesn’t bounce back to its previous elasticity immediately.
It’s quite common for a postpartum belly to look saggy and deflated, but your body has done something truly amazing by growing and birthing a baby.
Here are some tips to tighten loose skin after pregnancy and firm up your amazing body:
- Eat healthy to improve skin elasticity
Your skin gets the nutrients it needs to maintain its elasticity from the foods you eat.
Unfortunately for your skin, it’s one of the last organs to receive vitamins and minerals. If you don’t get enough nutrients, your skin will become deprived of what it needs to stay soft and resilient.
To promote elasticity and tighten loose skin after pregnancy, eat a healthy diet including plenty of fruits, vegetables, fats, and lean protein. The vitamins and minerals in a well-balanced diet will contribute to the flexibility and health of your skin. This flexibility can help your skin return to normal after your baby is born.
Fruits and vegetables like broccoli, strawberries, and spinach provide vitamins C and A along with other healthy nutrients and minerals.
Vitamin C is essential for collagen production which gives your skin its firmness. Vitamin A acts as a humectant, drawing water to the surface where the moisture helps your skin remain supple.
- Lose weight slowly
After your baby is born, you may be super excited to lose the weight you’ve gained over the past nine months. Keep in mind, though, that losing weight too quickly can make the problem of loose skin even worse.
If you shed weight too fast, you will lose both fat and muscle. Losing muscle robs your body of its ability to maintain a tight, toned shape. Less muscle also reduces your metabolism and makes it more difficult to lose weight further down the road.
Whether you do cardio, yoga, or some other type of exercise, aim to lose one to two pounds per week. That rate of weight loss makes for a much healthier body and is sustainable over the long term. It may not seem like much at first, but it will add up over time.
- Stay hydrated
Tightening loose skin after pregnancy is all about promoting and maintaining elasticity. That elasticity depends, in large part, on staying hydrated. And the only way to stay hydrated properly is to drink at least eight cups of water every day.
In addition to keeping your skin elastic, drinking water helps your body burn calories and reduces water retention in your abdomen. All these things together can make the appearance of loose skin less noticeable.
- Breastfeed your baby
Breastfeeding benefits both you and your baby. Breast milk is an extremely healthy source of nutrition for newborns. It helps them grow physically and mentally and keeps their immune system functioning at 100%.
Breastfeeding your little one also helps you lose weight and tighten loose skin after pregnancy. When you breastfeed, your body uses a larger portion of the calories you consume every day to make milk.
As a result, your body stores fewer calories as fat and may even dip into your existing body fat to keep milk production up.
That’s great news for new moms because it means that you can lose weight faster and tighten loose skin after pregnancy just by doing what comes naturally.
- Exfoliate your skin
Exfoliating is the process of removing dead cells from the surface of your skin. This promotes new skin growth, which is, by nature, healthier and tighter than old surface skin.
Exfoliating also improves blood circulation to the surface layers of your skin, which increases skin regeneration and promotes elasticity. All of these benefits help to tighten loose skin after pregnancy.
You may already exfoliate your face and neck as part of your daily skincare routine. But the easiest way to exfoliate loose skin is to grab a loofah or bath brush during your shower and give a bit of extra attention to your belly and thighs.
- Exercise
Losing weight slowly and repairing elasticity are great ways to reduce loose skin after pregnancy. But removing fat and tightening skin only go so far. You also need to add muscle mass to “fill up” the space in your skin.
To maintain muscle tone while losing weight, we suggest incorporating weight training into your exercise routine.
Don’t worry, you won’t bulk up like the boys do. For women, weight training has more of a tightening effect, which is exactly what you’re looking for when dealing with loose skin.
There are plenty of effective options for strength training — including dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, and even bodyweight exercises — so find a method that you enjoy and get to lifting.