I have been at goal now for nearly 1 year (it will be 1 year on the 20th of June), and although I have kept on losing weight after goal I have been maintaining steadily for quite a while. What I have noticed is that yes, you do get some loose "skin" when you reach goal. That is mostly because you lose a lot of muscle mass while dieting and you don't lose enough fat quickly enough, so that the fat hangs out a bit from the reduced muscle mass. What you see as "loose skin" is in reality excess fat still attached to your skin: your skin is at its thickest on the talon and at its thinnest at your eye-lid. hence, it's impossible that what you see on your stomach is skin.
What you have to do to get rid of the flab is keep on exercise and maintain your weight stable. This will increase your muscle mass slowly and decrease your fat level slowly, helping you getting rid of the flab.
in one year of maintaining I have seen the flab on my belly and legs decreasing steadily. It's not gone yet, but I can see the difference, and although I have put on 3 or 4 lbs in the last few months, my clothes are more comfortable, which means that I have lost fat. I am confident that very soon that fat will disappear completely and when that will happen, I won't have any more loose skin.
the reason why most flab doesn't go away straight away is because it's almost always a VERY OLD layer of fat, which is more difficult to get rid of. It's like the last, very last bit of "savings" that you would have in your savings account and which you don't want to get rid of even in financial difficulty because it's your "security blanket". That's your body's security blanket and it takes time, a long time of financial difficulties before your body gets rid of that flab, £1 a time!
