I'm very worried about this, as I have 7 stone to lose too, and even then my body fat would be in the low 40s (I'm 50% fat now, scary - I feel like only half a person!). I'm planning to lose the initial 4.5 stone (to which point I don't get excess skin, or at least haven't in the past). I tend to have a bit of a wobbly stomach at that weight, but I think that's more because of all the fat still in it! (I'm apple shaped). To try and avoid the loose skin, I'm going to try to go through fat loss, and muscle gain phases, in the hope that spending months trying to build muscle will 1. give my stomach/body time to re-adjust the skin 2. give me more muscle to burn calories with for when I go back to fat loss.
Because I have such a high fat %, it takes up a lot of room, so hoping muscle will bulk it out. I can't imagine living with lots of loose skin and being happy :/ I would go for a tummy tuck (and perhaps under arms) except that I've seen tummy tuck scars, and even 18months in, they don't seem to have faded much. I am praying that the muscle will improve the loose skin drastically (although as it takes up a lot less room than fat for the same weight of it, I have a feeling it might not work).
I can't begin to say how worried I am about this, and I do wonder if it's one of the factors that makes me sabotage my weight loss. I'd rather get down to 12st 8lbs (still overweight by a long way) and stick there, than go down to a healthy weight with loose skin. If I did lose enough weight, built as much muscle as I could (I'd rather look like a female body builder than have the loose skin), and still looked bad - I really do think I would purposely put fat back on, on purpose, to make me feel better about myself. Perhaps I'd be miserable enough that I would pay for a tummy tuck, and put up with the scar - but I don't think so. I am hoping that in the next few years, they bring out a tummy tuck procedure with less scarring!
Some tips that people have mentioned to try to avoid/solve the problem of loose skin (I don't know which actually work) are:
Drink over 2 litres of water a day
Exercise - swimming and weight/resistance training in particular
Build muscle to fill the skin
Use moisturisers, preferably with vitamin E in it
Make sure you have a lot of fruit and veg for the vitamins and minerals
Take baths with bath salts in them (and perhaps bio-oil)
Just wait - skin rebounds over time, more so for some people than others
Lose weight at only 1 to 2 lbs a month
Lose fat till you are not much above your essential range, and the skin it's holding on to will be able to contract again
I especially don't believe the last one because I know that we are born with all our fat cells, except if we gain massive weight, and then we grow more fat cells. Once new fat cells exist, they grow as our fat levels grow, and as we lose fat, the cells shrink, back to an empty sac if we lose enough fat. However, they don't vanish again - they're still there. So I don't see how the skin will be able to contract that much, as there are still lots of extra fat cells around.
It's all just very depressing.
The only effect I've got is my stretch marks have faded. I've been big all of my teenage and adult life so there's a big chance of this happening.
