Morning all! I had my surgery yesterday (yay me!!!) and am feeling quite human again this morning. So...one of my biggest concerns right now is how to ward off loose skin and lighten stretch marks over the next few months. Any advice?

Exercise, exercise, exercise. Especially with free weights and sit ups for your arms and tummy, where lots of excess weight lingers. Depending on your starting weight, you may need cosmetic surgery to sew up the excess despite exercise. I started at roughly 260 and exercise alone worked for me! Good luck!

Exercise, exercise, exercise. Especially with free weights and sit ups for your arms and tummy, where lots of excess weight lingers. Depending on your starting weight, you may need cosmetic surgery to sew up the excess despite exercise. I started at roughly 260 and exercise alone worked for me! Good luck!

Thanks, Delrio! So...what sort of free weights exercises do you do? I have resistance bands but I gotta say, these and weights are totally foreign to me. My weight as of yesterday was 257, down from 273. That's the highest my weight has ever been. Bleh.

You go girl!

I lost nearly 80 lbs. by walking and using 3 lb. dumb bells. I simply followed the arms routine suggested by Denise Austin in her book 'Hit the Spot'. She hits every problem area of the body though. You can get it for 1.99 (used I think) at

Denise Austin Books (Used, New, Out-of-Print) - Alibris

It's only a paperback book, so buying new shouldn't be too difficult. After the first 30 lbs. or so, I was ready to upgrade to 5 lb. dumb bells, but didn't. It's best to slowly increase the weight of dumb bells until you reach about 10 lbs. (Or so I've heard!) Oh, and I was walking 5 days a week, and doing Austin's routine on 3 of those days. It worked really well!