3 Skincare Steps for Your Face When You're Losing a lot of Weight

We were traveling around the world when I went for a facial. This was a new woman who I hadn’t seen before. She lathered my skin and applied an amazing cream that smelled like heaven.

“So, what do you think?” I asked. “Give me the real deal.”

I always do this when I have new people work on my face. I was 27 years old, and I loved to have them guess how old I was. I giggled a little bit, waiting for her to say what she thought about my skin. Instead, silence.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” she said.

“Yeah, I have. Seventy-five pounds!”

“I can tell because of the elasticity in your face. You don’t have wrinkles, and your face is really healthy. But you really need to do a few things if you don’t want to have saggy skin as you grow older.”

This took me aback. Every time I’d lost weight, I had always worried about the skin on my belly, my arms, and my breasts. But I never thought about the skin on my face and how weight loss could affect it.

Turns out, weight loss can affect the face a lot. But it won’t show up until later years. So, are you doomed? Luckily, no. There are some simple steps that you can take in your everyday routine to make sure that your weight loss will hardly affect your skin in the long run. Here’s a list, starting with the most important.

1. Start a good vegan collagen regimen

This was the first thing my esthetician told me to do. She said this would help the elasticity of my face and minimize the effects of weight loss.

Collagen is an abundant protein that we naturally produce in our body. It helps strengthen connective tissues and therefor helps with our skin health. As we age, the natural collagen production in our bodies starts to slow down. For a woman, this is a dreadful time. Why? Take two fingers and put them on your forearm. Now, stretch the skin between your fingers really tight. That is basically what collagen does. So, when it slows down production, it stops pulling your skin tight and giving you that beautiful, young look.

Think about your skin like a rubber band. When you first buy a brand-new rubber band, it is tight and hard to stretch. That rubber band is you when you were 13. Now, imagine what that same rubber band would be like after stretching it 500 times. This is what we do when we repeatedly gain and lose weight. It really takes a toll on our skin.

So, not only is collagen production slowing down in your body, but you’ve also stretched your skin from years of yo-yo dieting.

A lot of coaches would recommend an animal-based collagen supplement. But I’m not most coaches, so here’s what I say.

An animal-based collagen supplement is just going to worsen the problem because of the toxicity and acidity associated with its production. (Just look it up. Gross.)

Sticking to a vegan collagen cream or serum for your face will provide extra nutrients which help your body ramp up production of its own collagen. This is going to take that stretched-out skin and start rebuilding its structure so that it’s tight and supple once again.

There are many vegan collagen supplements on the market. The one that I use twice every day is Derma-E Advanced Peptides & Collagen Serum. It has worked really well for me and I highly recommend it!

 You can also go to your local beauty store and explain what you are looking for. They will point you in the right direction and give you plenty of options, depending on your budget.

2. Take a Vitamin C supplement

There have been multiple studies in recent years claiming that vitamin C helps to ramp up your body’s production of collagen, which helps with your skin elasticity. What does this mean? To explain this, we are going to take a journey back to high school.

Do you remember biology class? How about chemistry? Me either. Ok, let me explain it this way.

You know how you are breathing, right now? It’s something you do automatically. If you didn’t breathe, you’d kick the bucket. Even if your heart kept beating, and your blood kept flowing, you cannot live without breathing.

Think about collagen and vitamin C the same way. Even if you’re producing loads of collagen, if you don’t have adequate amounts of vitamin C, your body cannot synthesize that collagen. Therefore, you don’t receive the benefits.

So, make sure you are taking a vitamin C supplement. Or at least drink a lot of lemonade. I use Solgar Vegan Vitamin C. 

3. Eat a lot of fruits and veggies

So, remember how collagen is the really sexy rubber band and vitamin C is the magic ingredient that tightens it up? Great. One of the best ways you can get additional vitamin C is by eating loads of fruits and veggies. But there’s one more exciting ingredient.

Silica.

Do you remember the movie Princess Diaries? Do you remember Mia’s best friend, Lilly Moscovitz? None of the shenanigans would’ve been nearly as fun without Lilly, right?

So, think of silica as vitamin C’s quirky best friend. Studies have shown that silica is necessary for optimal collagen synthesis, and it improves skin and hair health.

In addition to fruits and veggies, other common foods with high amounts of silica include whole grain bread and pasta, oatmeal, brown rice, wheat and oat bran cereals, bananas, mangos, green beans, and spinach.

Side note: As a nutritionist, I probably shouldn’t be promoting this, but there’s also silica in beer! So, next time you crack a cold one with friends, just know that you are taking really good care of your skin. 😊

I hope these tips help you on your journey. I know that it can be scary when you lose a lot of weight, because this is the only skin you’re ever going to have! I wish I had these tools 10 years ago when I started dieting. But once I learned them, I found they made a huge difference. Wishing you happiness and healthy skin!

Love, Julia