Plastic Surgery Helps ‘Biggest Loser’ Winner Get Rid of Loose Skin

Posted on October 20, 2010 | by

NBC’s The Biggest Loser aired its eighth season in 2009, featuring 16 morbidly obese contestants competing to lose the most weight by following low-calorie diet and intense daily exercise regimen.

To better understand the body changes experienced by Biggest Loser contestants, researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center studied the weight, body composition and resting metabolic rate of each of the 16 participants at the start of the show, at Week 6 and at Week 30, the finale.

What they found was that on average, the body fat percentage of contestants dropped 22% by the end of the show, and each contestant lost an average of 128 pounds composed of 81% body fat and 19% non-fatty tissue (primarily muscle).

The significant weight loss and relatively low loss of muscle mass experienced by Biggest Loser contestants cause major body changes for contestants, especially for season 8 winner and Oklahoma native Danny, who beat out the competition by losing 239 pounds in 30 weeks.

To alleviate the cosmetic and health issues that having significant loose, excess skin can cause, Cahill, 41, sought plastic surgery to improve his body shape.

According to plastic surgeons who performed Cahill’s body contouring procedure, they removed 10-15 pounds of torso, abdomen, chest and back—that’s four square feet of extra skin.

Removing the quantity of loose skin doctors did in Cahill’s case involves plastic surgery procedures that may be staged over multiple operations and typically involves a combination of the following procedures:

Like Danny Cahill, patients who have lost more than 50-100 pounds may wish to pursue post weight loss surgery to remove extra skin if they:

  • Are unhappy about the aesthetic effect of loose, sagging skin that does not contract after losing weight
  • Experience rash, discomfort, sores or a foul odor in skin folds
  • Feel they must hide their post-weight loss body under clothes

“I really feel like I can take my shirt off in public now and not be embarrassed about it,” said Cahill after his successful body contouring procedure.

Source: USA Today