Thursday, September 03, 2025

In the retail setting where I work, customers often share personal details about their lives. Recently, a customer told me she had used a new weight loss drug, had rapidly lost weight, and was surprised upon seeing what she referred to as her “Ozempic face.” She explained that people using the latest weight-loss medications are often taken aback to find that their skin changes do not keep pace with their rapidly shrinking bodies. As they lose weight, they may look in the mirror and see faces that appear older—hollow and lined—despite their slimmer figures.

I have been aware that our skin does regenerate periodically, and wondered why skin changes lag so behind rapid weight loss. What I have learned is that human skin actually works on two timelines. There’s a surface layer that renews itself every month or so—quietly and reliably, like clockwork. But our skin also has deeper layers, where collagen and elastin live, that move much more slowly. When we’re young, our skin fibers stretch and spring back relatively easily; however, as we age, the fibers adapt more gradually. Our slower weight changes make our skin adaptations seem more manageable. When our weight drops fast, our skin simply can’t “catch up.”

For younger people, or those lucky enough to have naturally springy skin fibers, time and hydration may soften skin changes over a few months. However, for the rest of us—especially past fifty—the adjustment could take a year or more. And in cases of significant weight loss, skin may never fully rebound.

Yet maybe that’s not entirely bad. Perhaps we’ll adjust by learning to allow our skin to carry our stories–as written in its lines and folds. Our skin can show where we’ve been, what we’ve endured, and how life can surprise us quickly. Essentially, whether it’s about weight loss, aging, or just the turn of a season, our lesson is the same: the outer covering we live in writes its own timeline.

Dear friends, we can lose weight quickly, but our skin takes its time and tells our stories.
—Diana