Lose Double Chin

Lose Double Chin

Finding that you have grown an extra chin or two is never a happy discovery, but it is by no means an unusual one. A double chin can be caused by factors like overweight, the normal aging process, heredity or a combination of all three.

How can you lose your double chin? That depends quite a lot on what is causing the double chin and on how far you are willing to go to make it disappear. Some solutions are more drastic than others, and each person has to make his or her own informed decision about whether it is really worth it to go the distance.

Here are some of the most common methods for losing a double chin:

• Lose some weight. Double chins often appear at midlife as people pick up weight. It’s not unusual to start gaining weight at midlife when metabolism starts to slow and people begin to lose muscle mass. To combat this natural tendency toward weight gain, increase your daily exercise; especially resistance training exercises that build muscle. At the same time, reduce your caloric intake and drink plenty of water. Often just dropping ten or fifteen pounds will eliminate a double chin without any other intervention.
• Exercise your neck. The platysma exercise is designed to tighten the neck muscles and thereby eliminate a double chin. Open your mouth as wide as possible, then tilt your head back, close your mouth, and stretch your lower lip and jaw as far as possible over your top row of teeth. You will feel a stretch first in the jaw line, and second in your neck? Will it work? It can’t hurt!
• Chew sugarless gum. Some people swear that gum chewing strengthens the muscles of the face and jaw and helps prevent the dreaded double chin. It also helps keep your teeth clean.
• Cosmetic creams. Skin loses elasticity as it ages and becomes looser on the face and neck. Some people swear by a good face cream, and use it morning and night on the neck area to prevent wrinkles and sagging.
• Plastic surgery. Facelifts and chin liposuction are two procedures that eliminate a double chin. Both are expensive and come with all the risks of any major surgery. Facelifts can only be done a limited number of times before they start to create a bizarre ‘tight’ look that is neither old nor young, but rather just creepy. So clearly, surgery is not a permanent solution.
• Chin wraps. The Veloform chin wrap is designed to minimize the appearance of loose folds of skin around the face and neck. You simply wrap your chin and neck and wear it in the privacy of your own home. Some people have found that this does help.

Some sagging of the skin around the face and neck is a normal part of aging. Skin looses its elasticity as people age and how quickly that happens is largely hereditary. Sometimes you can combat a double chin with cosmetics and skin creams but sometimes you can’t.

By far the most effective way to prevent a double chin is to maintain a healthy weight, get lots of exercise, drink lots of water, and make sure the foods you eat contain the nutrients you need instead of empty calories, salt, sugar, and fat. After all of that, if you still have a double chin, ask yourself, is it really so bad? Look around! People come in all shapes and sizes and some of the nicest ones around even come with double chins.