Muscles building out and not up??
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free skin care · Tue Feb 02, 2016 6:04 pm

Hello! Pardon me if this topic has been discussed already, please link to me in case so I may research.

I have noticed in regards to facial exercises that my muscles are building out instead of up. I have prominent nasal labial folds and anytime I get consistent with my exercises, I see the muscles building and then I just see my face gradually expanding out, creating more of a fold. This happens to my cheeks, under my eyes and around my jaw line. I want that "lift" because I think that makes me look younger. Instead, my skin has retained its shape so my slightly saggy skin is still saggy but larger looking?

I'm doing Carole maggio, old & with the book and a video I saw of Loulou, some rawsome flex and the one exercise Eva Fraser has for the jaw line.
Also Tal Reinhart dvd. It seems like a lot but I like them, & I truly want to be consistent enough to where I see great results(I've never done it consistently more than 3 months at a time)

It's just strange that's all, my muscles seem to have dropped the last 10 years I've been doing face exercises (on and off) with the muscles slowly going down my face, never returning to where they were but getting fuller and bigger where they are now? Does that make sense? Will I truly never have these muscles back in their place? Just awkwardly plumped out?

free skin care · Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:36 am

Okay a few things. I think you are mixing and matching and as a result you are messing up your face too soon too quickly. Now you need to do it consistently too to get proper results – otherwise you will never get anywhere. Now you say you see more of a fold – that might be because you are doing too many different things and overworking them. Just guessing I’m not a trainer of any program and have done exercises for 10 years.

Now with the muscles dropping last 10 years – is there any possible cause you can identify. I had a friend whose muscles did that but she was going through a terrible divorce and as a result her health and lifestyle was impacted and so it was no wonder it showed up on her face.

free skin care · Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:23 am

TheresaMary wrote:

Okay a few things. I think you are mixing and matching and as a result you are messing up your face too soon too quickly. Now you need to do it consistently too to get proper results – otherwise you will never get anywhere. Now you say you see more of a fold – that might be because you are doing too many different things and overworking them. Just guessing I’m not a trainer of any program and have done exercises for 10 years.

Now with the muscles dropping last 10 years – is there any possible cause you can identify. I had a friend whose muscles did that but she was going through a terrible divorce and as a result her health and lifestyle was impacted and so it was no wonder it showed up on her face.

Thanks for the reply TheresaMary! I was doing Carole Maggio’s program solely, on & off for the last 9 years. In the past year, I added those other things because I thought it was a good idea and maybe it was time to switch to something else…with not quite letting the other one go.

I have always had nasal labial folds, even as a child, but my cheeks were possibly a little higher and my face was fuller with more fat & probably good connective tissue. If you look at these set of pics, they show the differences of when I started to now, showing more of the sagging aspect. These are in between the facial exercise with the exception of the last photo. Of course anything you do consistently you will get results, I completely understand, It’s hard to make this a routine. I usually do 3 months, I see some results, usually at this point, life gets in the way and then I stop. Or I see something wrong with my face, freak out then stop. However, picking back up each time, I just notice that the muscles are usually further down each time, which I think is just normal aging? If you look at the photos, I think that’s what happening.

I also was concerned with the sagginess I have now, facial fat loss and hollowing of my eyes. I had posted somewhere here a while back, and with the recommendations from this board, I got my blood tested and went over my diet again. I thought it was my adrenals or stress, but my adrenals checked out fine, everything normal with the exception of my vitamin D being extremely low. By the way, I currently am overweight, something I have been trying to address recently, 20 lbs to be exact, at least for my height. My face looks skinny but my body surely doesn’t match! & to finally answer your question, I haven’t had a particularly stressful episode in the last few years. My diet with respect to eating too much over the holidays & not exercising, has been similar to Perricone, Weston price with some fruits and veggies, protein shakes, supplements galore. Sorry this seemed to have trailed to a diet related thing again, but I am guessing this is where this post is headed.

But perhaps it is the aggressive approach I have been doing lately, but still, I never quite saw lifted results doing Carole Maggio either, just bigger muscles… the little muscles I gained over 3 months time. But if you look at the very bottom picture, it seems that my smile is a little more etched looking and built out.

Anyways, I just might stop everything all together, regroup and see about starting fresh with a new program, doing that for 6 months to a year and post back. I am nervous tho. Ah.

AND after all my hard work putting my pics together I can't figure out how to post them! It literally took me forevver!! I will have to post another time..ahhh.

free skin care · Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:01 am

Wow 9 years. How old are you?

Don’t get me wrong – when you do any program there comes a time when you add to it. If you think of the program creators they all add and adapt their programs at times to include new things and rightly so. I think a lot of the problems I have read is when people do that at the very beginning and have to say its often youngsters who do it (and by youngsters I mean those under 30).

I too always had NL folds, as a child and my mother and her mother had them too so they were never an issue for me and I never gave them a second thought. I did a few things over the last 10 plus years but never really made them significant. I have always looked after myself and my skin and when the 3rd edition of flexeffect came out I went against the recommendations and it was my hubby who pointed out one morning that my NLs were lessening. I ran to the mirror and looked and he was right. My NLs aren’t there unless I smile now, but when I stop they vanish which is excellent.

I think for me, when I started out it was after major weightloss and I was darned scared of how I looked and was incredibly vain and so wasn’t going to put up with how my face looked so nothing would have stopped me. I guess for you – you are making it harder, and if you got a better idea of your goals you would be more inclined to stick with the routine.

Now with sagging and stopping and starting – I think I can only guess that being inconsistent, an then adding things to your routine is probably overworking your muscles which is why they look like they sag moreso. It isn’t part of “normal aging”.

Now with facial fat loss – you may want to consider doing a more resistance based program to fill up the fat loss places. One thing I do know is that resistance can and will create a fuller look that whilst not a match-for-match substitute creates a similar look. However one thing is that you need to eat protein for the muscles if you are working them against resistance.

Great re tests. Vit D is a biggie. I too was short in it a few years ago, and when I started taking it I felt so good and happy. Its amazing what that stuff does if you are deficient in it. Re diet, I’m not qualified in any shape or form so wouldn’t advise you or anyone about that. I just know general things like protein etc are important and sometimes when you look you can spot a glaring thing that needs changing.

free skin care · Mon Feb 08, 2016 6:24 pm

TheresaMary wrote:

Wow 9 years. How old are you?

Don’t get me wrong – when you do any program there comes a time when you add to it. If you think of the program creators they all add and adapt their programs at times to include new things and rightly so. I think a lot of the problems I have read is when people do that at the very beginning and have to say its often youngsters who do it (and by youngsters I mean those under 30).

I too always had NL folds, as a child and my mother and her mother had them too so they were never an issue for me and I never gave them a second thought. I did a few things over the last 10 plus years but never really made them significant. I have always looked after myself and my skin and when the 3rd edition of flexeffect came out I went against the recommendations and it was my hubby who pointed out one morning that my NLs were lessening. I ran to the mirror and looked and he was right. My NLs aren’t there unless I smile now, but when I stop they vanish which is excellent.

I think for me, when I started out it was after major weightloss and I was darned scared of how I looked and was incredibly vain and so wasn’t going to put up with how my face looked so nothing would have stopped me. I guess for you – you are making it harder, and if you got a better idea of your goals you would be more inclined to stick with the routine.

Now with sagging and stopping and starting – I think I can only guess that being inconsistent, an then adding things to your routine is probably overworking your muscles which is why they look like they sag moreso. It isn’t part of “normal aging”.

Now with facial fat loss – you may want to consider doing a more resistance based program to fill up the fat loss places. One thing I do know is that resistance can and will create a fuller look that whilst not a match-for-match substitute creates a similar look. However one thing is that you need to eat protein for the muscles if you are working them against resistance.

Great re tests. Vit D is a biggie. I too was short in it a few years ago, and when I started taking it I felt so good and happy. Its amazing what that stuff does if you are deficient in it. Re diet, I’m not qualified in any shape or form so wouldn’t advise you or anyone about that. I just know general things like protein etc are important and sometimes when you look you can spot a glaring thing that needs changing.

Here it goes! I finally figured out how to post pics, I don't know why it links to my photobucket when you click on it, but oh well. I don't know how to do it any other way. And we can argue about lighting, angles, time of day etc. But this was done of course years apart, different camera etc. I think they are quite accurate, not that you asked, I just wanted to mention Smile

Thanks for your reply, I just recently turned 30, last month. So yes! I was a youngster when I started doing all of this. The photos you see are when I was NOT doing them, with the exception of the last photo, the overbuild look. I kinda look like I have monkey mouth actually, and it kinda feels strange when I smile, not in a good way at all. BUT just look at the way my skin is sagging, these are in between the the exercises. So, perhaps what I did, stopping and starting and all that wreaked havoc on my face, and now this is the result. I initially started this whole thing to NOT look like I do now, and obviously I didn't achieve that goal at all. I guess I just have to get into ONE program and stick with it. I just don't think I'll ever look the same again, maybe better. Although you did say that your NL lines are gone!! For me, when I smile you see them, when I don't they stay there!! I want them to be gone and vanish when I smile, not like it is now. And the hollows. Oh the hollows!! Drives me insane. I look too hollowed out for my age, IMO. I do think it is the facial fat loss, which I guess a good resistance program can address. I am not up for injections or anything like that. I hope if someone has hollows like mine, they were able to fix them.

free skin care · Tue Feb 09, 2016 2:41 am

You still are a youngster – take it from someone double your age and then some!

Okay the photos in comparison to one another do show stuff going on – but its interesting that these are when you weren’t doing them so makes me wonder what your face looked like when you were doing them, and also wondering if you were more consistent what would the effect be.

Now monkey mouth I have had – but it was when I was doing some mouth exercises that I thought were easy, and my rationale at the time was that more would be better of course. What I hadn’t realised is that the muscle built up very quickly and I also learned that I was engaging mouth muscles during other exercises like my eyes for example, where the mouth would work without my realising it. It was hard to learn to do other exercises without that muscle playing but I did it eventually but it took time. Stopping and starting played a part, as did mixing exercises and not doing a full program too. I think you are better getting proper help from one of the programs creators that you own. They can best guide you as to how to undo those things.

With my NLs, they are then when I smile but (and this is the major change) when I stop smiling they go completely. They used to remain around the whole year it felt like whether I was smiling or not. I had grown up with them though and just always thought I’d have them as my mother and her mother had them too. So I just thought I would always have them. Like I said it was my hubby who noticed they had gone.

Now with the hollows – I don’t know. I remember someone saying one time something about protein intake being a possible cause of them but can’t remember the exact reasons why or how. I guess if you are doing resistance exercises the muscles need protein to repair and if there isn’t any then they an’t but not sure how that would create hollows?

free skin care · Tue Feb 09, 2016 5:51 pm

Haha yes a youngster. But I think that was my downfall. I probably shouldn't have started as young as I did because it seems like it just messed up my face. Here are the best pics of when I was doing just maggio for a couple months this was last year, taken on the same day:

These don't show the overbuild because I wasn't mixing it up yet. But that's what I got. Notice the under eye hollows are still there and everything looks a little bigger. I know I am not straight faced in the second one, but NL are still gonna be there when I don't smile. I really don't like taking cute pics of me not smiling lol.

Since yours are gone, were your NL shaped like mine? Do you mind posting a pic of your progess? I want to dream hahaha. And you said you had them growing up as well, I mean so did I. And if yours can go, I don't see why mine couldn't too?

And protein intake seems fine to me, maybe too much almost. But I theorize that when I did the under eye exercises it lost some fat under my eyes. Just a theory. I don't know why it went away. But that's another post for another time I guess. Thanks again! Yo

free skin care · Wed Feb 10, 2016 3:04 am

My NLs were deeper than yours, and to be honest I run from the camera like a vampire to garlic. I hate my photo being taken. Also a large part of why they went I strongly believe is because they didn’t bother me and I didn’t obsess over them. Someone once tried to tell me it was because I was using the Law of Attraction, and what you focus on persists kind of nonsense. I do know looking back I wasn’t obsessing over them like some friends used to and so maybe it counts for something.

I know a few programs advise people to start as young as possible and am sure they have their reasons for it but I’ve read countless messages from people saying they did so and got hazardous results so I’m always against it. I know Shawn from FlexEffect did write a long post somewhere for youngsters specifically but he deleted all his posts on their forum and so I can’t recall but he was in favour of it and I think he said something about Audrea (Deb’s daughter) doing them from a young age too.

I do know that I have done programs in their entirety for long times during the 10 years or so. I never did derma rolling – was too much of a wimp to do so. I have used Retin A for over 30 years. I also have been through the dreaded (and it was dreaded in my case) Menopause. So I kind of just guessed they would always be there. It was when my dear hubby mentioned it at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning I ran to the mirror. He knows how crazy I am and has seen me doing everything from using gloves and sticking them inside my mouth to work muscles to doing some plain strange old tapping and just usually shakes his head. Thank goodness he didn’t see me doing the pressure reps or cross stretching. Looking back, the thing that did help them shift for me was the skin remodeling technique – so that may be something you want to look into.

free skin care · Thu Feb 11, 2016 5:02 am

HI TheresaMary,

Please can you elaborate more on skin remodeling technique.. I will be very interested to know..

I am around 42 and struggling with deep NL folds.. Doing ageless, but they have not helped me very much..

editing to say that I know what you mean by hiding from camera.. same here.. I can so resonate with this feeling...

Thanks
Mansi

free skin care · Thu Feb 11, 2016 7:08 am

Mansi

It isn’t my technique and part of a program I do (FlexEffect – the skin remodelling technique is called Cross Stretching) so I don’t feel comfortable going into exact details.

However I didn’t do that part of Cross Stretching to get rid of the NLs. I just always thought I would have them – and still if I smile the NLs are definitely there and visible yet when I stop smiling now the tissue snaps back and doesn’t show them there any longer – whereas previously they looked etched into the skin. Also I am a lot older than you and started facial exercises when I hit my 50th birthday and lost a lot of weight and my face was sagging beyond belief. I’ve kept the weight off but lost a lot suddenly due to crash dieting. I have kept the weight off last 10 plus years by eating more sensibly (though I still ocassionally have a burger and chips with my hubby lol). Life is for living after all.

free skin care · Thu Feb 25, 2016 5:53 am

Hi TheresaMary,
I'm very intrigued by you reversing your N/lines. You did not have filler?

Was the Cross Stretching technique part of the Flex Effect Program? I am 52 and have very deep NLs/Folds & Marionette Lines.

I too lost a lot of weight a while back and was a crazy work out fiend (which was not good for my face I think) - sagging everywhere on my face, eyes ... - body's good though... I was doing Ageless until I thought it was doing more harm & then gave up - also needling, actives, LED, Tuo viso yadayada - Any insight would be much appreciated - I've thoroughly researched EDS and the web & lots of sites make claims and great before and after but not sure what I can believe and realize that it depends on your skin/bone structure/fat ...

free skin care · Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:42 am

Oh dear – this is going down a route that I wasn’t expecting. I think each and every person is different. Yes mine are gone, but everything I’ve done has led up to that point. I had done facial exercises for 10 plus years prior to doing the cross stretching of Flexeffect. I also used Retin A for a very long time and worked with a derm for over 30 plus years. So I guess when I started the FlexEffect 3rd edition (and I had used 2nd edition prior for a few years) the NLs weren’t an issue for me. I never had MLs just NLs and my mother had them, her mother and her mother before her – so for me they were never a concern. I just thought I would always have them. So they were never part of why I did cross stretching. I also must admit that myself and a few “rebels” were doing it daily. Which goes against their recommendations but I have to say I enjoyed how it felt.

I didn’t have fillers – too chicken for them and can’t stand needles so derma rolling is a no no for me. I also did many of the techniques in Flexeffect so whilst I am saying it’s the cross stretching part, it very much could be a combo of the jolting and pressure reps and the other stuff too.

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