Hi, Sharon,
I don't have the experience of losing significant weight and its effect on the voice; however, I'd like to suggest my thoughts based on other experiences.
Maybe I'm way off base here, but I have alwyas had a hard time accepting the idea that layers of abdominal fat have anything whatever to do with breath support. The fat does nothing but put stress on your body. (I'm sort of a middleweight, myself - not skinny, not really fat. About a size 10-12)
My body has gone through various changes in musculature, particularly during physical therapy for shoulder problems and here is where I think the change happens for those who lose weight. Your skeletal and musculatory systems have to realign and rebalance to move you around as your body loses weight, and the voice apparatus is affected just as any other part of the voice. I've noticed that singing is different as soon as I get home from physical therapy because muscles and bones in my neck, back and shoulder are aligned differently. This initially alarmed me, but I realized that I had been compensating for tense or out of place musculature, and now didn't have to because things were close to their natural states.
Maybe the medical people on the List can give us a more educated point of view; this just makes sense to me.
Susan Schneider
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