If you're a teen who wants to lose weight, talk to your doctor about your concerns before you start a healthy program. During puberty, teenagers go through growth spurts while their bodies mature, and weight gain is a byproduct of this growth. Just because you gain some weight over the course of your teenage years doesn't mean that you've reached an unhealthy weight. Check your body mass index, BMI, on a scale adjusted for adolescents. If your resulting BMI sits at or above the 85th percentile, you may want to talk to your doctor and parents about starting a healthy weight loss program.
Increase Your Physical Activity
Step 1
Schedule times in your day for physical activity. Aim for at least an hour on most days of the week.
Step 2
Choose an activity that you enjoy and that you also feel confident performing. Walking, biking, playing a sport or doing exercise videos are all good options.
Step 3
Write down a list of new activities that you would like to try. Keeping your workouts new and exciting will help prevent you from getting bored. Talk to you parents about how and when you can incorporate the new activities into your schedule. For instance, if you want to learn to rock climb, find out if there's a local rock gym and work with your parents to schedule a lesson.
Step 4
Enlist your friends to exercise with you. If you have a companion, you'll stay engaged and motivated to continue exercising. Turn your weekly social time into an opportunity for activity by trying new games together or walking while you talk about things.
Step 5
Start adding weight-bearing exercises to your routine. Hit the gym, participate in a group exercise class or try body-weight exercises at home. Lifting weights will increase muscle mass and metabolism, causing you to burn more calories at rest.
Clean Up Your Diet
Step 1
Talk to your parents about ways that you can start making healthier eating choices as a family. Offer to help with the grocery shopping or cooking in order to show your parents that you feel invested in these changes.
Step 2
Switch unhealthy snack foods for nutrient-dense options. Trade chips for low-fat popcorn. Instead of ice cream, add fresh berries to vanilla yogurt. Dip veggies in hummus instead of dips loaded with saturated fat.
Step 3
Eat breakfast. According to the website TeensHealth, teens who skip breakfast often have higher BMIs than those who don't. Even if you don't feel hungry in the morning, eating something can help curb your appetite later and rev your metabolism for the day. Try whole wheat toast with peanut butter or a whole grain cereal with fresh fruit.
Step 4
Cut out liquid calories. Soda, fruit juice, alcoholic beverages and high-fat coffee drinks all add unnecessary calories to your diet. The more empty calories you consume, the more likely that you'll create a calorie surplus and gain weight. Stick to low-fat milk, water and 100-percent juices.
Tips and Warnings
- To burn a pound of fat, you have to create a 3,500 calorie deficit. By cutting 250 to 500 calories a day from your diet and adding exercise to your schedule, in time you will see results. Be patient. Understand that weight loss takes time, and if you're still growing, as long as you're making healthy lifestyle choices, things will eventually even out.
- Every weight loss program has risks. Talk about these with your doctor before starting your program and check in with your doctor and parents regularly to reassess your progress. Sometimes more isn't always better. Excessive weight loss can indicate eating disorders or other negative lifestyle choices. Keep your weight loss in perspective.
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