As a teen, you have a body that's still growing and developing into its final adult form. As such, when choosing to make any sort of changes to your body, you have to be even more careful about your health than your adult counterparts. If you're looking to lose weight, make sure you follow healthy weight loss tips.
Take Advantage of Organized Exercise
Teenagers generally have a great deal of responsibility on their plates, from school to work to extracurricular activities to social obligations. As such, you may find in difficult to find time for a consistent exercise program. One way around this problem is to fit exercise into the category of extracurricular activities or work. If you can find a part time job that allows or requires a significant measure of physical activity, you'll find that it goes a long way towards assisting you in your weight loss. Alternatively, regularly scheduled extracurricular activities such as sports can also play an effective role in weight loss. At a minimum, aim to engage yourself in an activity that meets the American College of Sports Medicine's standards for cardiovascular exercise: at least three weekly sessions of at least 20 minutes of intense physical activity.
Pay Attention to Nutrition
When dieting to lose weight, your attention is likely and understandably focused on decreasing your food intake. Unfortunately, especially among teens with short attention spans, this can lead to problematic neglect of the nutrition aspects of diet. In the process of designing your calorie-reduced diet, make sure to consult the U.S. Department of Agriculture's interactive food pyramid. By entering your age, height, weight and gender, you'll receive recommended values for your daily intake of each food group, and specific requirements for certain sub-groups such as whole grains and dark green vegetables. By following these guidelines, you'll ensure that you're getting an adequate amount of all essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients. If you're serious about covering your bases, you may also wish to consider a daily multivitamin.
Take it Slow
As a teenager, your metabolism is faster than that of your adult counterparts. This means, all else equal, it will be easier for you to lose weight at a greater rate. While this may sound like an unequivocal positive, keep in mind that the human body was not designed to lose weight beyond a certain rate, and extremely rapid weight loss can have a variety of health consequences. Aim to lose no more than two pounds per week, and if you find yourself losing significantly more than two pounds per week, increase your food intake or decrease your exercise levels accordingly.
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