Gunna try to lose weight.. Any tips?

Ok, my advice:

[1] At fourteen, I you me need to consume more calories since your body is developing. I would suggest you try consuming around 2000 a day and see how that works.

[2] Eat breakfast. Then eat smaller snacks throughout the day. Of course keep them healthy, and watch out for sugar, simple carbs, sodium, and fat (most especially saturated fat). Try to eat stuff high in protein and high in fiber. Lots of fruits and veggies too. (For veggies, you might try v8...I know it's gross but it's quick and easy).

[3] Walk a whole bunch.

[4] Lots of water. NO SODA. Only very small amounts of fruit juice (they can have LOTS of sugar). Tea is fine.

[5]Do some crunches and pushups every other day. You don't have to do a whole bunch, but if you can build some muscle, it will help you burn calories.

[6]Be less concerned about losing weight, and more concerned about being healthy. Your goal should really be just to live a more healthy lifestyle.

Really, I would also suggest you talk to your doctor. He might really be able to give you some more specific and helpful aimed directly at you.

 

I also wanted to add it might help if you had some support. I'm not sure how you would feel about that, but for me it helped to have people who knew I was trying to be more healthy and lose weight. The support combined with the sense of having shared my commitment with other people helped me stick with it.

Best of luck!

 

For growing boys, you should be eating more. around 2000 calories a day. Calories are not a bad thing and they do not make you fat. If you have too many bad calories you will get fat but a calorie is just a measurement of energy in a food. So the more you eat the more calories you consume, themore calories you consume the more energy you have. If you dont get enough calories, you wont have enough energy. And your body needs that energy to burn the fat and build muscle. So instead of cutting calories, replace them in your diet. Eat whole grains, and natural foods. Get about a card box of meat a day if not two. When you're developing you need to eat lots of protein to build muscle and burn fat. And since you're young, it wont be hard to lose the weight and get in shape. Chances are the only things you'll need to do for exercise are run, do crunches and do pushups. You can do other things but at your age, pushups and crunches will tone your body and running will burn fat.

Also, the more muscle you have the faster you burn the fat and the more fat you burn when you're idle.

Just remember it's not the number that matters, it's how you look and feel that matters. Your head weighs 8 pounds on it's own!

 

A healthy diet - and burning more kilojoules (calories) than you consume is the key to effective & sensible weight loss. That said - from your pics you don't exactly look significantly overweight, so perhaps you just need to lose a few pounds & tone up a bit.

It is always better to to include some exercise - not only does it help burn off fat but it will also help speed up your metabolism - which helps burn more fat. Dieting alone, with no exercise, can reduce your metabolic rate - which is no help whatsoever.

The good news is that it doesn't even have to be a structured training program. Every little bit helps. If you are going somewhere not too far - walk instead of using transport - or pedal a bike. Walk up stairs instead of using a lift or escalator. Kick a ball around instead of playing a video game.

Make sure you do eat enough food (research what you need) and that it is balanced. As someone else mentioned a good breakfast will help prevent you getting hungry (and likely eating junk) before lunch. Also mentioned - try 'grazing' - several small healthy snacks to keep you fuelled, rather than big heavy meals that might weigh you down - and keep hydrated (plenty of water).

Good luck!

 

Sweat it out! eat and sleep on the treadmill !

 

just avoid junk.

Soda is a big no no.

 

Hey people! I didnt get the part about soda. Why is it a major no-no??

 

Because non-diet soda contains a large amount of calories, I think it should be pointed out that juice is almost as bad.

 

Also even if you switch to diet sodas they are still bad for you and they contain so many additives and caffeine which is, of course, addictive. I consider soda toxic waste...yet I still indulge every so often :redface:

 

In case people aren't aware - the point has been made here in Australia that a can of Coke (and pretty much all other soft drinks/sodas) contain the equivalent of about EIGHT teaspoons of sugar.

 

In the US, ingredients are listed in quantity order. So, when you look at the label, if you see sucrose, sugar or high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) listed as one of the first few ingredients, it's going to have a lot of sugar. On a cola, sugar is the second ingredient after carbonated water.

It's also interesting how much sugar is added to processed foods in the US. Like ketchup. Or fruit juice (because fruit isn't sweet enough? ).

 

Also be careful with "diet" sodas. My sis is a registered dietician, a medical doctor and a lecturer on human ecology at the university, and she has a number of recent studies that suggest (1) people who switch to diet sodas do not lose any extra weight as a result (i.e. after normalizing out the other factors), and (2) they had just as high a rate of type 2 diabetes as those who drink regular sodas, both as compared to those who don't drink much soda. There is a growing suspicion that while artificial sweeteners such as aspartame don't have the calories of sugar, they may trigger similar metabolic responses in the body.

It's not only the calories in soda that cause problems, it's also the sugar spike. Because of the concentration of sugar in soda (high glycemic index), it's like a jolt to the system every time you gulp one down. Eventually the body becomes desensitized to these jolts and loses its ability to control blood sugar levels as a result, which then leads to diabetes. But there is a growing school of thought among nutritionists that there's a secondary consequence of this insulin resistance called "metabolic syndrome" which leads to other factors like high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease. So in other words, it's not just the calories in sodas (and all other highly sweetened foods) that causes you to get fat, but also the repeated blows to the body's sugar management system.

Why not just switch to good old water? It's the only thing humans drank for tens of thousands of years, and it was good enough for us then. I made the switch to water (and milk for variety) years ago, and not only could I never go back to soft drinks, but I can actually feel the sugar high when I have one and I really don't like the feeling.

 

There has been a thread like this already - and only a few threads below this one to boot! Here ya go - http://www.emptyclosets.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32531

 

Maybe I'm wrong for feeling this way, but you're 14, you're still developing, there's nothing wrong with eating healthy and getting exercise, but you should not be stressing about your weight. Focus on getting healthy happy and in shape, and if you don't lose any weight, whatever, you're still doing the right thing.