Hi, I'm 14 and I'm thinking about starting to work out a little. I own an elliptical, a treadmill and little weights that go up to 10lbs (little multicoloured ones that my parents use LOL). As you can tell by how I'm explaining this, I have no experience whatsoever with exercise. Not that I'm overweight, I'm a normal size for my age, I just want to be healthier and more active. I also want to start eating healthier. I'm on a Gluten free diet because of reasons, too, but most gluten free things have a lot of calories. I need advice as to what kinds of workouts I should start with and what foods I should stay away from and how to count portions and all of that healthy stuff! Thank you in advance!
What's your fitness like right now? The problem with newcomers - especially teenagers - using exercise equipment and weights is that you can be a bit too enthusiastic, which can easily lead to injury. Things like your elliptical machine and treadmill and other cardio* equipment are okay, but weights easily cause injury if your muscles can't quite handle them. It's usually suggested for people just starting to work on their fitness to do bodyweight exercises, as they are difficult to injure yourself with but still provide an excellent workout for beginners - this means things like pushups, pullups, crunches/situps, (unweighted) squats, and so on. If you're just beginning these will give you progress at about the same rate as an equivalent weighted exercise will. You can easily make them more difficult simply by doing more of them. The best thing about these is that you can do them anywhere and don't need any equipment. This introduction stage is pretty important for beginners, as it lets you learn the limits of your own body and learn how to do exercises with good form (i.e. doing them properly), which is very important once you move on to using weights. *I'm not sure how well you know terms like this, but cardio is exercise that wears you out and burns energy, like biking or running, as opposed to resistance exercise with weights that builds muscle. As for diet, personally I don't think you should worry too much at your age. Eat when you are hungry, and try to eat healthily with a wide variety of foods, fruit, vegetables, lean meat, and it will be fine. Reduce the amount of processed food and fast food because these have a lot of energy in them and few nutrients - it won't do you any harm to have them occasionally, and we do need a treat sometimes, but regular stuff will always be healthier. Since you can't have gluten it might be better to reduce those foods rather than trying to replace them all with a gluten-free version, because they usually aren't that great for you in the first place. You can set up a proper diet for yourself when you get to about 18 or 19 and your growth slows down. And if you can, only drink water and lots of it - I'm definitely a very strong advocate for not drinking anything else .
Walking briskly is great exercise. Climbing a large tree is great exercise. You do not need any equipment to exercise.
First, alternate days for exercise. One day do cardio (running, treadmill, elliptical) and the next day do weights. Rest on the 7th day. As for running, do a walk/run routine. Google C25K (couch to 5K) for some good, safe routines. As for weights, remember that you can use body weight. Push-ups, pull-ups, squats,... all use your own body weight (which I'm sure is more than 10 pounds). As for diet, I'll leave that to others, but I can bet that you can find some decent info on-line.
Pick an activity, and do that activity every few days. If it's something a little 'easier' like running, do it every other day. You could walk every single day though. If you do weight lifting, do it every few days, with plenty or resting time in the middle to recuperate. Don't do anything that actually strains your muscles so badly you hurt them. Treadmills and elliptical are both great machines to use for walking or running. I personally prefer the elliptical, but every person varies. If you want to do a more typical running thing, try the treadmill out first. I personally run, so I'm much more knowledgable about running then weights or anything. Like someone else mentioned, the app C25K is a great app. They have workouts already planned and spaced out, so all you have to do is open the app and tart moving! But make sure you have good shoes. If you try to run in crappy shoes, your feet will hurt. Badly. With the weights you have, they aren't necessarily very heavy weights. You couldn't do weightlifting really if you only have up to 10 lbs. However, you could do some things like Pilates or the like. I know they use lighter weights for that, and there are some pretty good videos on YouTube! If you want anymore help or anything, my gym class actually focuses on healthy workouts and stuff, so I'm far too knowledgable about it. So feel free to ask me for any more help! If possible, involve your doctor. Your doctor could always be f help, especially if you strain anything. You'll probably need to start eating more if you become more active. Try not to fill up the extra calories with junk(like me). Try to eat more fruits and up your protein or whatever. I feel like such a hypocrite. Hope that helped!
