Helping Teenager To Lose Weight

Perhaps your child never had a weight issue before but is suddenly getting on the heavy side, or maybe the child's physician has mentioned losing some weight in order to be healthier. Which ever the case may be, you need to readjust your teenager's caloric lifestyle. If the teenager is wanting to lose weight, this makes the process much easier on you as a parent.

As an adult we know what we must do to lose weight correctly. But should it be different for a teenager who is still growing? Of course. Starting with calorie intake, this will vary depending on physical size and how active the teenager is. Check with the child's doctor to get an exact amount to be sure, but a range can be given here. For the average teenage girl, her calorie intake should be around 2200 calories and for a boy, his should be betwee
2500 and 3000 calories. Calorie intake should also be broken down by the types of food eaten. Fifty to sixty percent of daily calories should be carbohydrates, while fat can take up twenty to thirty percent and protein at ten to twenty percent. These calories of course must come from a well-balanced intake of food including foods that contain some calcium and iron, necessary for their growing bodies.

Just like an adult, exercise is part of a well rounded diet for teenagers as well. A regime of exercising well three to five times a week for at least thirty minutes. If the teenager is not willing to lose weight at their own suggestion, perhaps doing more activities that are active with them will fulfill this requirement. Some ideas for activities to do together could be as simple as walking together down the street or at the mall or hiking trails, decide on a new sport to try or take up, or maybe take dance lessons together. There are many things to do, take suggestions from the teenager of what is something they would like to try and work with it.

Eating smaller portions throughout the day is a newer known fact that works to keep the metabolism active but also is better for the body and keeps hunger at bay. If the teen is still in school, take the time to pack their food for the day and pack it correctly.

Maybe a healthy balanced diet is already part of your teenager's life, but still the weight is creeping on. What can be done? A relatively new suggestion in teenage weight loss that has been proven to work is a diet program by the name of calorie shifting. Calorie shifting requires a teen to eat a specific set food plan to lose weight in a healthy and efficient manner. With the calorie shifting diet program, the teenager will need to eat four meals in a day and because of the special menu plan fat will not be stored in the body but will be burned instead. In as little as eleven days a person following the calorie shifting program, can see as many as nine pounds gone.