Tips to Lose Weight for a 14-Year-Old
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It would not be hard for 14-year-olds to lose weight when you motivate them to practice a healthier lifestyle. During their teenage years, you have to come up with creative ways to practice healthy habits. It is common to think decreasing teenagers' food intake will help them lose weight, but increasing 14-year-olds' food intake can create the desire for weight loss. - If you eat more of the right foods, you will eat less of the wrong ones. Increasing the fruits and vegetables in your diet can make you feel full longer and keep your body running smoothly. Vegetables give you the vitamins your body needs to function, while fruit provides fiber, natural sugars and energy. There are different types of fruit you can satisfy your cravings with. For sweet cravings, try a strawberry or pineapple. These types of fruit are higher in natural sugars and can satisfy that craving for candy. If you crave something salty to replace chips, try broccoli dipped in salad dressing. This combination has a lot of favor but is healthier than chips and will benefit for your 14-year-old's body when he is trying to lose weight.
- Changing your eating environment will help you lose weight. Most 14-year-olds enjoy watching their favorite show and eating a snack, this kind of activity can make you eat more and retain or gain weight. Separate the times you eat from times you do other activities. You will eat more when you are focused elsewhere because you are not listening to your body when it signals that it is full. When you eat without distractions, you are likely to feel full faster and eat less.
- Children who are 14 years old may not want to be as active as when they were younger. So now is the time to be clever and sneak in some extra movement. If your 14-year-old is prone to watching TV, enforce the commercial rule. He is allowed to watch TV only if he exercises while the commercials are playing. Include the family in an active game of dodge ball, or a friendly race around the block. When someone wins at race, reward him with a chore reduction or another non-food-related reward. When a 14-year-old increases her exercise, that will burn more calories and help her lose weight faster. The more weight she loses, the more energy she will have to do more exercises later.
- Before your teen attempts to lose weight, help to create a realistically healthy body image. It is important to give your teen a realistic image to look forward to and an achievable goal. Explain is a healthy image and what is not a healthy image. For example, binging and purging are regular occurrences in society and are not effective or safe ways to lose weight. Establishing real expectations can deter negative feelings once the teens begin to lose weight. They may not look like a size 0 model when they achieve a healthy weight, but help them understand that being at the normal weight for their body type is OK.
