Effective Teen Diets

Weight loss is an endeavor that should not be taken lightly. Teenage weight gain and subsequent psychological implications of increased body mass can be considered a growing epidemic. When attempting a program to reduce body weight and increase overall health, consult a physician or health professional to correctly understand your body's limitations. Understanding the effects on the body and mind when undertaking a diet, and consequently an exercise regiment as well, can increase productivity and success with weight loss goals.

Portion Size

• When approaching a diet program, the easiest and most beneficial initial step is examining how much of a particular dish is currently being eaten. Evaluation of existing eating habits and relative portion sizes can decrease superfluous caloric intake that often leads to weight gain. Watching what you eat can be difficult when starting out on changing a lifestyle. Instead, reduce the portions of a particular meal and engage in the dreaded calorie counting that helps to set up positive reinforcement and noticeable weight changes.

Food Selection

• It may come as no surprise that what you eat has a large impact on not only weight gain, but as well as body image and feelings associated with eating habits. Cutting out foods that are "easy," such as fast foods, or those from a can or microwave, and replacing them with fresh fruits and vegetables can increase the success of a diet.

  Transitioning from heavy meats like beef and pork to leaner meats, such as fish and chicken, also increase the success of losing weight. When you eat, makes a large difference in how food is stored and processed, so spacing out four smaller meals over the day (every three hours or so) and making sure to eat heavy meals earlier in the day can improve not only your health, but energy levels throughout the day.

Exercise

• While changing the landscape of an eating environment contributes greatly to weight loss, exercise and activity levels supercharge a healthy lifestyle. Combing a workout program two to three days a week with a healthy lifestyle change can increase weight loss and help teens over the plateaus and hills of losing body mass.

  Consult local gyms for personal trainers, or online resources that offer workout programs that will fit body type, fitness level and commitment. Engaging in an exercise in tandem with a program of nutrition sets up the teen for success.

Concerns and Cautions

• It is worth mentioning some of the commonly approached solutions to weight loss: fad diets, starvation, laxatives and diet pills. Each of these options holds its own dangers, ranging from failure to lose weight, to systemic and tissue damage. When talking about undertaking any program, understand the dangers and benefits of them. Adhering to a healthy diet and consistent workout schedule provides slow, safe weight loss that improves health across the lifespan.