Weight Loss for Teenage Girls

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity rates tripled among adolescents from 1980 through 2000. Ironically, teenage girls are also more conscious about their weight than they've ever been before. Some teenage girls are so conscious about their weight that they've turned towards starvation diets.

Teenagers need to focus on losing weight safely instead of losing weight quickly. The fastest rate of weight loss that's considered safe by the Weight Control Information Network is 2 lbs. of weight loss per week. To lose weight in a safe manner, teenage girls need to cut calories, exercise frequently, and not starve themselves.

Cut Calories

• The Harvard School of Public Health notes that diets that are lower in calories will result in weight loss regardless of what type of food a person is eating, so eating a certain combination of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats will not hinder or make weight loss easier for teenage girls. According to the National Women's Health Resource Center, teenage girls need an average of 2,200 calories a day to maintain their weight. Teenage girls need to be careful about cutting too many calories out of their diet. PennState Hershey Orthopaedics explains that diets that are below 1,100 calories pose health risks and often include insufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals to foster good health and growth.

Create a Weight Loss Goal

• Creating a weight loss goal is extremely important for teenage girls who want to lose weight. When you create your weight loss goal, you need to decide on how much weight you want to lose and when you want to lose it by. Keep in mind that the Weight Control Information Network suggests losing a maximum of 2 lbs. of weight safely per week when creating your weight loss goal.

Determine Your Resting Metabolic Rate

• According to NetWellness, a person's resting metabolic rate is the number of calories that they burn each day, not counting exercise. If the number of calories that you consume in a day is equal to your resting metabolic rate, and you do not exercise, then your weight will not change. If you are a teenage girl, then calculating your resting metabolic rate will help you set your goals for weight loss--you must eat at least this number of calories for good health, but you can use exercise and diet to reduce the number of net calories you consume above your resting metabolic rate, and thus achieve weight loss. The most accurate way to determine your resting metabolic rate is to breathe into a device such as BodyGem. Alternatively, you can get a rough estimate for your resting metabolic rate by using the resting metabolic rate calculator at CaloriesPerHour.com.

Exercise Daily

• It's possible for teenage girls to lose weight without exercise, however weight loss without exercise is usually much slower. Exercising daily is also a great way for teenage girls to create a daily calorie defecit and lose fat. The Journal of Nutrition explains that exercise that increases heart rate burns fat and builds muscle extremely quickly. Teenage girls can bike, exercise, or swim to elevate their heart rate and burn fat.

Weigh Yourself Less Frequently

• MSNBC News reported that girls who weighed themselves most often during a University of Minnesota Research program were more likely to skip meals, use laxatives, use diet pills, smoke, and binge and vomit to lose weight.

  Some teenage girls are so conscious about their weight that they weight themselves once or twice a day. Your weight can fluctuate throughout the day depending on what time of day you step on the scale. Limit yourself to weighing yourself only once per week. When you weigh yourself, make sure that you're weighing yourself at the same time each week.

Nutritional Considerations For Teenage Girls

• According to the National Women's Health Resource Center, many teenage girls don't get enough calcium in their diet even though 50 percent of a woman's bone mass is formed during their teenage years. If you are a teenage girl then you should drink milk and consider taking a multivitamin to ensure that you have enough calcium in your diet. Iron deficiency is another problem that's associated with teenage girls because of iron that's lost during menstruation. Some teenage girls who are dieting might avoid red meat, which is high in iron, because of the amount of calories red meat contains, but iron deficiency can result in health problems such as anemia. If you're a teenage girl, be careful about how much food you cut from your diet. When you cut calories from your diet, you're also cutting out nutrients.