Great Exercising & Diet Plans for Teens

Great exercising and diet plans for teens should be based on a balanced diet and a healthy exercise routine. Teens are still growing and developing, and should never participate in fad diets or eliminate certain food groups. Parents need to create a positive atmosphere at home to support teens' exercising and diet plans. Positive support from parents will result in positive results and increased self-esteem. Negative attitudes toward exercising and diet plans can damage teens' esteem as well as possibly lead to eating disorders and distorted self-image.

Diet Plans for Teens

• Weight loss is a tricky task for everyone, regardless of age. Teens who want to lose weight face the challenge of losing weight yet maintaining enough nutrition from food to ensure growth and development. Many teens feel inadequate, as their expectations of weight and appearance are unrealistic, based on advertisements and images of the media that have been retouched to portray perfection.

  For teens, weight management should be about long-term success. Teens need to permanently change their daily eating habits instead of crash dieting, taking diet pills and trying other extreme measures to lose weight. Losing weight too quickly as a result of these measures almost always leads to gaining the original weight back, if not more.

  Great diet plans for teens involve taking small steps to better health. Teens should start small, like giving up sodas for a week and replacing them with water or low-fat milk. Teens can also eat less at meals, yet increase how often they eat. Eating smaller, frequent meals will keep blood sugar levels stable and prevent teens from feeling hungry and deprived during the day.

  Teens following a balanced diet plan need to ditch the junk food and make sure they are eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables. Other dietary changes that will help shed pounds is replacing white bread with whole-grain wheat bread and reducing fried foods and replacing them with baked, grilled or steamed foods. Replacing high-calorie drinks such as soda with water and low-fat milk cuts back on many empty calories that can also promote weight loss.

Exercise Plans for Teens

• A great diet plan for teens must be accompanied by a great exercise plan for effective weight management. Not only will teens manage weight and increase health, but a great exercise plan will also increase energy levels and improve mood.

  Many teens are able to manage their weight effectively by burning calories from participating in team sports and/or exercising at least 60 minutes daily. Teens should try to incorporate aerobic exercise, strength training and flexibility training into their daily exercise regimen. Aerobic exercise includes any exercise that increases blood flow, gets the heart pumping and causes hard breathing. Team sports that provide great aerobic workouts include soccer, hockey, lacrosse, basketball, rowing and swimming. If your teens are not into team sports, encourage them to get aerobic exercise by dancing, in-line skating, running, walking, biking, skiing or hiking.

  Strength training should be a key element in any great exercise plan for teens. Strong muscles help protect joints and prevent injuries. Muscle also burns more energy than fat when teens are sitting still, which will help burn calories, lose weight and ultimately maintain weight more efficiently. Strength training exercises to try include push-ups, pull-ups, squats, leg raises and crunches. Yoga and pilates can also provide strength training benefits to the entire body.

  Flexibility exercises improve sport performance and prevent strained muscles and sprains. Great flexibility exercises for teens include martial arts, ballet, gymnastics, pilates and yoga. Standard stretching poses are also great flexibility exercises.