Goal Setting for Teens

Nine Tips Teens Can Apply To Their  Weight-Loss StrategiesQ. I am an overweight teenager. I have no idea how to go about dieting. Do you have any tips? A. Figuring out a strategy for losing weight  is a great first step! I have several tips for you that not only will help you lose weight, but help you to keep the weight off for a lifetime. 1. Forget blame and guilt: It is important for you to make sure that you don’t blame anyone — either yourself or your parents — for where you are right now. Feeling guilty about your appearance is a negative feeling that won’t help. 2. Take the long term approach: Look at what you are about to undertake not as a short term, quick, weight loss, but rather a change in lifestyle to last a lifetime. You will begin to make more nutritious food  choices, add exercise, and cut back somewhat on your eating. If you falter along the way, you don’t need to look at it as a failure because you know that you have a long time to make the changes. For example, if you go with your friends to eat at a fast food restaurant, and you indulge in a large order of fries, there is no need to feel guilty because you know that eating them is not a regular habit, and that at the next meal you will eat more sensibly. 3. Set reasonable goals: Losing one-half to one pound per week is very realistic. Don’t drop your calorie intake to below 1,300 calories because it would be hard to get all the important nutrition that you need in less than that, plus, you probably won’t feel satisfied. 4. Add daily exercise: I suspect that you may be caught in a vicious cycle of not exercising, eating and not having energy. Exercising actually makes you feel more energetic once you have made a habit of it. If you don’t feel like you have energy to exercise now, start out with some physical activity that will get you moving, but won’t require a lot energy. How about taking the dog for a walk? Or, if you don’t have a dog, take the neighbor’s dog for a walk. Once you have done some walking, every day for a couple of weeks, try running for a short distance. Get out on your bicycle, or roller blades, or shoot some baskets in the driveway. If you are at a loss for exercise ideas, speak to your gym teacher. I’ll bet they would love to help you out. Most teachers are thrilled with kids that are self-motivated to improve. 5. Enlist the support of your family: Have a serious talk with your parents and ask them to help. They should be able to help you find materials on nutritious eating, and can help purchase the foods that will help, such as fresh fruits for snacks and whole grain cereals for breakfast. And they can avoid purchasing foods that will tempt you with poor choices, such as sodas, chips, candy, donuts or cookies. 6. Find measures of success besides weight loss: This isn’t just about losing weight, it’s about getting healthier for good. So, don’t measure your success merely on how much weight you lose. Other things you can look at (for example) may be the amount of time you spent being physically active and not watching television, an increase in endurance (for example, biking for a longer distance or jogging for a longer period of time), or a week of making nutritious snack choices (for example, after school you picked a yogurt fruit smoothie instead of cookies and a soda). 7. Block out cultural messages that emphasize being thin: Decide not to focus on the television shows with actresses or actors that are too thin, as well as fashion magazines with overly thin models. In the real world, most people don’t look like that. In fact, it is hard to look like a model and still get the appropriate nutrition from an adequate amount of food. Instead, take a look at high school and college athletes. Most of them are muscular, full bodied and brimming over with good health! You don’t have to be a full fledged athlete to look or feel that way, but once you have developed an active lifestyle and good eating habits , you will. 8. Schedule a visit with your health-care provider: If you think your energy level is unusually low, have your mom or dad call the doctor. It may be that some health problem is contributing to how you feel. 9. Find your motivation from within: Weight loss won’t happen unless the desire comes from inside you. No amount of outside pressure will do the job. Good luck to you and have fun developing a happy and healthy lifestyle. References: Sue Gilbert M.S.Forwarded By, Natalie PylesFitness & Weight-Loss Expert, Nutrition Specialist

With television shows like “The Hills” and “90210″, teens are looking at their favorite star, and wondering why their body isn’t like the actors and actresses on these shows. They look at these people as their idols, and want to look and be just like them. It is important to educate our teens on the dangers of certain diets, and what it takes to lose weight in a safer, and more health conscious way.

A teen’s healthy diet plan shouldn’t be any different than any average adult. The right foods combined with a good fitness plan can help mold their body into a fit and healthy form.

Education: Start by educating yourself. Find out what a proper diet and fitness plan for your teen should consist of. Speak to your family physician; see what he or she feels is the right course of action. Ask about a dietitian, a dietitian can help plan a menu that will be conducive to the type of lifestyle your teen leads. Also, educate yourself about fad diets, and eating disorders.

Make a Plan: You then need to find out your teen’s intentions for themselves. Do they want to lose a large amount, or just drop a few pounds to fit into that prom dress? Whatever their intention, make sure to sit down with them and discuss goals, and timeframes. They are not going to lose 50 pounds in a week, make sure they realize this. Use what you have learned to set up a plan that will work for them.

Family Fun: Once you have set into place a plan, the next step is to do it. Make it a family activity, take walks together after dinner. Set up activities that involve everybody. Go to the park, on a hike, or a leisurely bike ride. Whatever you choose, do it as a family and enjoy yourselves.

Just remember, teens, just as any other child learns from what they see. In these formative years, it is important to teach our children what is right and wrong. A healthy lifestyle instilled into the mind of a growing youth can stay with them for the rest of their life.

Body Image is an issue which can be of primary importance to teenagers. It not difficult to see that this is priority due to the medias unrealistic interpretation of how a typical female or male is meant to look like. We frequently see these size 0 women and incredibly masculine men in TV shows, covers of magazines, Music videos and practically all types of image related  advertising all of which teens have impressions on everyday.

What is important for teens to understand is that these Bodies are usually that of highly paid fitness models who dedicate their lives to achieve their physique. While it is possible to achieve this physique with a lot of work it is not realistic for most teens. For example, just because your a swimmer doesn’t mean you have to swim like Michael Phelps!

Personally, during my teenage years, I disliked my body. I had a fixation with getting a big muscular physique. Of course I made Loads of mistake but eventually after about 2-3 years I achieved a lean 210 physique. Was I happy?! No! I felt like I had too much Body Fat. As a result, I spent some time losing the excess Body Fat. Was I content now?! No! My chest was too small, I couldn’t see my lower abs, my shoulders weren’t in good proportion to my arms… I could go on… Are you starting to see my point!

Eventually, I realized that I would never be 100% satisfied with my body. There would always be something I wanted; a bigger chest, lower abs, Bigger Biceps etc. At that point I began to look at the bigger picture and say;

“Hey, I have a great body, I’m proud of it and I’m not going to spent my whole life being obsessed with it!” 

This is exactly what I want teens understand. Your never going to be totally satisfied with your body. There will always be something.

While there’s nothing wrong with trying to achieve a better Body Image, don’t strive for a cover model Body unless your willing to put in years of effort and sacrifice a lot of your youth. Strive to lose a few pounds of fat or to put on a few pounds of muscle.

My message to all you teens is that you should be proud of your body, and if your not, set a realistic goal where you you WILL be proud of your body!

Of course, The most important thing when setting your Health and Fitness goals is Information and Knowledge. Without Information and Knowledge of the three aspects of Dieting, Exercise and lifestyle the effectiveness of you losing weight or building muscle is going to be severely hindered. So get the right Know-How!

With so much information bombarding us from TV, magazines, radio, supermarkets etc. telling us to eat this and to follow that program it becomes difficult to see the underlying, simple truth behind Fat Loss.

As a Final Note…

If your a teen, don’t let low self-esteem due to your Body image restrict aspects of your life in anyway. Life’s too short!

All the Best,

Kieran from Body2Shape 

Body2Shape provide Free, Impartial, tired and tested Body Image Advice.

http://www.body2shape.com/