Overweight / Obesity (A teen)

Even though fad diets can sometimes be effective for grownups, they are not designed to be used by teens. As a teen, your body is still growing, your hormones are off the chart and the last thing you need is unbalanced and/or low-calorie diet to obstruct your healthy growth. These diets can cause numerous health problems for a young body that's still in development. Aim for balanced diets that will teach you how to eat healthy, lose weight, and maintain desired weight for the rest of your life.

Regular jogging can help you lose weight and prevent numerous life-threatening diseases. Before you start jogging, you should consult your doctor. There are numerous programs on the web that will give you thorough training sessions that are suited for you.

Don't get frustrated if you are not able to run for more than couple of minutes. If you never jogged before, your body will need some time to adjust. If you keep at it, soon you will build up your stamina and will be able to run longer and faster. Start easy and don't overdo it to avoid sore muscles and injuries. To help you start your jogging journey, visit Running for Beginners.

Several studies found that keeping food diaries aids in losing weight. People who keep food diaries six days a week tend to be more successful in losing weight than people who don't. Write down everything you eat and drink during the day. You might be surprised how many calories you actually consume in a day.

Tracking down everything you ate automatically raises your awareness about what, when and how much you eat. This might help you deduce what triggers your overeating or make you realise how many unnecessary calories you obtain from snacks and sodas. One funny (but true) benefit of keeping a food diary is that you will often think twice about eating something because you will be too lazy to write it down.

You might think that going many hours without anything to eat is a good way to lose weight but it is not. Not only will it be an absolute torture (especially for someone who likes to eat), it will also do you more harm than good. This is why:

1. The longer you go without food, the hungrier you will get. Sooner or later you will break and have a huge meal. You will eat like there's no tomorrow. All that calorie surplus will be stored in your body as fat. The very thing you are trying to lose.
2. When your body goes long periods without food, your metabolism becomes worried. It slows down because it doesn't know when will the next meal come so it becomes really economical with calories. And when you finally eat, your metabolism will still be slow in spending calories thus adding more fat to your body. Again, the very thing you are trying to lose.

It is in your best interest to keep your metabolism fast and to do that make sure that you eat regularly.

Just because a certain food is considered healthy, doesn't mean you can eat as much as you want. Healthy food still has calories. For example, almonds are considered healthy because they contain fiber, good fats, minerals, vitamins, and protein, but it is really easy to go into calorie surplus with them. A handful a day is enough.

Be especially careful with "healthy" processed food like canned food, low-fat cereals and dairy products, low-sugar/fat snacks, substitutes for butter (margarine, canola, soy or corn oils) etc. They claim to be healthy, but if you carefully read labels, you might get shocked.

Most cereals and dairy products that are low in fat, are high in sugar. Sorry to burst your bubble, but when you remove fat from yogurt, it tastes horrible. That is why manufacturers add sugar, various high-fructose syrups or artificial sweeteners.

Snacks that claim to be low in sugar, tend to be high in fat and contain artificial sweeteners that are connected to various diseases, including cancer.

Butter substitutes are industrially made vegetable oils (canola, corn, soy) and various kinds of margarine that bring disbalance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids to your body and are also filled with potentially cancerous ingredients. Use butter or homemade olive oil instead. Just like with any other food, all within reasonable limits.

Bottom line, stay away from the processed food as humanly possible, no matter how healthy it claims to be. Stick to the real, whole food.

If you want to make sure you will eat healthy while in school or at work, bring your lunch from home so you are not dependent on selection in the cantine which often can be anything but healthy. That way you decide what and how much goes into your meal. Get creative with it. Possibilities are endless.

Your body is still growing and it is natural that you will gain weight as you grow, especially if you are in the middle of a growth spurt. If you obsess with what your scale says, you might get depressed and disheartened. 

The best indicator that you are on the right track with losing weight is your waist size. See these instructions to learn how to properly measure your waist. Most of unused calories your metabolism doesn't spend are stored as fat in your abdominal region so when your waist size starts decreasing and your pants starting to get too big, you know that you are doing a good job, regardless of what your scale says.

Eating many small meals during the day means that the body can more easily burn every meal into energy, instead of harvesting the excess energy of large meals for later. This process is called metabolism. Read more about a correlation of metabolism and weight loss here.

Riding a bike is an excellent form of exercise for all ages that allows you to control the level of intensity. You can use it in your free time and explore nature around you, or you can use it for your daily commute.

While on a bike, make sure you obey the laws of your country (wear a helmet, which is always recommended, regardless of the law, have functioning front and rear lights, obey traffic rules, etc.). Use Google maps to find a bike-friendly route to avoid heavy traffic and dangerous intersections. For a wide selection of bikes check Amazon.

Swimming is a very good exercise for people of all age and fitness levels. Swimming builds up muscles, is a good cardio exercise and preserves your joints. It is also considered safe for people with asthma. It would be best if you could swim in sea, clean river or a lake. But if you do not have that option, swimming pool in your local community will do just fine.

Soft and carbonated drinks are filled with sugars and artificial ingredients that give you extra calories without any nutritive value. Stop drinking them and switch to water or green tea. If you can't do it instantly, do it gradually. One less soda per day will already do wonders for your body. If you miss the flavour, you can add squeezed lemon in your water or tea.

If you can't survive without sugar (and pretty much all diets require you to give up sugar) and you simply must eat something sweet every day, let that something be in your breakfast and not in lunch or dinner. Of course, in reasonable limits. Your body is more likely to burn that breakfast sugar during your everyday activities (especially if you exercise) so you will be able to enjoy something sweet without feeling guilty while still losing weight.

Becoming dehydrated can signal your body that you are hungry. So try to drink a bit more than you normally would. When you feel hungry, and it's just been an hour or two after your last meal, instead of eating something, try drinking a full glass of water and see if that helps.

To get a sense of how much water is optimal, check out this table.

Being sleep deprived harms the way your body burns calories. Learn more about how sleep deprivation affects your weight here.

When you chew your food slowly, it takes you more time (naturally) to finish your meal which allows more time for your stomach to tell your brain that it is full. Not chewing properly (besides causing you digestion problems) allows you to put in your body lots of calories that you don't actually need because your brain hasn't had enough time to realise that you are full.

For more information about slow eating read here.

It's never too late to participate in a team sport. You can try it with your friends or you can search forums for teams that are looking for new members. Or you can simply go to your local gym/field/court and see if you can join in.

There are numerous team sports you can join regardless of your age. Soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball and many other.

Using apps that track your daily calorie intake or workout sessions can help you monitor and improve the way you consume and burn calories.

Some of the popular (and free) fitness apps are:

1. Strava (Android, iOS)
2. Endomondo (Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone)
3. Lose it! (Android, iOS, Kindle, Nook, web)
4. Map my fitness (Android, iOS, Windows Phone)
5. MyFitnessPal (Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, web)
6. Touchfit GSP (iOS)

There are many more fitness apps. Find one you like the best.

Salt makes you retain water which adds to your weight and makes you look bloated. If you are overweight, you are most likely eating too much salt. Refrain from  eating salty snacks, processed meat, canned food and anything with high amount of sodium. Recommended daily sodium intake is 2400 miligrams. Try not to go over it.

You can still have a big breakfast because your metabolism will have enough time to burn calories while you do your everyday activities. But as the day goes by, make your meals smaller and smaller. You should have your last meal 2 hours before you go to bed. While we sleep, metabolism is low because it has almost nothing to spend calories on. Learn to go to bed half-hungry. It will do your body good in more than one way.

When you are trying to lose weight, parental support may come in handy. Let your parents know that you are unhappy with your weight and see if together you can find a solution.

• Ask your parents to cook healthier. Suggest healthy recipes.
• Ask them to stock the pantry with fresh fruits, vegetables and healthy snacks instead of sweets and junk food.
• Suggest sports activities you can do together.

Studies show that eating in front of a TV makes you eat up to 300 calories more per meal. When watching TV, you eat mindlessly and don't even realise that you are full. When eating, focus just on eating your meal and proper chewing. Think about how much and what you eat. You will get full sooner.

When you are done eating dinner, brush your teeth to suppress late-night munching. People are less likely to eat anything after brushing teeth. First, most food tastes horrible if you eat it after brushing your teeth. Second, there is something about the perfect cleanliness of your mouth and teeth that you just don't want to ruin with eating and then having to brush your teeth all over again.

Drinking green tea has many positive effects on your body. One of them is boosting up your metabolism and make you burn up to 70 calories a day thanks to the antioxidants it contains. It might not seem like a lot, but every bit helps. Especially if you drink it instead of sodas.

Never eat snacks directly from large bags or boxes. When you do this, you have no sense of how much you ate. Also, many people eat as long as there is something to eat. So if you open a huge bag of chips, you just might eat all of it just because it was there.

If you can't resist snacks, at least portion it in a way that you separate a handful of snacks in a small bowl, put the rest of the bag away and don't touch until tomorrow.

If you need to lose 30-40 pounds, don't set your goal to be 40 pounds. It could easily frustrate you when several months have passed and you still haven't reached your desired weight. Instead, let your goal be to lose 5-10 pounds. And when you reach it, set your goal for another 5-10 pounds and so on. Reward yourself every time you successfully reach a goal.

If you are especially interested in losing fat at certain areas, then check out the excessive fat solutions.