I'm sixteen years old, five feet tall. That doesn't bother me, what bothers me is that I weigh 187 pounds. (According to a kilogram - pound converter that I googled) I want to lose a bit of weight, just so that I'm healthier, I know that where I am now is unhealthy.

I was wondering if anyone had any tips for me?

At your current point my best suggestion is to run. Run as far as you can, and constantly go farther.

Well, I can only give you two little helpful hints:

1. Don't diet, just try to eat healthier. If you ever have the choice between a junky food and something better for you, always try to make the smart decision. It's tough, but you don't always have to decrease the amount you eat in order to become healthier. A lot of teens get in trouble because they begin cutting back and stop eating entirely. Above all, do not do this! Cutting back drastically will only make your body store even more fat cells.

2. Pump up the exercise. Cardio will help you burn calories, so do anything that makes you get out of breath. Running, biking, swimming, playing sports with your friends - People are ideally supposed to raise their heart rate for 30 minutes three times a week, so aim for 4-5 days instead. :yes:

eat smarter. make sure you actually eat the right partions and servings. :]

exercise. do a cardio stuff. join a dance class or something fun. like zumba. a lot of women lose inches and pounds from that class

set some goals up for yourself. nothing too drastic at first. just like 3 pounds this week, and so on. or buy a smaller pair of pants and tell yourself "i plan to fit into these comfortably within x amount of weeks"

If you drink soda, switching to water or unsweetened tea might even help.

You might want to wait a little before you start running since it can be very hard on your joints, but swimming is very low-impact and it exercises just about every muscle in your body.

Portion control is important and eating more veggies is too. My doc said to eat food items in a particular order: eat as much veggies as you want, then eat your protein, then the carbs. Also, try eating fruit and/or yogurt for dessert instead of something high in fat and calories.

It's also important for you to talk with your doctor.

One thing I learned from nutrition to get you started is to eat smaller but more frequent meals... this will increase your metabolism a bit helping you to burn off extra calories instead of storing them like the body sometimes does when you are eating 3 or less meals a day.

Basically Eat 7-8 meals a day, but say an apple would be a single meal, then you would have another meal later, or say one burrito as a meal, at least to get you started, and by eating frequently and much less you should be able to curb your hunger while losing weight slowly. Also, snacks should be available to keep you from reaching for unhealthy foods. I do believe sun chips are quite healthy?

What are Sun Chips? Are they like wholemeal chips or something? Because those are surprisingly yummy.

Make healthy choices when choosing a snack. Google a list of portion sizes and learn it so you know how MUCH of something is a true serving. Watch what toppings you put on your healthy foods too. Sometimes a slab of mayo can ruin an otherwise healthy sandwich, or that salad dressing can kill the healthy factor of your salad.

I don't know how much you walk, but it's surprisingly effective. I started a job at the beginning of September which means that I spend somewhere between 15 and 20 hours a week on my feet walking around the store (not getting out of breath, and I don't do any other exercise) and I dropped a pants size in about a month and a half. I'd tell you what I lost in terms of weight, but I don't own a pair of scales and I couldn't begin to estimate.

Other than that I would just recommend things like regular exercise and trying to eat more healthily. Also I second the recommendation that you don't cut back on how much you eat - going hungry is not the solution to losing weight. If you can, try talking to your doctor about things you could do? I am sure they will have good recommendations and can advise you away from courses of action that would be unhealthy or harmful.

Telling you from experience, don't start running abruptly if you have ANY joint pain in your hips/knees/ankles. It will just damage them...possibly permanently like mine.

What I would do/did to lose weight:
I became more active, walked to places that were close instead of driving, went out with friends more, slept a good amount every night, I also worked on eating smaller portions and overall smaller meals every day. I really didn't cut out any junk food at all (just ate less of it, like I did with everything else), but depending on where your weight is coming from, perhaps cutting out anything with "high fructose corn syrup" or "corn syrup" in it will help a lot. There's something about corn syrup that makes people fat. It's true.

Anyway, work at it slowly, train yourself to eat less, and eventually (usually within a week, at least that's how long it takes for me) you'll be fuller after smaller meals, so not only will you be eating less, you'll be satisfied.

I could go on for days about tips to lose weight, but to sum them all up really easily:

Burn more calories than you consume. That's really the key.

I managed to lose 120 lbs. by diet (low in carbs [fewer than 120g/day], high in fruits, veggies, protein and good fats like olive oil and almonds) and exercise (nothing fancy btw, just an hour at the gym 5-6 days a week doing cardio and weights).

I also find that if you can stop eating non-natural sugar (keep in mind, most ALL processed foods have some form of sugar) and break the sugar addiction most of us have, you'll lose more weight. I did that for six months and literally, the weight fell off. I lost 30 lbs. in that six months, and since I went off of my hardcore no-sugar diet, I haven't been able to lose any more.

I am very close to my goal weight (within 10 lbs.), so it's not killing me that I'm not losing still. Maintenance is good, and I still get to eat foods I enjoy (pizza, chips, chocolate) in moderation.

I also recommend eating every few hours, even if it is something snack-like. It keeps your metabolism burning all day long. :D

Thanks guys for all the tips! Some are very useful (I'll keep in mind the not running thing!) and some, (like corn syrup, which we don't get much of outside McDonalds here) not so useful personally, but still interesting.

I forgot to mention to always eat breakfast. Have an egg, some cereal or oatmeal, and some fruit or yogurt. It's fairly boring, but the first week I started eating breakfast ( I hadn't eaten breakfast regularly for over 10 years) I lost a little over 2 pounds. I also walk for 30-60 minutes at least 4 times a week.

Basically, any added physical activity from what you normally do will help (it just takes time and that sucks). It's taken me over 2 months to lose 10 pounds, but I'm still losing weight, albeit slowly. The good news about slowly losing weight, though, is that you're more likely to keep it off than if you lost a bunch at once.

Personally, the way I got down to the weight I wanted to be was by changing the times I eat. I couldn't deal with diets, starvation and the dreaded exercise stuff. But I basically went on a slight variation on "Breakfast like a King, Lunch like a Prince and Dinner like a Pauper" rules and that helped so much keeping the weight off.
Huge breakfast (yes, this does involve waking up earlier and getting used to eating a big meal first thing, especially as I used to not eat breakfast at all, but after a couple of weeks of doing so, it becomes routine and easy). Big-ish lunch. Sandwich for dinner and nothing at all food-wise after 6pm (unless we had company over or were going out, in which case I had to be flexible). Any snacks are eaten mid morning or early afternoon. It was amazing how quickly I lost weight.
It made sense really, as what I was doing before was snacking during the day and then eating a ton of food at dinner, and then sleeping rather than burning off any calories.
Anyhow, it worked for me, so maybe worth trying. Plus it's nice to not have to deprive yourself of anything in particular. I hate weight loss diets where people can't have things they love, seems cruel to me. This way of loosing weight, you want junk food, that's fine, just eat it early on in the day and burn it off later :)

I just wanted to add, have you tried Zumba? Usually the class is affordable (five dollars each visit). Some places offer the first visit free. It lasts one hour long and you do nothing but dancercise. The instructor doesn't show you how to do it, they just do it and you try to follow along. They try and give some basic direction of what they're doing though. You don't have to worry about keeping up, as many people can't anyway. You can burn up to 500 calories each visit!

I was worried about not doing well when I first started. But it was really fun, so I didn't care. You don't even have to know how to dance! And even though I was surrounded by slender people, I noticed a ton of overweight and older people, too! You should look into it. I think you would really love it. You can find an instructor in your area through zumba.com, or just Google it.

I suggest though, if you do go - take a water bottle and a dishtowel or cloth. You'll be sweating a lot. But you'll be having so much fun, it won't even seem like a workout. It's a lot better than normal basic workout routines.

Unfortunately, around here it's $15 a session... money I don't have. I'm tempted to just buy the DVD for myself though.

Make small changes because you don't want to completely jack up your body's metabolism. When you starve yourself, the body goes into a protective mode and any calorie put into your body turns into fat. Try an 1800 calorie a day intake and slowly move down to 1500 a day over the next few months. Try to excercise! Burn what you can and always refuel after working out. It's what everybody says but it really is what works.

-I am NOT a health professional, but this is what I do. I am also female, 5'8" and weigh 145lbs-

Do not drink pop. :[ It's full of sugar and icky stuff. Pop/Soda/Coke... whatever you call it. It's just not good for you. Neither are energy drinks. What to drink instead? Water, Juice, Ect... I drink tons of juice. :D There's even some good smoothie things you can buy at walmart. Naked and Odwalla are good brands of these juices. They have special things inside of them to help get/keep you healthy and it tastes REALLY good. :3 Go for the ones that look green. I know for a fact that Naked's Green Machine has bluegreen algae in it and it helps with metabolism or something like that. Anyway, it's good for you.

Eat 5 SMALL meals a day. This will do something with metabolism. Remember, I'm not a pro or anything. Cutting out fried foods and lowing the portion size will help too. AVOID ICEBERG LETTUCE! It has NO nutritional value. Eat romaine or spinach instead. :D

Exercise! I run 1-4 miles on an eliptical a day. :] It keeps my heart rate up and stuff and it's good for you. Playing wii for like a week for 2-4 hours a day made me lose about 5-10 pounds... I wasn't even playing wii fit either. XP It was all tennis on wii sports. :D

Hope this helps a bit... just get moving and eat better and you should be losing some weight... NEVER GO ON CRASH DIETS! They will KILL you... well, maybe. They just aren't good for you. :D

Have a wonderful day!

L♡VE, Q

Thanks for the tips Quarender XD

Fill up on low calorie or negative calorie foods, Celery takes more calories to digest then it has in it to begin with. Eat as much as you can when hungry, but don't dip it in anything.

NO pop; even diet and 'zero calorie' pop has sugars in it which you can gain weight from

Drink GREEN TEA; Green tea helps the body burn fat, and if you get on a regular exercise routine you'll burn more fat

DO NOT SKIP MEALS; skipping meals caused the body to store fat rather than burn it for energy

Actually Phoebe the part about the celery is a lie. It doesn't take more calories to digest as you intake. I mean the numbers are close, but there is no such thing as 'negative' calorie foods.

Don't deal with diets, just be more conscience about how you eat. Eat fried foods, just think about why you're eating it.

I'm 5'3" and 145 lbs. In 3 months I lost 15 lbs, just by exercising a bit more, doing yoga, and thinking before I eat. I still eat fast food, and fried food, and junk food, but not as much as I used to.

If you really want to loose weight, just find something physical thats fun. My guy friends get together 3 times a week to play soccer. I do Yoga and dance. If your having fun, you wont realize that your loosing weight, and the trick is not to think about it. Don't keep a calorie diary or any of that nonsense. It just leads to disappointment which leads to binging.

Yeah, the celery thing is a myth, but it is a good snack food still. Personally I'd suggest switching out those unhealthy snacks with veggies and hummous to dip them in. Hummous is a great "diet" food because it's very low GI so it sustains you, and made with olive oil so less bad fat too. It's fantastic as a mayonnaise substitute, considering full fat mayo is 80% fat and no nutrients, and hummous is 20-30% fat and FULL of protein and vitamins. I LOVE to spread it on sesame rye crackers with some sliced red pepper or tomato, especially if the hummous is flavoured with chili, delish!

Are you aware that just increasing your water intake could help you to lose weight?

This is because the majority of people don't drink enough so the body retains fluid. If you can keep your system fully topped-up that should aid weight loss, and of course will have your skin looking better too. Don't guzzle loads of water(or any fluid) at once though, unless you're dehydrated. You body can't deal with a whole lot in one go so you'll just pee it all out again. Always keep a glass of water by your computer and drink it gradually. Have a full glass when you wake up in the morning though, you are dehydrated then and your body needs to replace the fluid lost while you were sleeping.

I'd recommend Zumba too, that looks like a whole lot of fun, I'm pretty sure you could put together your own routine just from watching the various youtube uploads for it, too!

Originally Posted by Knerd

1. Don't diet, just try to eat healthier.

Best advice I can give you right there!

Also;
Walk, instead of ride. It's down a lot for my health, personally.

What do you mean by ride? I prefer to cycle, and I call that riding...

Cycling is great too...I think she means instead of riding in a car or a bus. Cycling is low impact on the joints and also increases your heart rate.

My doctor said small changes are key...I went from cream in my tea to fat free milk with cream as a treat. The hummus is a great suggestion too.