by Lauren Almeida

Created on: March 08, 2010

It’s not surprising that being an overweight teenager can cause you to perhaps take unnecessary and sometimes even dangerous steps towards losing weight. Living overweight in a world where the people you go to school with are all about body image is very difficult! Luckily being at your prime years of life, excess fat is easy to lose just by following a few simple rules of thumb. 

HEALTHY CALORIES MEANS HEALTHY WEIGHT 

As tempting as it may be to cut your calories in half when you’re in a dire need of losing weight, just keep in mind that your body is begging for proper nutrients from proper foods (which contain proper calories).

Depending on the types of food you can choose from your school cafeteria, the food they serve can actually be on your side. If you are one of the unfortunate people who go to a school where all they serve is “fat slop”, then it is up to you to make the right choices in lunch foods and healthy snacks.

You may have heard that lots of vegetables, fruits, lean meats, low-fat dairy and whole grains are the way to go when trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle. This holds true when wanting to accomplish a goal weight as well – the calories in these foods sustain your bodies needs much better than a bag of chips or a chocolate bar, even when the bag of chips and chocolate bars fat content are much higher!

GYM CLASS PARTICIPATION

It’s so hard to look forward to gym class when you know you’re going to be playing a sport you don’t want to play, like basketball – yuck. Once you get out into the adult world though, you will never have to play basketball again! So when you know it’s your turn to get out on the floor and play that horrid sport with those people you don’t really get along with, just remember that you don’t have to do this for the rest of your life.

Participation in gym class is essential when wanting to maintain or lose weight. No matter what you're doing in the class, always participate! If you lead a sedentary lifestyle of just sitting around and playing video games or watching television all night long, gym class is probably the only time when you can be physical and actually break a sweat.

Once you've started to participate, you'll realize that just participating doesn't cut it. Actually giving it your one-hundred-and-ten-percent of energy is the most beneficial for weight loss. If you only try to bounce the basketball on the gym floor

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