15 year old needs to lose 3 stone

JBoyle4eva

Let's get this straight: I'm male, 15 years old and weigh 15.5 stones. I'm really worried about my health and I desperately need to lose weight. I don't care about my apperance if that's what you think, but I'm more concerned about my wellbeing and I don't want to grow and have a triple bypass. Someone, please Help Me! What should I be doing.

NB: I've a kidney problem, so no Football, hurling, rugby, soccer can be played.

Athloneskate

Hey, Hows it going.

Ive gone through this and this is how I did it (I didnt need to lose as much, I didnt lose much weight cos I had a growth spurt but I went from 27% body fat to 16% (now).

Here's some tips-

When you're watching TV, during the ads just get down and do some sit ups and push ups.

Make a chart, get down on the floor now and see how many sit ups you can do in 2 minutes exactly.

I still have mine (I still do it). I started being able to do 50 and now I can do 120. Do it once a week.

Buy a rowing machine, they're only about 70 euro.

dudara

Rip_Curl, how tall are you and what's your current level of physical activity?

rs

Originally posted by Rip_Curl
Let's get this straight: I'm male, 15 years old and weigh 15.5 stones. I'm really worried about my health and I desperately need to lose weight. I don't care about my apperance if that's what you think, but I'm more concerned about my wellbeing and I don't want to grow and have a triple bypass. Someone, please Help Me! What should I be doing.

ok, sounds like you could lose a few pounds, but you are nice and young, which makes it much, much easier.

There's nothing wrong with taking a little pride in your appearance either. If you look healthy on the outside, you most likely are healthy on the inside. They pretty much go hand in hand.

[/B]
NB: I've a kidney problem, so no Football, hurling, rugby, soccer can be played. [/B]

ok, this makes things a lot harder. I'm not a doctor, and you should obviously see you doctor before you decide to do anything serious. This is very important.

Firstly, and most importantly you need to sort out your diet. Cut back on the junk food, chips, fried foods etc. Because you live at home, it's harder to control your diet because you don't buy or make most of the food.

If possible, convince your parents to start buying healthier foods and to not buy junk food. It's much easier to eat well when you don't have junk food in the house. It will be much easier if they understand what you are trying to do and are helping you out.

As for exercise, I don't want to advise much because of the kidney problem. A few long walks a week might be a good start. Even better if you can get someone to go with you. But before you try anything more than walking, I would see your doctor and ask his advice.

Good luck

Corksham

There is an artilce in this months men's health magazine about obesity in the younger members of society. I didnt read the article myself but I can post ya the magazine as a start and may be worth browing. It adresses diet, excercise and lifestyle choices.
PM me if ya want it

JBoyle4eva

Originally posted by dudara
Rip_Curl, how tall are you and what's your current level of physical activity?

OK, I forgot to mention this part. I'm 5 foot 10 inches and I would say I have a lot of stamina but not so much strength or supleness.

Thanks Athloneskate for that advice. I'll try and get it going.

Corksham, I'll send you a PM!

Finally, rs: This has been really good advice. I'm going to go to the docs next week and ask him for some advice. I'll also start walking tomorrow.

Also, my kidney problem isn't that sever as I indicated, it's just prevents me from my playing contact sports as listed above.

MarkT

Good news is at hand! I have recently lost 4 stone over the space of a year so you CAN do it.:) You've got to mean business though. The earlier tips on diet are spot on- it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be able to shift that amount of weight using diet or exercise alone. You need to address both. Now obviously I dont know exactly about your kidney problem so I will advise about what worked for me.
I initiated a cardio (running in this case) regime that started slowly and gradually intensified. This was coupled with some weights to build muscle and increase my BMR (Base Metabolic rate). This is the amount of calories your body uses during everyday activity- basically if you raise your BMR you use more calories doing nothing!:D
Good luck;)

rs

Originally posted by Rip_Curl
OK, I forgot to mention this part. I'm 5 foot 10 inches and I would say I have a lot of stamina but not so much strength or supleness.

Finally, rs: This has been really good advice. I'm going to go to the docs next week and ask him for some advice. I'll also start walking tomorrow.

Also, my kidney problem isn't that sever as I indicated, it's just prevents me from my playing contact sports as listed above.

Ok, you are tall enough, so 15.5 stone is not massively overweight by any means.

If you can handle jogging, I highly reccomend it. Just take it easy at first. Your knees shins and ankles will not be used to it. You are carrying a few extra pounds which puts more pressure on your joints when you run. The last think you need to do is hurt yourself at the beginning. So take it easy.

But fixing you diet is even more important. And I don't mean eating rice cakes and carrot sticks. Always eat food you like, just try to make sure that it's healthier food. Don't think that you are going on a diet. Just think that you are changing the kinds of food you eat for the long term.

We all like our food (especially me) but I never struggle with my weight because I exercise and I eat well.

Try cut back on your portion sizes a little. If your parents make you dinner, ask for a little bit less. A few less chips, a few less spuds, one less slice of pizza, a bit less pasta. It all adds up.

Fizzy drinks are a killer too. They are packed full of sugar. Try to get in the habit of drinking water or low fat milk instead (avonmore super milk is great).

Fried foods like chips, fried chicken are killers too. Switch over to oven chips and cook chicken in a frying pan or the oven. Little changes like this really make a huge difference. But as I said before, you don't do the shopping so you have to advise you parents as to what you want.

If you are hungry in between meals (always eat 3 meals a day, and never, ever miss breakfast) try slightly healthier snacks like fruit, popcorn, etc. It's fine to have the odd chocolate bar or bag of crisps, just make sure you're not pigging out on them.

Good luck

trotter_inc

Personally - the only way I can loose weight is by running, cycling or anything cardio - I find that if I do it regularly I can eat what I like without putting on any weight.

JBoyle4eva

All right, I'm getting tons of morale support from everyone. THANKS!

I'll actually tell you a story: Last year(2003) for lent, I gave up a lot of junk. That meant sweets, choclate and crisps. I was particularly addicted to crisps, so I never broke my lenten fast. When Easter Sunday came, I was thrilled with myself. I decided to give it another week off crisps. I did that again the week after, but decided to do a month. I found this tactic very easy, so I'm still doing it today! Nobody can believe I did it and still doing it.

I'm going to talk to my mum about all this this evening. Wish me luck.

trotter_inc

Good stuff! Fair play to you... I tried to do the same - I lasted 2 days!!

Give it some time and you'll really notice the difference... good luck!!

Stark

Buy a rowing machine, they're only about 70 euro.

What place sells these rowing machines? Any ones I've seen are around €300.

JBoyle4eva

I ned help again. I'm trying to start a plan, but I keep failing. Could someone please give advice on how to start a definite plan?

rs

Right, first things first. Schedule your training. Pick three days a week that you can easily set aside 1.5 - 2 hours.

Something like Monday evening, Wednesday evening and saturday morning. Whatever suits you best.

Here's the big thing though. These 1.5 - 2 hours are set aside for training, and you should not schedule anything in your life that conflicts with them. Get used to telling people you are busy.

As I said before, walking is a good start. A good, decent paced 1 hour walk three times a week will do you no end of good. If possible, try to walk uphill (and downhill) as much as possible instead of on flat ground, as it's much harder. If you have a dog, take the dog.

The nice thing about walking is that you can wear your regular clothes. Don't forget to bring a walkman. Music is your friend. If you can find somewhere close by that has a lot of steps, walk up them a few times.

Once you get in the habit of walking, you may want to start jogging. This requires decent shoes and some sort of tracksuit. The idea is to make it a little harder each time. walk a little further or faster. Once you are jogging, do them same. set goals for each jog that are slightly higher then they were the last time.

The most important thing it to make the time and develop the habit.

You should also start doing some exercises at home.

Press-ups
sit-ups
squats
lunges

Something like the following workout is ideal, because you don't need anything other than yourself.

http://aww.dietclub.com.au/library/article.php?art_id=60

If you do these exercises, and follow it up with a good hour walk, you'll be off to a great start.

Just make sure to keep your diet reasonably clean and sensible or you'll get nowhere fast.

But at the end of the day, you have to do the work. And you have to make the decision to stick with it.

Good luck