QuestionQUESTION: Hi, my name is Alexandra. I'm 14 yrs old and I weigh 173 pounds! But people are always surprised when I say that. Everyone thinks I'm like 130, why is that? I don't think I'm WAY overweight, but I'd like to lose some pounds. I've been working out at the gym lately, and I'm trying to eat less, and better. I was wondering if you have any tips for losing weight or dieting, or any special workouts I could do at the gym? Thank you, and God bless.
ANSWER: Dear Alexandra,
Perhaps you "carry your weight well", so not everybody may find you that heavy. It depends a bit on your height and race, and how your feminine forms are shaping up already, but in general, currently you are quite a lot over the recommended weight for your age. The most important thing for now, though, is that you feel healthy and not too self-conscious. It is very good to hear how you are making serious efforts to focus on healthy eating and plenty of exercise.
You might like to bear in mind that until you mature, a teenager tends to also be carrying a healthy layer of so called "puppy fat". This will shed at around 17 and you could lose quite a few pounds then naturally.
However, it is important to control overweight in excess of 20 pounds, before chronical conditions afflict you, like diabetes, high bloodpressure, metabolic disorders, or joint problems. The main thing to concentrate on is general health, rather than dieting. It is important for any girl your age to set up a nutritious daily eating plan with healthy habits FOR LIFE, including a regular exercise routine. Your weight issue may prove indirectly to be doing you a spiritual favour by forcing you to set up a proper eating plan and become more aware of the rubbish that is on sale in supermarkets/restaurants out there. You have to take a positive angle on your situation, whatever the situation.
However, you must not let it become the pivot of your life. Therefore it is easiestif you AVOID certain foods and stay HAPPY and MOBILE. You must realise that we are generally a lot less active, but also less creative and joyous than we could be. Our hobbies are often sedentary,and our minds are frequently dull and uninspired. This makes the whole system sluggish, and debases the quality of our bodies too. We notice this only when we get ill, fat, or depressed.
Note how we sit on public transportation and take elevators when we could be using our feet more. Before we had remote controls (like when I was a kid!) we at least had to get up to change channels (not that there was much choice!); We do very little manual labour anymore, or housework; such little movements throughout the day do add up to burning off calories, so try to remember that.
Walk whenever you can, and try to stay at a stiff pace for about 20 minutes daily, that is one of the best ways to build up stamina over the course of a year. Even better is some dancing, aerobic workout or cycling of the same duration. At the same time try to do some Yoga or other body-awareness activity (Tai Chi or even Aikido/self-defense). This type of "exercise" is very good for your soul and helps change your mind. It is very important to learn that your mind is the foundation stone for the rest of you. It also aides self-awareness, discipline and self-respect.
SOME FOOD IDEAS:
Always eat three meals a day. Cutting out a meal can never make you slimmer in the long run, can be damaging to your health, and generally causes weight increase (this for metabolic reasons and other wrong patterns that usually ensue).
Choose fibre rich products (cereals, fruit, vegetables) and make sure they do not contain additives (fats or sugar). Only eat wholewheat bread, try to eat wholewheat pasta mainly (but never pasta too often) and experiment with other cereals/grains (millet, quinoa, spelt pasta, kamut bread, barley grits, buckwheat crackers) and eat only parboiled or brown rice (also quite a lot of calories, but better for you than potatoes).
You need a good source of protein every day: lean meat (grilled, stewed); (oily) fish; take care with cheese (very fattening); cottage cheese, curds and yoghurt are excellent (sweeten only with natural sugar free jams - no artificial sweetners if you can help it, they lower your overall energy and spiritual development).
Eat five good sized portions of fruit and veg a day. So like: an apple, a serving of peas and carrots, 20 berries, and a tomato salad. Potatoes and yams do not count.
Stay away from deep fried foods (incl. crisps, chips, fast food, dim sum, you name it) also, because they contain hydrogenated fats which are really bad for you. Only treat yourself to this food once a week maximum, and then only in the smallest portion.
If you cut out white sugar altogether from your diet you will be forced to make a lot of healthy alternative choices - it is in most stuff from the supermarket, just read the packets and tins. Be very strict with sweets, desserts, candy, chocolate, cakes, cookies. Train your palet (basically a mind set) to like things sweetened naturally with alternative sweetners to sugar (apple juice, raisins, maple syrup, rice/barley/wheat syrup, argave juice, honey etc). Find the delicious, dewy, heavenly sweetness in a pear or strawberry smoothie. But remember: fruit contains a lot of natural sugars, so is not calorie-free! Focus on berries and citrus fruit, but above all vegetables whenever you can (steamed or in salads, or try stir-fry, excellent for you!).
Try to monitor for a couple of days your overall calorie intake and see if you can get it to be around 1800. Stick to that for as long as and as much as you can, unless you take up strenuous activity. Do not fall below this intake, though!
At your age for proper development into womanhood, you especially need these vitamins/minerals in your diet: B3 (eggs, avocados, sunflowerpips, prunes); calcium (dairy products, tofu, salmon, nuts, root veg, broccoli); phosphorus (meat, fish, yeast, wholewheat foods); magnesium (brown rice, cocoa, pulses).
I wish you lots of strength and positivity with which to continue on your self-awareness programme. May it help you develop into a stable and beautiful adult one day, while you can still enjoy the joys of childhood without burdensome adult responsibilities. If you have any more questions about your diet do not hesitate to ask me again.
God bless you,
love Evelyn.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: hi it's alexandra again you probably don't remember me but it's okay i just have another question. okay, so i found out my BMR and it said i burned 1,666 calories each day just by living. i was wondering that if i burned an extra 334 calories a day by exercise just to make it 2,000, then would it be a healthy choice to consume 2,500? i'm pretty sure that would balance it out to 500 total calories a day so would that be good for losing weight?
AnswerHi Alexandra,
Of course I remember you, your name is just like mine!
First off, the Basal Metabolic Rate is another one of those facts and figure devices people cling onto because they don't really want to listen to their own body. It is a very generic and rough estimation as to how your body actually works.
Just like all calorie counting only is the beginning to healthy eating and achieving the right weight for you, it is only a way to become aware of how much (or too little for some folks) you are actually eating. We tend to "forget" real easy in that department!
My advice comes from a really passionate place: decide you want to change your eating habits because they are not healthy (this you can conclude from being overweight, or from a general physical uneasiness). Then, look more at your own portions and especially the quality of food than at tables and scales. Stop adding up numbers and weigh up the nutritional value of a foodstuff from its colour, food group, preparation method etc. Not just its energy-value.
The fundamentals of my dietary-philosohy rests on how the body cares more about HOW it burns its food, rather than how MUCH fuel it has. This is a complex understanding but makes loads of sense once you study it indepth. Anyway, the part you need to understand for now is how important it is to find a diet that suits your own metabolism (which may be happier with proteins from animal or plant matter: this is the basic first divide in metabolic systems). Your challenge is to find out what your personal, GENUINE needs are (not just fancies, let alone fads).
"Dieting" is a lot like training up your body as if it were your pet dog you got from the city pound. Most of all it needs tenderness and love, but in communication it needs a firm, protective hand. You need to really tell it at first what is good for it, since it may have forgotten much of its own true and good nature through bad habits,and become lazy or wayward.
It takes DISCIPLINE (not some formula you can work out on a calculator) to teach your body to "respond" to the commands of your new diet. Remember, if you go o.t.t. the metabolic rate could go on strike, even. (i.e. slow down, sometimes for years). Just like you need to regain the trust of an abused dog or it will one day bite the hand that feeds it.
You have to learn to trust your eyes again, your tastebuds, the voice of your unique metabolic system.
For example, at first you can look at a jacket potato and KNOW its got good carbs, vit. C., fibre. Then look at the cream cheese and know to go very easy on that, because it's basically the wrong kind of fat. A drizzle of olive oil over your salad should ring "yum" to you, because all bodies need some fat intake, of the right (polyunsaturated) kind.
You can learn, that if you leave the cream cheese and eat the salad with the healthy dressing you may only be missing out on 50 calories (especially if you choose a so called low-fat product) but your body will have a much harder time metabolising the cheese (especially if it's artificial) and it's just not as good for your long-term health.
Soon you will just know what you FEEL like having to eat, as if your body can fill in an order form, instead of having to use knowledge ABOUT the food coming from a confused load of information "out there".
Next, if you want to lose weight, you need to CUT down on calories. 2500 cals is the absolute max for an average, young, fit ADULT MALE who is fairly active on a daily basis! So do not go there! You ought to be sticking around the 1800 mark and hopefully with vigorous (increased amounts of) exercise you will eventually start to drop weight.
It will be the slow way, but the lasting and healthy way. Remember exercise is also for your circulation, mental resilience, muscle building, bone strengthening and heart-lung system: not just for burning fat. But exercise and teenage girls, from what I remember, are not always a match made in heaven.....It's not for nothing most kids want to go on a 500-800 cal a day diet: even without exercise you will shed many pounds in only a month. But your concentration levels will drop severely, you will compromise your physical organs and your general (emotional and spiritual) development will be very damaged. In the end all of them become dreadfully sick.
Finally, all your calculations made me a little dismal, since you paint life like a sum of burnt up moments. It reminded me how so many size-zero people look to me like matchsticks with burnt heads (charred brains from all that math!)
You may have heard how you have different chemical compositions for tears at different occasions. The metabolism is also different depending on HOW you act, your mood influences your weight a lot too. Not only because you might eat away your depression with lots of chocolate, or because hormones influence both your mind and your body, but because your body is the manifestation of your spiritual development.
One is not truly "active" until one is developing on a spiritual level. Even losing weight can be a spiritual experience.If you contrast numbers to feelings you will know what I am trying to say. All you need to do right now is become determined to understand you are what you eat but you do not live to eat. That takes most of us a life-time to work on!! It is why healthy people diet (have a healthy eating plan) for life.
Wishing you all the luck in the world, again,
Questions, including numbers! remain ever welcome, dear Alexandra. I'll just keep steering you closer towards your inner voice!
Many blessings,
Love Evelyn
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