How to Eat Healthy And Help Your Teenager Lose Weight in a Healthy Way | Nagina Abdullah | Episode 108

Eating healthy and losing weight are two popular New Year resolutions. However, achieving those goals is not easy. It can be difficult when we try to shift an entire family’s diet. Then there are the issues that come up when our teenager wants to lose weight. Fad diets and quick weight loss don’t last. More importantly, they can cause health issues for our teens. But health coach Nagina Abdullah has answers for us. She joins Mighty Parenting podcast host Sandy Fowler to discuss the best and easiest way to improve our family’s diet. She will address healthy weight loss for us and our teens along with tips and tricks for making dietary changes easier.

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A Favorite Quote from the Show: 

Tiny changes create big results. It just takes patience.

High Points of Our Conversation on How to Eat Healthy and Help Your Teenager Lose Weight in a Healthy Way:

It does take change to get healthier. An effective way to create lasting change is to focus on one or two things at a time.

In order to jumpstart yourself or your kids on feeling more energy, get more protein in your breakfast. Many of us eat toast, bagels, or cereal. If you have some Greek Yogurt or an egg you’ll actually have more energy.

Afternoon snacks are a big problem. That’s when we’re stressed or in a post-lunch lull and that leads us to make poor food choices. 

Tiny changes create big results. It just takes patience.

Why would we make changes to our diet? Oftentimes Mom or Dad want to get healthier and they want that for the whole family. Another reason is we see our kids craving sugar and processed foods. Yet another is when we need to help our teenager lose weight.

Making simple changes to our diet can lead us to having more energy, better gut health, better brain health, more even emotions and mood stability. You may also simply be looking at weight loss for you or your child.

Talking to our teens about losing weight can be a touchy subject. The typical messaging around weight loss is all about temporary measures. Fad diets, only drinking smoothies or counting calories will only get us temporary results. Instead, talk to your teen about making changes that impact you for life and don’t result in restrictive eating.

You can focus the conversation on what you want them to eat more of. “I really want you to have more protein at breakfast. It’ll help you be good at sports/build a strong body/have more energy/focus more easily.”

You can focus on foods to add rather than what to take away. Add an egg or two to breakfast. Have a Greek Yogurt when you get hungry. Grab a couple bags of the 100 calorie nut packages to have for an afternoon snack.

If you’re ready to make changes beyond that then focus on these four ways of reducing sugar intake to increase energy and focus and lose weight:

1. Salad Dressing: Don’t use it or limit your usage. Instead you can use balsamic vinegar or salsa.
2. Heavy Sauces: Many of these contain dairy or milk products so they have a lot of milk sugar. Replace these with tomato sauces.
3. Bread: Bread breaks down quickly into sugar. Try to eat less or eat a sprouted grain bread like Ezekiel brand.
4. Coffee: Add cinnamon. This allows you to decrease or even replace the sugar.

A lot of spices are anti-inflammatory. Inflammation causes many chronic diseases. It also contributes to discomfort, bloating, and lower energy.

Most spices are not spicy. They are mild or can even be sweet. Only a few have capsaicin, the element that makes things spicy hot.

Spices have many benefits. Cinnamon helps control blood sugar levels. Turmeric is an anti-inflammatory. Hot spices increase metabolism.

If you’re ready to make some changes, try meal planning. The key to cooking healthy meals is to do some meal prep on the weekend. You can marinate or chop vegetables to reduce time needed to cook during the week.

Resources Mentioned in Show:

7 Spicy Recipes to Melt Off 7 Lbs. at https://masalabody.com 

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Our Guest Nagina Abdullah:

Nagina Abdullah is a health coach for busy women and founder of the website MasalaBody.com. She teaches women how to eat delicious food and lose weight without counting calories or feeling deprived, helping hundreds of women lose up to 40 pounds. Nagina has been featured in Business Insider, People.com, Huffington Post and on Fox News.

To learn more or connect with our guest visit https://masalabody.com