Parents of teens: Stop pulling out your hair because you thought you'd taught them better eating habits!
Chances are you did, but eating habits can change and get sloppy when teens get back to school.
Here's a 10-point plan to help you help your teen not flunk out on fitness habits.
#1 Download the Lean Mode Food Diary eBook and do a bit of homework yourself. Read how it works, so you can help your teen get started.
Show it to them online. Explain how school is a minefield of crummy eating habits that can follow you all your life, and since they wouldn't want you sitting next to them in the cafeteria or fast food drive-up line, you're giving them these food diary pages instead.
Tell them that learning how to have healthy habits is just as important as any subject they are studying in school. Healthy habits make it easy to be fit because habits are things you do without much thinking. That's better than having to spend a lifetime on diets you just can't wait to quit.
#2 Print out a section of daily pages (perhaps a week or a month), to stick into your teen's notebook. The Lean Mode eBook is ideal for students because it doesn't weigh them down with another whole book to lug around.
They can start out using just the daily pages, and later use the weekly goal setting pages to learn to set progressively more challenging goals. They may also enjoy using some of the colorful, fun milestone or scrap-booking pages.
#3 Tell them to jot down briefly what they eat throughout the day and then color in the FoodDot next to it if they consider what they ate to be healthy. (Yes, that includes food they eat at home, so take note, mom and dad.) Remind them that they thought coloring was fun when they were a little kid. It still is. For optional extra credit and a real eye opener, they can write in the calories, fat and carbs info that's easy to obtain from packaged food labels.
#4 Point out that they can also track exercise or other healthy things they might do during the day, as long as they follow these two main rules:
1) Only color in positive things.
2) Color in something every day.
Oh yeah, and tell them not to worry about being perfect, because that's not the goal. The goal is to just do a little better every day, to get into the habit of doing healthier things, one small step at a time. Repetition and consistency are the keys to developing healthier habits, so there's a place on each daily page to celebrate consecutive days of journaling.
#5 Assure them they don't have to show you their pages on a regular basis, but that you do plan to do a spot check every now and then. You need to know if their eating habits are getting way out of whack, or if their school day is devoid of exercise, because, well, you're the parent and it's your job. As a parent you may also need to speak with a doctor or get involved at school if you see something in your teen's journal that concerns you.
But choose your battles and don't bug your teen about little things, or you'll only make matters worse. This should never be an assault on their self-esteem. Rather it's a way to spot healthy or unhealthy actions. And actions are things your teen can change.
Above all, comment on their actions in a spirit of positive mentoring and coaching, because after all, you're not perfect yourself, as any teen will tell you.
Hint: If you want them to be eager to show your their journals, you might want to work with them, on the goals and rewards pages, to set up healthy goals and appropriate rewards that you help provide.
#6 Inform them that this is a report they're creating for themselves. Because a parent's job is to give kids the tools they need to learn to make good decisions for their own lives. And then to give them the responsibility and some space to figure out what works.
That's the value of reporting to oneself in a food diary. It helps create self-awareness, self-motivation, and dare we say, even for teens, a bit of self-control.
All of this can give them a sense of mastery over what for many teens (and adults!) is a very tricky part of life. And that's a good thing.
#7 Hope that if they see too much empty white space on their food diary page it might serve as a clue to them about things like why their jeans don't fit right. Saves you from having to say for the umpteenth time, "maybe you shouldn't eat so many of those," not that that was ever a very effective or good idea anyway.
#8 If they're already "trying to not eat so many of those", show them there's a spot on the page they can color in to celebrate, for example, a candy-bar-free day, a french-fry-free day, or a "one-of-those"-free day, etc. With a national survey showing that teens ages 14-18 consume about 34 teaspoons of sugar a day (!), and with 8 teaspoons of sugar in a regular soda-pop, a few soda-pop-free days might be a good place to start for a lot of teens.
#9 If you're tired of nagging about television, computer or video game time, have them track their screen hours in one of the PowerCircles at the bottom of the journal page, and then set goals and rewards for gradually cutting back. Eventually they could come out of their room and get to know the rest of the family.
#10 Refill their notebook with new food diary pages as needed. And have them keep the filled-out pages in a separate notebook they can review later. Past pages can help your teen spot trends and gain some insight into what worked for them. Seeing all that color reminds them of their ability to cultivate healthy eating and exercise habits—on their own.
Your little baby's growing up. With your guidance and the Lean Mode, Color Code—Not Your Usual Food Diary eBook, you can release them out into the world with something unusual for a lot of young adults these days—healthy eating and exercise habits!
$5 Student Discount on Lean Mode Food Diary eBook (reg. $14, now $9)
Enter this coupon code at checkout: LeanModeE5stu9
This is a limited time offer. Coupon is for one time use, one coupon per customer. If you are an adult, not a high school, college or graduate student, we have no way of knowing that. So go ahead and use the coupon. We'll just consider you a lifelong student of better fitness habits, because hey, aren't we all?