The Loner Route
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008The loners used a combination of approaches to lose weight. Nineteen-year-old Kyle B., who lost 30 pounds on his own more than two years ago, exercised more and ate less. He counted calories; followed a low-fat, low-calorie diet; and eliminated certain foods altogether. He says, "I
stopped eating potato chips, French fries, most other fried foods, and soda. I also drank a lot of water and kept busy so food wasn’t on my mind." His most important strategy was exercise. He ran, lifted weights, and used a ski machine. Marie P., who has kept off 55 pounds for more than five years, says she lost weight by "watching how often I ate and learning as much as I could about healthy eating." She also cut back on foods high in fat and counted calories, keeping them in the 1,500-to-1,800 range. For exercise, she joined a number of high school sports teams and started working out on her own at the gym.
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I was curious to see if the loners and the teens who participated in programs used different strategies to get to a healthier weight. I guessed that the loners would be more likely to say that they needed the structure of going on a diet or counting calories, but they were not. Although not many teens said they were meal skippers, the loners were more likely to have skipped meals and to have stopped eating certain foods completely. (This may reflect a lack of guidance about healthful eating when trying to lose weight, as well as eating habits that were a bit more restrictive.) However, the loners also were more likely to say that they increased their exercise when losing, as well as being more likely to cut back on foods high in fat-both healthful strategies.
The loners also tended to be older when they began to slim down. Their average age was almost sixteen and a half, while the average age for the teens who used programs was just over fourteen and a half. Perhaps younger teens and their families felt more need for guidance than did older teens.
