There is no “secret” to losing weight. The factors that contribute to weight loss haven’t changed since mankind first evolved – you need a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. Children especially can struggle with making the right changes – partly because they don’t know exactly what to change and also because they haven’t been taught many good habits by their parents or caretakers. This is where weight loss camp can be highly beneficial. Here, trained professionals work with kids and teens to teach them how to eat healthy as well as how to enjoy exercising.

Many of you have probably heard a lot about carbohydrates and dieting. The popular diets that told people to eliminate all carbs from their diet to lose weight has led to many people wrongfully believing that reducing or eliminating carbohydrates is a healthy way to live and lose weight. While it may help people lose weight initially, it is not a sustainable, healthy dieting method. The truth is that we need carbs to be healthy. The problem comes when we need to select healthy carbs to eat and avoid the bad ones.

First, a little education. Carbohydrates are one of the three macro-nutrients essential for a healthy diet. These are protein, fat, and carbs. Proteins are things like meat, nuts, dairy products, soy and seeds. Fats come from meat (animal fat) and also from oils that are derived from plants. Fats can also be found in things like butter and cooking oil and some fruits and veggies, like avocados.

A good daily diet should consist of roughly 20-25% protein, 20-30% fats and 50-60% carbohydrates. Given that, you can see why eliminated carbs is not a good idea and why it is important to choose the right ones when we do eat them.

This brings us to the question of the hour – where can healthy carbs be found? For the most part, carbs come from plants and some fruits and vegetables. The problem with they typical American’s diet, however, is that they get the majority of their carbs from things like crackers and cookies that involve a lot of processing.

Cookies are not bad in and of themselves. In fact, a cookie every once in a while isn’t going to make anyone obese. The problem with things like cookies and other mass produced “sources” of carbohydrates is that the healthy part of the food, the wheat, loses a lot of its healthy-ness during the production of the food. Today’s foods are processed and then processed again, sugars are added to make things taste better, and in the end we have a “source” of carbohydrates that has been transformed from something that is a necessary part of a healthy diet to a food full of unhealthy carbs that our body doesn’t really need.

So, the rule of thumb is that if you have a difficult time tracing back that carbohydrate choice to Mother Nature, then the product likely has minimal nutritional value. So, which are healthy choices?

1. Vegetables
2. Fruits
3. Whole Grain breads, rice and pasta (made with the whole grain kernel and not entirely out of flour) without a lot of added sugar or fat
4. Nuts & seeds such as almonds, sunflower seeds and pistachios

The next time you head to the store to shop for your family, keep the above in mind. Additionally, if you’re in the process of investigating “fat camps” for your child, keep the list in mind as you look at samples of the food that they serve. If you don’t see menus that are based on healthy carbs, you are probably better off looking elsewhere. Most weight loss camps for teens employ or consult with a professional nutritionist, however, so most, if not all, should serve plenty of foods that are healthier than most kids eat at home.

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