Introduction to An Active Teen's Diet

Nutrition, as we all know is very important to the health of our body. For active teens especially this is very important. Active teens are always doing something physically related, and if you are not eating very nutritious foods, then your health-related components of fitness will be harmed. We all want to eat that McDonald's hamburger, or the KFC fried chicken, but is that really the best food for your body? The answer is no, those foods are not even close to being healthy for you. You might say that the burger is probably loaded with protein. Which it is, but did you stop to look at the fat content? We are not trying to say that don't ever eat any of these tasty foods, but use the rule of moderation when deciding to indulge in these foods. Rather, we are wanting to you to decide on something healthier, maybe like a piece of grilled chicken, or instead of those french fries, have a baked potato. Active teens need to consume more calories in a day then an adult. Of course, this is because they are much more active and burn off those calories faster then adults do. The purpose of this blog is to educate teenagers into making nutritious choices to better their health.

Caloric Requirements

There are three primary components that make up your body's energy expenditure. Adding these three components together, basal metabolic rate, energy expended during physical activity, and the thermic effect of food is the most accurate way of determining how many calories your body requires each day.

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Most of the body's energy, about 60-70%, goes to supporting the ongoing metabolic work of the body's cells. This includes such activities as your heart beat, respiration and maintaining your body temperature. To determine your BMR:

For teenage males - Multiply the body weight by 10; add double the body weight to this value.
- For a 150 lb male, 1,500 + (2 x 150)=1,800 cal/day BMR

For teenage females - Multiply body weight by 10; add the body weight to this value.
- For a 120 lb female, 1,200 + 120=1,320 cal/day BMR
That’s how you find out how much calories you need each day for your diet plan you are going by. Some foods you can get your calories from is fruits and vegetables you can also get it from yogurt.

Micronutrients in the Active Teens Diet.

Micronutrients are the nutrients needed for life in small quantities. For example iron, magnesium, and zinc. Also some more common forms of micronutrients are sodium and vitamins.




Micronutrients are very important in an athletes diet due to the involvement in many metabolic processes. Metabolic processes are the chemical and physical processes that are constantly going on in your body, which is why they are essential to an athletes diet.
A vitamin is a natural compound that the body needs in small amounts. Something is considered a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism. There are two types of vitamins. Water-soluble and Fat-Soluble. When a vitamin is water-soluble it means they can be easily be dissolved in water. When a vitamin is fat-soluble that means they are absorbed through the intestinal tract with the help of fats.
Vitamins are essential for normal growth of the body and development of multi-cellular organisms. As you can see they are very essential if an athlete wishes to get bigger and develop a little bit more. After the maximum growth has been achieved vitamins are necessary for maintenance. If a teen is looking for a specific effect they will make sure to take a little more of the vitamin that helps that. For example if a teen isn't getting enough collagen which is found in skin, bones, cartilage, ligaments, and blood vessels, they would take vitamin C which is important in the production of collagen.



Sodium is important in keeping the balance of pressure on the inside of our cells and the outside. Which is why too much sodium leads to high blood pressure while having to little sodium leads to low blood pressure. High blood pressure also leads to things like heart attacks and strokes. We can get sodium naturally in some foods like milk and fresh vegetables although most of us get our sodium from seasonings such as salt.

Macronutrients in the Active Teens Diet

Macronutrients are the nutrients that the body needs in large amounts to function properly. Macronutrients include fat, protein and carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are the main source of energy for any person. That is because they are the easiest to access and burn for fuel. Each gram of carbohydrate has a total of four calories. Also, out of the three macronutrients, carbohydrates have the least amount of energy. What makes them important is that they are the easiest to burn. So, the next time you are waiting in the starting blocks of your 100m sprint, you will know that you are going to burn carbohydrates. There are different types of carbohydrates, but the two main ones are simple and complex carbs. The scientific name for simple sugars is monosaccharides and dissacharides. Simple carbohydrates are found fruits and sports drinks. For an active teen, you get some energy from simple carbohydrates, but the bulk of carb intake should be from complex carbohydrates. The scientific name for complex carbohydrates is polysaccharides. This type of carbohydrate found in foods such as rice, bread, and pasta. These carbs can be more nutritious for the body and give more energy than the simple carbs do. The recommended daily intake of carbohydrates should be around 60-65% of the total caloric intake for an athlete. This means if you intake 3,000 calories, about 1,800-1,950 of them should come from carbohydrates.

The next type of macronutrient is fat.Each gram of fat is equivalent to four calories. Everybody needs to intake fat to survive, but too much of this macronutrient can be detrimental to your health. Fat has more than two times the calories as protein and carbohydrates. The only problem is the energy can’t be quickly accessed. So, the body uses fat as energy on less intense workouts/activities or activites of longer duration. There are many different types of fats, and each does a different thing for the body. We all know about trans fat, which is the worst type of fat. Trans fat is usually found in manufactured foods that contain partially hydrogenated oil. Trans fat is directly related to increasing you risk of heart disease. Saturated fats are also a pretty common fat, although they are not as detrimental as trans fat. The healthiest types of fats, are the unsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are some of the healthier fats found in food. Research on these types of fats show that they might be able to help lower your cholesterol levels. Some types of foods that provide these fats are: vegetable oils, and nuts. The recommended daily intake of fat per day is about 25% of the total caloric intake. So if you intake 3,000 calories, about 750 of those should come from fat.


Protein is the last macronutrient that helps the body function. Protein is very much needed to the growth of skin, hair, bones, tendons and muscles. What most people know proteins for, is to get bigger muscles. This is just a myth, lifting weights and actually working gets you bigger muscles. Although, protein will help this, a diet full of protein will not get you bigger, it might actually hurt you. Too much, protein can cause kidney problems. As a whole, protein is a major part of how the body carries out daily functions. . Each gram of protein is equal to four calories worth of energy. The recommended daily intake of protein is between 10-15% of the total calorie intake. So if you are intaking around 3,000 calories a day, then 300-450 of those calories should come from protein. Some good sources of protein are poultry, low fat milk, eggs and lean red meat.

3 Day Diet Plan

3 meals a Day, with 2 snacks in between