My 11 year old, pubescent daughter is a competitive swimmer. She works out 2 hours a day during the week and 3 hours on Saturday. She is on 54 mg of Concerta and is losing weight. Her caloric expenditure is absurd, and her appetite is supressed due to the meds. Any ideas on keeping this darling from wasting away? Thanks, ~Debra

My little girl is only 8 but she is on concerta 54 mg as well and she is very tiny,she weighs 42 lbs soak and wet adn the doctor said that pedisure is good for the weight thing so i thought I would try that.There is a lot of deffernt flavor like chocolate,banana,strawberry,vanilla, im sure more then that even.
If anyone has anymore suggestions i would like to hear them as well.I will say that every child or even adult i know on concerta there appetite has gone to nothing.i really try my hardest to feed her a good breakfast every morning before she gets going on the concerta.

Pediasure............that is a great idea. I have a 10 yr old who is also on 54 mg of Concerta. She is very thin and the dr is not worried about it yet. My daughter just has a very high metabolism. Even though my daughter has not lost any weight, her appetite has REALLY decreased. I will give the Pediasure a try. Thanks so much for that suggestion

Not a probelm,when my lil girl was a baby like 18 months or so she was tiny then even,i put her on it and it helped a lot.My little girl has always been tiny at age 11 months she weighed 11 lbs no joke at all,we thought something was wrong but she is just tiny.Believe it or not my little girl loved the pedisure some dont but i tried a lot with it to get her to drink it.Just a idea like with the strawbeery one put it in the blender with strawberries and ice and it is great that way i even like it,lol.

I hope this idea helps you guys!!!

Thanks for the input. I'll give that a try.

We use concerta in our household, too. We don't eat three medium to big sized meals. We eat more like 6-8 smaller ones throughout the day. I have taken nutricious snacks to their school, and keep them in the nurse's office, in the fridge. They only need to pop in between classes and grab some peanut butter crackers, cheese crackers, granola, as needed. Every so often, I replenish what is in there. I have been fortunate that this has never been an issue with the district, and the nurse fully supports it, as well.

My daughter will be twelve in November, and is 4'5.5", approximately 67 pounds. Her younger brother will be nine in December, is 4'5", approximately 70 lbs. Both take concerta. I have weighed the same amount for the past few years, and I take it, too.

Getting extra calories in liquid form is basically a good idea, because it does not affect appetite. For example, you could drink 500 calories of soda, and as soon as the liquid left your stomach eat a normal meal. Studies have confirmed this.

Things like weight-gainer shakes come to mind...

The thing to watch out for would be too many empty calories, and a sugar rush/crash cycle. Plus of course, damage to the teeth.

You can make your own high protein smoothies too.

We make them with banana, berries, soy milk, tofu, energy powder (ours is soy based, but you can use whey based ones), Greens Plus powder (for veggies etc., it tastes sweet), liquid vitamins and whatever else occurs to us. Sometimes we add bran or dried fruits too. With the soy I can use fruit juices without curdling. Mango in this is great!

If you use dairy try it with milk, yogurt, cottage cheese or ricotta, even scoop of icecream for richness and different flavours!

Toss it all in the blender and whirl madly. Pour out thick and gloopy and drink or eat with a spoon. Goes down easily on even the most rushed mornings.

One word of warning... Rinse your blender thouroughly, or they are hard to clean later.

Gatorade. Replenish electrolytes and fluids. Then, try many small meals per day. I read 6-8 somewhere in this thread, and that's a good number. Also, make one of those meals pasta. Pasta is basically tons of calories, delicious, and kids love it. Easy to make too. You can teach an 11 yr old to make his/her own pasta pretty damn fast. Boil water, add pasta, cook to taste, microwave sauce, done.

Oh, and instead of just getting calories in for the sake of getting calories in by drinking pop, 2% milk is just as good and gets you tons of vitamins and such. Important for athletes.

The shakes are good ideas as well. I love shakes every once in a while. Shakes and cereal as well.