Getting back on track to living an active and Healthy lifestyle can be very challenging.  You might have taken a break from keeping an active lifestyle due to busy work schedule, family commitments or even because of a long cold winter season. All these reasons can make it almost impossible to keep to ones goals of keeping in good shape.

Here are a few things that can help propel you back into action after a long break from an active lifestyle.

1.Find your motivation.

It is important to write down what you aim to achieve in the short or long term. This gives you a reason to get up everyday to hit the road or the gym. If you have set a goal in the past but still finding it difficult to keep motivated, you should try setting new goals. Your goal should serve as your motivation factor to a healthy living.

• It could be to prevent falling into the same health pit as your family history. Health pits such as having a family history of heart disease, diabetics, high blood pressure or even obesity by itself.
• It could be just to look great in your clothes and feel confident about yourself.
• To put some sparks back into your love life. Statistics shows that couples who have confidence and feel good about themselves are much happier and experience a much more fulfilling love life than those who don’t.
• It could be to be live a much healthier life so you can be around much longer for your children and to have energy to do a lot more with them.

2. Keep a schedule

It is very helpful to keep a weekly schedule at the least to set you off right. It is easy to loose track of your goals and incorporate a healthy lifestyle in today’s busy work schedule. I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping schedule. It will be of utmost importance to incorporate a few workout sessions. A few sessions of exercise a week in addiction to a healthy diet can go a long way to boost your health.

3. Plan your Meals Ahead of time

This can sometimes be a very challenging task considering the busy day to day schedule of today’s average person. It’s very difficult finding the time among other things like running the family’s schedule, school or work to plan and cook a healthy meal. A healpful tip is to plan your meals ahead of time by at least a week. I found out the hard way a long time ago that planning your meals ahead of time alone was just not enough. I would start out my week right but just a few days into the week when the busy schedule took over, it was impossible to keep to my meal plan. I found myself eating what came in handy and therefore falling back to the same old bad habits. What helped me was going the extra mile of not only planning my meals but also cooking and portioning my meals ahead of the week. I portioned what I cooked into single servings for at least lunch and dinner. I did this for a week’s worth of food or even sometimes two weeks depending on the type of meal and if I could keep it fresh in the refrigerator or freezer. For some meals, I could only do a week’s worth because of food safety, for others I cooked and froze them and thawed what I needed to eat for each day.

4. Let people around you know what your health goal or plan is

This is a personal preference but I found it helpful to let others know what my general goal is. You do not have to be specific but by letting them know, you are less likely to fall into the pattern of guilt eating just because you do not want to offend your loved ones and colleagues when you refuse to eat unhealthy food choices they offer to you. Most people who care about you will be considerate and supportive of your efforts to live a healthier lifestyle. And who knows who you will be motivating to do the same.

Alternatively, if you have others around you that do not support your goals, make the right decision for yourself. Consider what is important to you. Remember that it is difficult to get into a healthy lifestyle as it is, do not put yourself in situations or make compromises that are going to be a drawback to your goals.

5. Get a healthy budd(y/ies)

This can sometimes be a tricky one but when used cautiously can be of great benefit to all parties involved. One great benefit to having a healthy buddy or an accountability partner or whatever you choose to call it is having someone who you can count on to bring you up to your feet on your worst days. It can be of great benefit to all if everyone have the same determination and are willing to meet their fitness goals. Bear in mind that sometimes, having a budd(y/ies) can be a drawback especially if they are at a lower fitness level as you are and you have to retreat to a lower level of training or workout in order to bring them up. In this case it will be very helpful to them for you to lend a helping hand. It is also important to establish a threshold for yourself in order to keep pushing yourself higher as well.

It is important to keep revisiting your goals and keep modifying them for motivation. Do whatever it takes to break the ice and get things sizzling again-Happy healthy living