By Natalie Nodecker

When you hit that mental plateau, backing down from your daily
routine of eating right and exercising, finding reasons to get back
on a program is hard. But there are ways to invigorate your passion
for living well and staying fit, and it starts with understanding
the reason you joined Weight Watchers in the first place.

Palma Posillico, General Manager of Service and Training for Weight
Watchers, says that mental plateaus often become a problem when a
person starts their weight loss journey motivated by avoiding pain --
your clothes are too tight or one flight of stairs is too difficult
to climb.

Long-term health and raising your self-esteem, on the other hand,
are positive, life-long motivators. Once you achieve the goal of
fitting into last year's jeans, the painful motivation is gone.
What's going to keep you going now?

Get Going with Goals
Since our ultimate goals tend to be long-term and more difficult to
achieve -- whether they be to lose 60 pounds or 10 percent of your
body weight -- you have to chunk down those goals and structure more
immediate success along the journey, Posillico says. Mental plateaus
often coincide with weight loss plateaus, a time when weight loss is
less than half a pound per week.

Some Steps Toward Stepping It Up
Staying fit and healthy forever requires a lifetime commitment. Here
are some ways to help invigorate your mind and shake off a mental
plateau.

Set goals -- long-term and short-term. Set mental goals, too. Reward
yourself once you achieve them -- a new outfit, massage, or a night
of pampering often do the trick.

Keep an exercise journal. One benefit of keeping a journal is being
able to look back on a good week and see why that week was good for
you. During disappointing times, reflecting back on the best weeks
can often get you started again.

Remind yourself that the long-term benefits of weight loss and
getting fit will be so much more rewarding that that triple-layer
chocolate cake. Imagine your life once you've achieved that final
goal. How happy will you be?

Remember, hitting a plateau doesn't mean you've failed. Take the
time to look at what's happening around you and consider it
feedback. ('There's no such thing as failure, only feedback!')

What can you learn from how things are going in your life? By
learning to persevere through the rough spots, you'll find it even
more rewarding when you feel the success of achieving your ultimate
goal.