Did you hit a weight plateau? and feeling discouraged  that for weeks your weight loss program was taking the pounds off. Then, suddenly, the scales won’t budge another pounce.

Before you delve into some solutions, establish whether what you are experience is an actual plateau. Here are other possible explanations for why your scale is not budging:

Your body composition is changing. In other words, you may be losing fat but not overall weight. Although you may long to see the numbers go down, the scale is not the best way to track weight loss.

Instead, you should be tracking your body composition, especially if you are exercising. If you feel you look leaner in the mirror but the weight is the same, you are likely building muscle while losing fat. Tracking your weight loss using a body composition analyzer on a monthly basis is a great approach. Even how your jeans fit can give you a better assessment of how you are doing than your scale.

Consider trying one of these tips:

Assess your food and activity records (keep your daily food journal). It is common to loosen the rules with time, letting yourself get away with larger meal portions or less activity. The solution is to record every food morsel you eat and activity you undertake. At the end of the week, review your journal and maintain or look for a more healthier alternatives.

Focus on three- to four-week trends in weight loss instead of daily fluctuations. You may find that, although progress is not evident immediately, you’re losing weight.

Consistency is key. It might be tempting to stop working out if you aren’t continuing to see results, but focus of continuing to exercise and eat healthfully. Resist the urge to give up.

If you’ve hit a plateau, reassess your program. Is it possible that you’ve accomplished about as much as you can with the goals you’ve set. If so, you may need to adjust or modify your program if you want to achieve more.

Whatever you do, do not give up. If you get discouraged or have a bad weekend of eating or you missed your spin class two days in a row, get right back on track. Remember that plateaus are always surrounded by progress and your progress is on it’s way.

Remember, even with a good weight loss program and the best of intentions, you’ll run into roadblocks now and then. How you respond to these obstacles can be the difference between success and failure. – Diet, The Mayo Clinic