Almost all dieters at some point exclaim in panic, “I’ve stopped losing weight and I don’t know why!” It’s no fun when the numbers on the scale stop moving – especially if you’ve been sticking to your weight loss plan and it was working fine for you up until now.

There are plenty of possible reasons why you may have stopped losing weight, but below are a few common ones.

1 – Stress

Stress can do funny things to our bodies, and one of them is messing with weight loss. If you’ve stopped losing weight, the first thing to do is consider how much stress you have on a daily basis. Do you have a stressful job? Are you dealing with some family challenges? If you think stress might be the culprit, do what you can to better manage your stress. Practice meditation and deep breathing, take more time to do things you love, and let go of things you can’t control. When you feel calmer, your weight loss will probably progress normally.

2 – “Diet” Foods

Do you eat a lot of packaged “diet” foods? What about weight loss shakes? Sometimes these things do more harm than good, especially if you’re ingesting a lot of them. Cut these things out for a few days and see if you start losing weight again.

3 – Not Enough Water

If you’ve stopped losing weight, immediately figure out how much water you’ve been drinking each day. If it’s less than 64 ounces, you might want to start drinking more. When you don’t drink enough water, your body will retain water, which shows up on the scale. Drink plenty of water each day, and the numbers on the scale start moving down quickly again.

4 – Eating Big Portions

Do you weigh or measure your portions for meals and snacks? If not, you may want to start. Most people eat larger portions than they actually need, which of course provides more calories than they need. Here are the serving sizes you should be sticking to: 1/2 cup of fruit; 1/2 cup of vegetables (or 1 cup for leafy vegetables); 2 to 3 ounces of meat (or 1 cup of cooked beans); 1/2 cup of grains like rice, pasta, cereal (or 1 slice of whole grain bread); 1 cup of dairy like milk or yogurt (or 1 ounce of cheese). If your portions are bigger than these, start measuring everything you eat, and you’ll find that your caloric intake drops to where it should be.

5 – Recently lost a lot of weight.

If you’ve stopped losing weight suddenly, consider whether you’ve recently been losing a lot of weight. It’s common for your body to take a little break for a few days or even a week right after a large amount of weight is lost quickly. This is nothing to be concerned about; simply continue with your healthy eating and exercise plan, and more weight will come off.