You’ve made up your mind to get healthy, and you’ve followed through. You’ve started eating healthy and started working out. Yet, after weeks, you aren’t sure that you’re better off. Your bathroom scale doesn’t seem to register any weight lost. What could be going on?

You could be overdoing it with your workouts

If you’ve been having a good time at your workouts, it’s possible that you’ve wondered at some point if you shouldn’t take it further. Rather than work out three days a week, why not do it five or six days?

Working out is a form of physical stress that your body needs to recover from. When there is no rest in sight, your body releases stress hormones, substances that make it harder for you to lose weight. These hormones put your body into crisis mode, where it tries to preserve existing resources. Working out too much, then, is counterproductive. You need to cut back.

You aren’t sleeping enough

If you find it hard to get enough sleep every day, your body sees it as a stressor, just the way it does with excessive exercise. It assumes that the lack of sleep must come from a stressful event of some kind. When your body releases stress hormones to counter the stress, you lose even more sleep, and, again, your body goes into conservation mode, rather than into weight loss mode. Trying everything in your power to sleep well is a great way to lose weight.

You’re not getting enough nutrition

If you don’t eat much, it might seem as if it should lead to weight loss. What really happens, however, is that your body begins to see it as a crisis in the making. If your body is insecure about where the next meal is coming from, it slows down its metabolism to conserve energy. As much as you may try to lose weight, your body will fight your efforts in order to keep its fat for periods of need in the future. Ensuring adequate nutrition is important if you are to lose weight.

You aren’t working out to build muscle

Building lean muscle is an important part of losing weight. The whole-body strength training exercises that you need to put yourself through in order to build such muscle are one reason why you are likely to lose weight. Muscle building exercises tend to be the high-intensity variety, too. They put your body in a better hormonal state, and help you burn calories even once your workout is done. Lean muscle tends to burn calories even when at rest. This means that your weight loss efforts continue to be effective. If you are to lose weight efficiently, then, you need to bring muscle building exercises into your routine.

You aren’t getting enough protein

While protein helps you build muscle, it’s not all it does. Protein helps in the creation of hormones, and in the maintenance of the vital organs and tissues. Protein is also thermogenic — this means that it takes energy simply to digest it. You can burn 100 calories a day simply by eating proteins at every meal. Since proteins are filling, you won’t even need to eat much. You can rely on your protein intake to keep food cravings away. If you aren’t getting a large helping of proteins at breakfast, you’re missing out on a chance to lose weight.

Losing weight can be a complex endeavor. If you’re not losing weight as much as you would like, it’s possible that you’re simply overlooking an important detail. When you correct these problems, you can quickly get back on track.