You were diligently counting macros, tracking every workout, drinking water, and quickly shedding pounds—until something happened. You stopped losing weight. The scale crept up by half a pound, then one pound, two pounds, and now you’re up five pounds. And you don’t know how it happened.

First, take a breath.  Second, reality check: Five pounds isn’t the end of the world. (And if you’ve been working out diligently, there’s a good chance it’s just a result of additional muscle mass.) Point is: If you’ve started gaining weight again after a promising period of weight loss, your first task is to understand and learn why you gained weight in order to start shedding fat and inches again. The next step: doing something about it.

To help you through the process, we talked to Caroline Apovian, M.D., president of The Obesity Society and director of nutrition and weight management at The Boston Medical Center, as well as Mascha Davis, M.P.H., R.D.N., spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Here are their top tips to reverse weight gain and start reaching your goals again.