When you’re conscious about your weight, there are a few things you keep your eye on. What you’re eating, how your clothes feel and the number the dial hits when you stand on the scales.
It’s easy to quickly become fixated on it, and beat yourself up when it goes up instead of down.
With one Instagram post, Kelsey Wells has proved that judging yourself by that figure is totally pointless.
The fitness blogger shared images of her body through various stages of her fitness journey, with a difference of just over two kilograms between the first and last.
“Screw the scale. I figured it was time for a friendly, yet firm reminder. You guys. Please stop getting hung up on the number on the stupid scale!” she wrote.
“Please stop thinking your weight equals your progress and for the love of everything please stop letting your weight have any effect whatsoever on your self esteem like I used to.”
Watch: Meghan Ramsay on the effects of poor body image. (Post continues after video.)
Wells is five foot seven and now weighs about 63 kilograms, but started Kayla Itsines’ Bikini Body Guide (BBG) over a year and a half ago, eight weeks after she gave birth and she weighed just under 66 kilograms.
“I weighed 59 kilograms before getting pregnant, so based on nothing besides my own warped perception, I decided my “goal weight” should be 55 kilograms and to fit into my skinniest jeans,” she wrote.
After a few months of the BBG program and breastfeeding, Wells reached the goal. Since then she’s gained back just over eight kilograms. That means she’s two pant sizes larger, and those ‘goal’ jeans? Ripped wide open the other week when she tried to get them on. (Post continues after gallery.)
But rather than lamenting the fact, Wells is celebrating it.
“According to my old self and flawed standards, I would be failing miserably. THANK GOODNESS I finally learned to start measuring my progress by things that matter – strength, ability, endurance, health and HAPPINESS,” she wrote.
Now she records how many push ups she can do and favours her body fat composition – the ratio of fat to muscle – as a way to keep track.
“I have never had more muscle and less body fat than I do now. I have never been healthier than I am now. I have never been more comfortable in my own skin than I am now,” she finished off.
“And if I didn’t say #screwthescale long ago, I would have given up on my journey. So to the little teeny tiny voice in the back of my head that still said ‘WTF is this – not 140!?’ last week when I stepped on the scale, I say SCREW YOU.
“And I think you should probably say the same to your scale too.”
Image: Instagram/@mysweatlife.
Has your mindset changed in a similar way?
