Woman’s Side-By-Side Instagram Proves The Number On The Scale Doesn't Matter

This fitness blogger’s Instagram post about weight gain is going viral

When it comes our health, many of us rely on the scale to tell us whether or not we’re fit. But, the truth is, the number on the scale is not nearly as important as how you feel, and that’s why one woman’s inspiring Instagram post about her weight gain is going viral.

Fitness blogger Kelsey Wells wrote on Instagram that she started working out and trying to lose weight when she was about eight weeks postpartum. “I weighed 130 [pounds] before getting pregnant, so based on nothing besides my own warped perception, I decided my ‘goal weight’ should be 122 and to fit into my skinniest jeans,” she explained in her post.

Now, several months later, Wells is up almost 18 pounds. What gives? Well, she got healthier.

“Screw the scale!” she wrote.”You guys, please stop getting hung up on the number on the stupid scale. 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.”

Wells went on to explain that she did reach her goal weight — in the middle photo — but as she worked out more and took better care of herself, she started to put on muscle. She wrote, “I have gained 18 pounds… Also, I have gone up two pant sizes and as a matter of fact I ripped those skinny jeans wide open just the other week trying to pull them up over my knees.”

Continued Wells, “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… I have never been healthier than I am now. I have never been more comfortable in my own skin than I am now. And if I didn’t say #screwthescale long ago, I would have gave up on my journey [sic].”

I can relate so much to what Wells is saying, because I’m still trying to lose the baby weight from my son, and he just turned two. It’d be easy to give up and say I’ll never get there because the number on the scale has been slow to go down, but you know what? Eight months ago I couldn’t do a push-up, and now I can do 25. Eight months ago I got winded carrying laundry upstairs, and now I don’t.

We use a lot of arbitrary things to measure our health, worth, and value — the scale, our pants size, whether or not we have thigh gaps or can still fit in our “pre-baby” clothes. Wells clearly has an awesome body at any size, but the point she’s trying to make is that no outward measure of health will ever be as important as how you feel and what your body can do. There is no perfect weight or perfect dress size that is going to make us feel confident and complete, and we shouldn’t let numbers discourage us.

As Wells put it, “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.”