Fitness blogger Kelsey Wells wants new moms to stop stressing about the number showing up on their scales, once and for all. On July 26th, the 26-year-old Houston-based mom posted three side-by-side photos of herself to her over 370,000 Instagram followers, showing her body right after she had given birth almost two years ago at 144 lbs., her body at its lowest weight postpartum — two months after giving birth at 122 lbs., and her current physique at 140 lbs.
The message that Wells wrote alongside the photos: “Screw the scale. Pleaseeeeee 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 continued: “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.”
It’s a message that quickly resonated with women around the world, receiving over 25,000 likes and counting. Women's reactions in the comments section ranged from “Scale don’t mean a thing,” to “I needed to hear this.”
Wells’ empowering message comes amidst a cultural obsession surrounding how quickly women are able to lose that post-baby weight. Celebrity rags like Us Weekly magazine regularly write about celebrities’ post-baby bodies, and how quickly they were able to slim down.
A recent headline, “Chrissy Teigen Shows Off Post-Baby Swimsuit Body In Saint-Tropez” is just one of the many headlines that women find themselves bombarded with daily. A search for #postpartum on Instagram yields over 625,000 results, most of which are moms offering up post-baby weight loss tricks and their fitness regimens.
All of which appears to be creeping into the psyche of moms everywhere. According to a paper that appeared in the journal of Gender & Society in 2015, researchers Bonnie Fox and Elena Neiterman concluded, following a study, that increasingly women are almost as worried about the way pregnancy changed their bodies as they are about tackling motherhood. After interviewing 48 women in Canada, the study estimates that about two-thirds of women are unhappy about their bodies after giving birth.
Take into consideration that on average, women gain between 25 to 35 lbs. during pregnancy, but only shed around 12 lbs. during delivery, according to The Mayo Clinic, the expectation that women drop the remaining weight immediately? Well, it’s utterly unrealistic.
Wells’ journey postpartum, like most women’s, was a challenge. She told LittleThings she gained 55 lbs. during her pregnancy, a weight gain she hadn’t been expecting. “It was very hard. I asked my midwife how much weight I should expect to gain in a healthy pregnancy — I wanted to be healthy — and she told me 35 lbs. Well, I ended up gaining 55 lbs. It was hard to see that number, especially since I was healthy and active and doing what I was supposed to be doing.”
After giving birth, Wells dove into a fitness regimen created by Kayla Itsines called Bikini Body Guide (BBG). “When I first started, I couldn’t do one push-up. I could barely do a lunge. It was very discouraging, but I took it one day at a time.”
But weight loss started to come. “I was eating tons of calories, eating enough because I still had to have milk supply, but I lost body fat.” Wells, at her lowest postpartum, weighed 122 lbs.
As Wells started to gain muscle, though, the pounds started to creep up. “What is wrong? I am healthy, I feel great. Why am I losing my progress?” Wells said she began asking herself.
She credits her husband for ultimately helping to remind her that she was healthier than ever, and to stop worrying about the number on the scale, and that’s when she had her breakthrough moment six months ago.
“I used to get on a scale once a day, and it just became this huge mental block. I threw it out. It’s hard to think about all of the pressure I was putting myself under, and we all do it to ourselves. I wish someone would have told me that you shouldn’t be working out, and eating a certain way to look a certain way. Your body is amazing however it looks, and that shift in perspective was so important to me.”
The message Wells wants to leave with women: “I want women to love themselves, no matter. Women shouldn’t feel the need to look a certain way to feel confident and comfortable in their skin.”
Now, who is ready to #screwthescale?
