Numbers can be nerve-racking, and no, this not a reference to the nightmares of waking up from a math exam. When it comes to health, numbers are scary, be it the number you have increased or decreased in your waistline, to the number of calories and finally the number on those weighing scales.
So let’s take it from a mum who won her fame by saying, #ScrewtheScale on her Instragram page. This mum is Kelsey Wells, a 26-year-old blogger and architect, in Houston, Texas, who has taken the Internet by storm and become the hottest fitness sensation out there, with a over 300,000 followers.
She was around 60 kilograms before her pregnancy and after giving birth to a beautiful baby, she wanted to have her body feel light and gorgeous again.
So she signed up for the 72-week long, Kayla Itsines’s Bikini Body Guide (BBG) Exercise Program, along with photos of her progress posted online side by side, as classic before-after shots.
In the first photo we see Kelsey, when she was 8 weeks post partum and around 66 kilograms, and in the second photo she is down to 55 kilograms, with the hope that she would fit into her skinniest jeans again.
However, 21 months after committing to BBG program, with the sculpted body of a Greek deity, with toned arms and solid core abs, she admits to having gained around 8 kilograms of muscle mass, even after reaching her goal weight.
She said, “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.”
Although gaining almost 2 kilograms more than her ideal body weight, she urged those that followed her by saying that she enjoys a totally different body composition and more muscle mass and less body fat than she ever did.
So as a shout-out to all mums and even young girls, here are some tips Kelsey gives those of us trying to lose that flab or even just gain some weight:
1st: Screw the Scale- which means, stop thinking about every number that scale shows you or your jeans size tells you. Do not have a quantitative goal in mind, but a qualitative one, such as, how much healthier you have become.
2nd: Love the Skin you’re in- think about how you look and MOST importantly how you feel, she says, “Please stop letting your weight affect your self-esteem.”
3rd: Rigid Body Standards- Do not compare yourself to your old body standards as something to be. This is a chance to renew yourself, so work on it as you go along and love it for what it makes you.
4th: Progression- think about how well you’re doing, and your only measures should be your stamina, strength, ability, endurance, health, and most importantly how HAPPY you feel. Take photos and videos of yourself, and see how they change as you go. See how many push-ups you have increased since you started out and how many repetitions you can do now.
5th: Start with Simple- do not jump the gun, Kelsey herself started with resistance sessions and three-aerobics in a week as part of the BBG program.
6th: Pesky Little Voice- there is always that little voice in your head saying you cannot do it or make it, just say to that voice, “Screw you”, as you did to the scales and numbers that once scared you.
The freedom that comes with not caring about how much you weigh is worth it, as are you.
