Woman's Side-By-Side Instagram Proves Your Scale Can't Tell If You're Healthy

Your bathroom scale is not your ally. Let's be very clear about that.

Really, it's more like the backstabbing friend you had in middle school. Remember her? She'd tell you nothing but compliments, maybe even braid you a friendship bracelet, but when the chips were down and someone said your Halloween costume was weird, she was nowhere to be found. Who knew Benedict Arnold really wore Keds?

Like that fickle companion, your scale is playing games with you. It sits there all peaceful and sleek, tempting you to step on just before your shower in case that banana oatmeal you had for breakfast yesterday really did clean out your system. Maybe, just maybe, you'll be a pound lighter.

Should you fall prey to the oldest of tricks, you'll be disappointed. If it's mid-morning, your gut's gurgling away digesting breakfast, which will likely tack on a pound or two. Unfortunately for you, that's just how the human body works.

For fitness blogger and interior designer Kelsey Wells, that lesson took time to learn.

Wells, who reaches just under 300,000 followers with every post, is best known as the face (and bod) behind My Sweat Life. In attempting to reclaim her body after gaining more than 50 pounds during a pregnancy, Wells picked up Kayla Itsines' cult-status Bikini Body Guide (BBG) and went to work.

On July 26, after 84 continuous weeks of BBG, Wells uploaded a striking Instagram listing her start weight (144 pounds), lowest weight two months after giving birth (122 pounds) and current weight (140 pounds). Three photos illustrate Wells' progress, and it's clear she's not only cut fat but built noticeable muscles.

Today, she weighs almost the same as she did before BBG, but has the body of an entirely different person.

And as for that low weight in the middle, hit during the first months of BBG, Wells says it felt like success. But, as she became more toned, that weight came back.

Moral of the story? Your weight effectively means nothing. Two scale readings have looked totally different on Wells' 5 foot 7 frame. It makes sense, considering Itsines' own advice is to take full-body progress shots instead of stepping on the bathroom scale.

Wells wrote in her Instagram caption,

I weighed 130 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. Well after a few months of BBG and breastfeeding, I HIT IT and I fit into those size 0 jeans. Well guess what? I HAVE GAINED 18 POUNDS SINCE THEN. EIGHT FREAKING TEEN... 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.

Using the colorful (and accurate) tag #ScrewTheScale, Wells encouraged her followers to stop equating weight with self-worth or progress.

That's a message every woman could use. Wells, who recently posed as a fitness model for Cosmopolitan, is a walking, talking body-image role model.