The scale is not a fitness metric. It is a gravity metric. It tells you how much your body weighs at that moment, which shifts based on hydration, salt intake, food timing, and hormonal cycles — none of which reflect whether training is producing results. Kayla Bonkowski has been tracking her own progress since 2021 and stopped relying on the scale to tell the whole story a long time ago. She is based in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
This is not a soft point about feelings and body positivity, though those things matter too. It is a practical observation about measurement. If the metric you are using to assess progress does not reliably track the thing you are trying to change, you are not measuring progress. You are measuring noise.
The Metrics That Tell You Something Real
Performance metrics are specific and honest. A workout that used to take you twelve minutes now takes you ten. A weight that used to be your maximum is now your working set. A movement you could not do at all is now something you can string together for reps.
These numbers reflect actual physical adaptation. They do not fluctuate based on how much water you drank yesterday. When Bonkowski competes at LexArtis CrossFit events — including Battle of the Boxes and No Boys Allowed — the result is a clear, external measure of where her fitness actually is. Not what it looks like. What it does.
That kind of accountability is hard to fake. You either moved the weight or you did not. You either finished the workout in time or you did not. The leaderboard does not curve.
Body Composition vs. Body Weight
Body composition and body weight are different things. Body weight is the sum of everything: muscle, fat, bone, water, food currently being digested. Body composition is the ratio of lean mass to fat mass. These two numbers can move in opposite directions.
Someone who begins strength training often gains muscle while losing fat. Their weight stays approximately the same. On the scale, nothing happened. In their body, significant adaptation occurred. They are stronger, they move better, they have more metabolically active tissue. The scale missed all of it.
Bonkowski has dropped more than 70 pounds through CrossFit training since 2021. She is direct about the fact that the number on the scale is not what she tracks now. She trains in Macomb, Michigan, and the relevant question at her current level is what her body can do, not what it weighs.
What You Notice That the Scale Cannot Measure
There are everyday metrics that carry more practical information than the scale. How your clothes fit tells you about body composition with more specificity than a single weight number. How you recover between training sessions tells you about sleep, nutrition, and overall load. How you feel at the beginning of a workout versus how you feel at the end tells you about fitness capacity in a way that no static measurement can.
Kayla Bonkowski earned her undergraduate psychology degree at Rochester College — Cum Laude, 2017 — and applies behavioral science to this question directly: how she thinks about metrics: the measurement you use determines the behavior you reinforce. If the only metric you track is the scale, you will chase scale movement. That is not always the same as optimizing for fitness.
Building a Better Measurement Practice
Pick two or three performance metrics and track them over months, not days. A max deadlift. A running benchmark. The number of consecutive pull-ups. These numbers tell you whether the training is working in a way that matters.
Track sleep and recovery quality as secondary variables. Poor sleep will show up in performance before it shows up anywhere else.
Weigh yourself if you want to. Just do not let that number be the primary signal. It is one data point in a larger picture, and it is often the least informative one. Kayla Bonkowski is in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and she has learned this the practical way. The scale is not the story. What you can do is.