A Fitness Blogger Showed How To Get A Flatter Stomach In 30 Seconds To Explain How Instagram Photos Are Faked

By now we’ve hopefully learned that Instagram is full of fakery and tricks all in the name of gaining followers and landing semi-lucrative product endorsement deals. Those hot girls who look almost perfect in their bikinis? The people who seem to be on a permanent vacation and living the island life every day? That girl who claims she went from a fluffy 200 pounds to a svelte 130 by wrapping plastic wrap around her stomach? All bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit. And while legitimate models like Emily Ratajkowski aren’t faking it nearly as hard as all the Insta-amateurs, you’d be surprised at what lengths people go to achieve the perfect picture. Just look at Essa O’Neill, who admits that for some of her photos she would go DAYS without eating:

But now Instagram fitness blogger “plankingforpizza,” known to her friends simply as Jess, has come out to expose more lies about the Insta-amateurs. The following two photos were taken only 30 seconds apart, yet look almost night-and-day different:

🚨 This is not a transformation photo 🚨 This week I've decided to do the 30 second transformation photo. These pics were taken second apart this morning. On the left my posture is poor, I'm pushing my belly out as far as possible, I adjusted my bottoms to show my gross, unsightly and horrid love handles. These are often concealed by my high waisted pants and bottoms that do fit so much better now. As much as it pains me to showcase these, it also proves that my body isn't perfect and that I still have work to do and fat to lose (I'm working so hard to get rid of my love handles and lower tummy fat. Yes it has dramatically reduced already but it still exists and I'm still insecure about it). On the right I'm standing straight and comfortably. I'm lightly flexing and I've adjusted my bottoms to hide my love handles. I'm thankful for bikini bottoms that now fit well and hide these but I'm also trying to show that they still exist quite a bit and that not everything we see meets the eye here on social media. You can show you best angles and hide your flaws but at the end of the day what we chose to showcase is a reflection of ourselves. My body isn't perfect. I still have imperfections and flaws that I'm slowly learning to be comfortable with. I want to be real and honest and open. Yes I've accomplished a lot, but yes my body still has less than ideal days when it doesn't look its best. Fitness and health is not a fix. It's not a destination. It's a lifestyle. If you force your progress you know who you are cheating?! You. You only cheat you. Yes I like to show my best most of the time but I've also realized by not showing my worst that it only harms myself. Being vulnerable and imperfect is hard but lying to yourself is worse. I know I'm hard on myself, it's a flaw on its own, but I'm slowly learning to be gentle and kind but it starts with being truthful to myself and knowing and understanding my imperfections and realizing that, although they exist, they don't define me. I am not a before picture. I am not an after picture. I am not fat nor am I perfect. I'm flawed. I'm scarred. I'm insecure. But I'm learning and I'm hopeful that one day I'll fully love me 💕

A photo posted by Jess: My Fitness Journal (@plankingforpizza) on Feb 9, 2016 at 7:03am PST

Explaining how she achieved the two different photos, Jess writes that for the first photo she pushed her stomach out as far as possible, adjusted her bikini bottoms to accentuate her love handles and had poor posture. As for the right photo, taken 30 seconds after the left, Jess says that she’s standing straight and comfortably, I’m lightly flexing and I’ve adjusted my bottoms to hide my love handles.”

The world needs more breaths of fresh air like Jess, who don’t care how “perfect” the image is that they’re sending out to the world. Newsflash: life isn’t perfect – and neither is Instagram.

[H/T Metro]