At its best, social media is a great way to keep up wit all your friends — and it can be a source of motivation and inspiration. But if you've ever felt drained and disheartened by the seemingly perfect lives people display on their Instagram accounts, you're not alone.That's why fitness blogger Sara Puhto wants you to know that all the "perfection" you see on your feed could simply be a trick of the camera angle. In a side-by-side comparison of one photo taken directly after the other, Puhto explained that the ideal "beach body" can sometimes just come down to a well-angled pose."These were taken a few seconds apart while I was at the beach the other day, the photo on the left is what I look like relaxed and not posing, basically how I look 99% of the time in a bikini!" she wrote on the caption. "And the one on the right is how I look in good lighting, flexed and posing." 

 Fitness blogger posts photo to prove a powerful point about 'bikini bodies' "Basically how I look 99% of the time in a bikini!" she wrote. 
 
 Instagram has quickly evolved from a way to keep up with your close friends and family to a way to gain motivation for your health and fitness goals for some. 
 
 But with that inspiration, there can sometimes be a false sense of reality developed. Fitness blogger Sara Puhto is fighting against those false realities by pointing out Instagram tricks to a better "bikini body" with her most recent post. 
 
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 "Not a transformation photo. These were taken a few seconds apart while I was at the beach the other day. The photo on the left is what I look like relaxing and not posing, basically how I look 99% of the time in a bikini," the young woman wrote. "And the one on the right is how I look in good lighting, flexed and posing." 
 
 She continued on to explain that her goal with the comparison photo is to point out to her 63,700 followers that it's easy to get caught up in other people's photos on Instagram, but people need to keep in mind that people "don't get caught up on how they look and compare that to your everyday relaxed body." 
 
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 This photo is among her many "Instagram versus reality" posts that she often does in between her own fitness blog photo posts. Puhto points out a wide range of Instagram myths from pointing out that everyone has rolls when they sit down to there is such thing as holiday bloating. To see more of Puhto and her fitness blog, click through the gallery above. 

 Fitness blogger Anna Victoria has built a business on being in shape. But she’ll be the first to point out that her body is far from what it appears to be on Instagram. 
 
 Victoria recently shared a side-by-side shot of herself in the same bikini on the social media site. In the first photo, she’s standing and posing in front of the mirror. In the second, she shows her (very normal) stomach rolls. 
 
 A photo posted by Snapchat: AnnaVictoriaFit (@annavictoria) on Jan 16, 2017 at 3:12pm PST 
 
 “Me 1% of the time vs. 99% of the time,” Victoria captioned the photo. “And I love both photos equally. Good or bad angles don’t change your worth.” 
 
 Victoria’s post is the latest to shut down the notion that perfect bodies on Instagram somehow represent real life. Fitness blogger Sara Puhto has also opened up about how the chiseled model bodies we see on the platform are often more about angles and good lighting than actual fitness. 
 
 It's a much-needed message of body positivity, given that social media has a tendency to exacerbate mental health issues like eating disorders. Experts say "fitspo" images can be harmful triggers that may encourage unhealthy lifestyles in reality. Approximately 20 million women and 10 million men will deal with an eating disorder at some in their lives, according to the National Eating Disorder Association. 
 
 Victoria urged her 1.2 million Instagram followers to rethink the way they approach their body’s so-called “flaws.” 
 
 “As I’m getting older, I have cellulite and stretch marks that aren’t going away, and I welcome them,” Victoria continued. “How can I be mad at my body for perfectly normal ‘flaws?’ This body is strong, can run miles, can lift and squat and push and pull weight around, and it’s happy not just because of how it looks, but because of how it feels.” 
 
 Amen to that.
– It's not far-fetched for fans of fitness blogger Sara Puhto, who has amassed more than 66,000 followers on Instagram, to think this image is a before-and-after montage. After all, she's done her fair share of such "transformation" photos. But in the recent post, she files a disclaimer at the top—"This is not a transformation photo"—and goes on to explain that a little lighting and posing is really all that differentiates two photos that were "taken a few seconds apart while I was at the beach the other day." Glamour notes that multiple bloggers and models are taking to social media to post similar "reality" pics. Puhto goes on to explain that her inspiration for sharing the side-by-side images is to show that it's "completely normal to not have abs or look lean all the time!" Refinery 29 says the post "makes the point that no matter how pressured we may feel to have an ideal body, even the bodies that are celebrated as 'ideal' aren't always real." Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle suggests that social networking sites like Instagram have come to contribute to "false realities" about how people look and feel. Puhto regularly chimes in with pics revealing, say, bloating after Christmas and belly rolls while sitting, but this latest post seems to have struck a chord, with more than 4,000 likes. (Glamour didn't photoshop Lena Dunham's thigh on this cover, and she loves the editors for it.)