Instagram fitness models and trainers have become celebrities, with young women and men following their pages religiously for #inspo.
But, we know that it's not real – 'before' and 'after' pictures taken minutes apart exposed the illusion of the transformation shot.
![From ripped to rolls in two minutes.](/web/20161106201427im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/8/6/v/d/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gp83gp.png/1464753454250.jpg)
![Andrew Dixon](http://web.archive.org./web/20161106201427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/8/6/v/b/image.imgtype.articleLeadwide.620x349.png/1464672076419.png)
Posture, tensing muscles, a quick application of fake tan or make-up and even changing your hair or clothing can create the photographic illusion of months of hard work in a matter of minutes.
Even in shots that are not 'transformational', we rarely post the pictures where we have chin rolls, a muffin top or look like an ewok.
In fact, there are articles dedicated to teaching you how to untag yourself from unflattering pics that some 'friend' has uploaded of us (generally pics that they happen to look sensational in) and plenty of instructionals on how to take the perfect selfie. There are even perfect filters for increasing 'likes' on your photos (Mayfair, Valencia, Hefe, Nashville and Aden, in case you're wondering), according to science.
It turns out that angle makes a massive difference too.
The shots of one Instagram personal trainer and fitness model have made headlines for making a point about perfect-looking pictures.
"[The] picture on the left was taken one week before the wedding," Anna Victoria captioned a split picture Instagram. "And the picture on the right was taken ... 2 minutes after! Somebody recently said to me that we all have our good angles and we all have our bad angles, so why do we let our bad angles carry so much more weight than our good angles?
"If you focus on how bad you look in the bad angles, at least focus on how good you look in the good ones too!" she added in the post to her one million followers.
She told the Today show in America that the post was about transparency.
"You see all these women on Instagram and you don't really know that they're posed," she said. "Girls see that, and they think, 'This is what that woman looks like 24/7.' And that's not true."
Anna Victoria, a Californian living in Rome, added:
"For me, I'm posing, and then I go sit down, and I have this belly. I almost feel like it's not fair for girls to see pictures of me posed and then not know that when I sit down I look like a normal person. You can barely tell I have abs!"
"I'm not saying, boohoo, look at my bad angles," she said. "It's more about knowing that with pictures, there's more than meets the eye, and that the pictures you see online are posed. It's more about the message than it is about me."
And the message is to remember that reality is never as perfect as the picture.
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