Sara Puhto has been posting “Instagram versus Reality” photos since 2016.
She started posting photos of her workout routines and fitness progress in 2015.
“I was posting fitness photos only, which consisted of me flexing my muscles and were all taken from my best angles,” she told Insider.
But she decided to switch things up when she noticed that fitness influencers only focused on working out in their posts.
Puhto felt insecure because of what she saw on Instagram.
“It made me feel insecure and bad about my body because I was comparing my body to theirs,” Puhto said of people she saw on social media.
“I realized that the photos that I was posting may have been making other people feel like this,” she said, adding that she was flexing in all of the photos and each one was taken from the best angle, and in the best lighting.
“I noticed that my body didn’t look like this 24/7, and decided to share my thoughts and what I really looked like most of the time,” Puhto said of her posts.
Puhto demystifies influencer poses in her posts.
“I started posting more body-positive photos in October of 2016, and have been doing so consistently since then,” she said.
“It has helped me realize that many of us pose in certain ways to make ourselves look better in photos,” Puhto added.
“When you suck in your tummy, flex, stand up straight, and pop out your booty, you look different in photos,” she said of common poses she sees on Instagram.
