Fitness Trainer's Before And After Lunch Photo Is An Important Lesson In Realism

I'm pretty sure if you took away all the side profile photos from fitness people on Instagram you'd be left with nothing other than about 10 cat pics but are these side-on snaps giving us some unrealisitic expectations?

Fitness trainer Sophie Allen lives in Sydney and boasts over 175,000 followers on her Instagram page. Recently she took to the platform to higlight how the pics you see of people's washboard abs may not be what you'd see if they photographed themselves at a different time.

As Sophie points out, your digestive system and numerous other factors can change the way your stomach looks throughout the day. Here's her before and after lunch.

So many of you have been reaching out with the most beautiful messages since sharing more of these 'real' type photos??. If these help break the perception that most people have flat stomachs around the clock, then I'll continue to post them ??... even though they attract a lot of hate + strange comments (stay tuned for my stories on that later ? book to come!!). - So, what is normal? I believe normal is defined differently by everyone, but if the vast majority of people experience what's going on in these photos (which they do), then it's pretty normal! Whilst bloating + water retention, expanding of the stomach and that full feeling may be common, ☝? it can be related to a number of other things too - poor digestion, sensitivity to certain foods, water retention, your cycle, drinking water too closely to meal time, leaky gut etc... when we think of health, gut health is KING ??. Bad gut = bad digestion, not absorbing nutrients from all that good food you're consuming "you aren't what you eat, you are what you digest" YES ???. - Shoutout if you experience this too? Let's me normal, or abnormal together.. however you perceive it! ???⚡️⚡️

A post shared by Sophie Allen (@sophactivelife) on Jul 11, 2017 at 4:09am PDT

She points out that 'normal' is not the normal you might think:

I believe normal is defined differently by everyone, but if the vast majority of people experience what's going on in these photos (which they do), then it's pretty normal! Whilst bloating + water retention, expanding of the stomach and that full feeling may be common, it can be related to a number of other things too - poor digestion, sensitivity to certain foods, water retention, your cycle, drinking water too closely to meal time, leaky gut etc... when we think of health, gut health is KING

It's important that we go easy on ourselves, given that our body changes throughout the day but if you're having prolonged bloating issues than there is plenty which can be done to ease that discomfort, as Allen points out: 'Bad gut = bad digestion, not absorbing nutrients from all that good food you're consuming "you aren't what you eat, you are what you digest"'.

hat-tip: viralthread