,If you are anything like me, your Instagram and Twitter feeds are loaded with those fitness people who you'd die to look like, supplement companies, and healthy recipes. Every app you see has something relating to weight loss, workouts or diet plans, and every perfect selfie you see looks as though it could be on the cover of a magazine. Alright, maybe I follow one too many fitness accounts, but nonetheless, it’s everywhere, and it’s always portrayed to be perfect. While these social media accounts inspire, motivate, and teach their followers to lead healthier lifestyles, not all but many accounts only show you their good days not their bad. They're days where they have washboard abs first thing in the morning. They don't show how their body reacts to the food and water intake throughout the day. A lot of accounts have become so unrealistic.

Everyone on social media has a perfect "toned" body right? They don't sweat; they glisten. It’s hard to feel good about yourself and your progress when you’re staring at women with flawless proportions (often with help from Photoshop and implants). Many of these women, who flaunt their “healthy” physique, are not honest about the lives they actually lead; often these women are malnourished and over-trained, despite the big smile for the camera. I am not saying that there are not those girls on social media who aren't this way. For instances Nikki Blacketter and Emily Hayden who are two fitness models that I strongly look up to. They tell you how it is, they take you through the motions, the sweat, the tears, EVERYTHING. They don't post pictures to look perfect all the time. Your body is not going to be perfect every minute of the day. You're going to be bloated you're going to gain weight etc. IT'S LIFE.

I don't only look up to those two I also look up to the girls around me that are into fitness as well. Like my good friend Sarah whose challenges are what actually got me really into the fitness industry. She's not one to make herself look "perfect" just for social media. She's real. She's taught me that it's OKAY to live life and not have perfectly sculpted abs because FOOD and living are what's most important. She's human just like we all are.(Thank you, Sarah) What I am trying to get at is watch who you follow and who you decide to look up to because those girls who you claim to be "perfect" aren't. . I don't care what anyone says EVERYONE struggles and has hard days. The unrealistic standards are ridiculous as social media becomes more and more popular and it kills me to see some girls get so upset if they don't look like a certain person. I've been there so I do understand but I have come to the terms that you have to be your OWN goals.

I shouldn’t nor should you have to be concerned about opening Instagram and seeing a naked picture. Fitness influences often post extremely revealing posts with a caption like, “Had a great workout today,” or, “Got such a good glute pump,” when the post has nothing to do with fitness at all. When fitness models and athletes post provocative pictures, it gives the wrong message about health and wellness, especially to younger followers, or to people just beginning their fitness journeys. Fitness is not an R-rated lifestyle; so it shouldn’t be advertised as one either.

While aesthetics is the goal of most fitness-based lifestyles, it is not a means by which to falsely advertise. Many fitness influences sell online programs and coaching by posting a picture of themselves with the caption, “sign up for my thirty day challenge,” or, “custom diet plans available now on my website,” as if the thirty-day challenge is what got their bodies where they are. While these workout guides and diet plans can be extremely useful and motivating tools, they are falsely advertised and the “coaches” are often under qualified it takes a hell of a lot longer then 30 days to reach what those fitness models look like. Before you spend your money on a plan or a coach make sure you do you research or else you will be wasting a lot of money.

Fitness is an individual journey. There is no one “right” way to diet or exercise because every person’s body is different and every person’s passions, struggles, and goals are different. Social media makes it easy to forget about the individual journey, and all too easy to compare it besides a photo-shopped picture. Social media gives these models/influences the power to create the perfect life, regardless if it’s true or posed, and use their bodies to promote exploitation, superficial satisfaction, and unrealistic standards of beauty, discipline, and lifestyle.

It's great that the expansion of social media has made fitness so widespread in todays world, but don't believe everything you see/read online. Filters hide a lot of pain tears and struggles don't get caught up in them.