Fitness Blogger's Side-by-Side Photos Remind Us It's Normal for Our Stomachs to Expand Throughout the Day

Social media can be a tool to get some positive reinforcement into your life… or a way to surround yourself with a lot of toxic messages. But more and more bloggers are taking a stand against the toxic messages that social media can bring to their followers. One fitness blogger, in particular, is taking it a step further by using Instagram posts to remind us that our “food babies” are perfectly normal.

Instagram fitness blogger saggysara, or  Sara Puhto, uses her platform to educate her followers about fitness, eating, and general wellness. Previously, she has used side-by-side imagery to debunk misleading booty pics-which we love her for.

And the day after Thanksgiving, when many of us feel guilt and shame over the amount of delicious food we ate, she made an important statement about how bloat actually works in bodies. Because having a “food baby” is totally normal.

The IG post is a collage of Sara at three different times in the same 24-hour period. She took the first picture in the morning after working out, the second picture after eating a full dinner., and the third after working out again the next morning. As you can see, the shape and size of her stomach fluctuates.

In her caption, Sara writes:

“I know I get pretty bloated looking after I eat a lot and that used to really upset me because I thought there was something wrong with me and that nobody else's tummy looked like this after eating but I realised its just not shown or talked about a lot.”

“So I just wanted to show what my relaxed food baby tummy looks like compared to my empty, post workout tummy. I'm learning to love my body in ALL its forms, not just when it looks lean and toned because I know I don't look like that all day. It's time for me to love and appreciate the body I have and stop striving for 'perfection'”

Many people, especially young teens, go to social media to get validation or images of perfection to compare themselves to, when that can be incredibly harmful. Instead, we need more images of real bodies, imperfections and all, on our newsfeeds. So thank you, Sara!

 

This article originally appeared on HelloGiggles.com.