ANGLES: Everything you see on Instagram is carefully curated by the poster

As soon as the clock hit midnight on New Year’s Eve, Instagram became inundated with pictures accompanied with the hashtag #NewYearNewMe.

Everywhere you looked were people sharing pictures of themselves at the gym, eating “clean” food and sharing ripped bikini snaps.

Instagram tends to be a highlight reel of someone's life. People only showing you the good bits – not the sneaky kebab they ate at 2am after a night drinking or the hours of sleep they lost because they can’t shake something from their mind.

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of it all, especially during the new year when over half of all Brits are concerned with trying to lose weight – the number one New Year’s resolution in the UK.

Scrolling through your feed of fitness accounts you’ve followed with good intention – to motivate you – can actually end up doing the complete opposite. These people you have never met before with their picture perfect bodies can be detrimental on your feelings towards your own.

But what we don’t think about at the time is that these photos have been carefully curated to look like that.

If it’s a model’s account, they know the poses to make to get them to look a certain way. The same can be said about fitness “gurus”, they have tried and tested poses that work every time.

GET REAL: Anna gets candid regularly with her followers

Creator of Fit Body Guides, Anna Victoria has amassed an impressive 1.2million-strong Instagram following by doing just that.

The fitness instructor posts pictures of her doing workouts along with a myriad of shots of her enviable physique.

After posting a picture of her standing in a bikini three days ago, Anna followed it up a day later with a candid confession telling the truth behind what we see on Instagram versus real life.

The second photo Anna posted was the one from the day before split-screened with a snapchat screenshot of her sitting down, belly roll visible and all. This photo has amassed over 311k likes.

REALITY CHECK: Anna Victoria gave her followers a reality check

“Me 1% of the time vs. 99% of the time. And I love both photos equally. Good or bad angles don’t change your worth. I recently came across an article talking about how one woman stated she refuses to accept her flaws, because she doesn’t see them as flaws at all,” Anna wrote.

“I LOVED that because it sends such a powerful message that our belly rolls, cellulite, stretch marks are nothing to apologise for, to be ashamed of, or to be obsessed with getting rid of!”

Anna, 28, continued saying as she gets older she has cellulite and stretch marks “that just won’t go away”.

“How can I be mad at my body for perfectly normal ‘flaws’?” she wrote.

“This body is strong, can run miles, can lift and squat and push and pull weight around, and it’s happy not just because of how it looks, but because of how it feels.”

This isn’t the first time Anna has opened up about her body. The fitness star regularly posts body-positive and reality-check posts on her feed.