JESSICA PACK IS an architect who has been chronicling her fitness journey on Instagram since 2015.
She has over 51,000 followers and regularly posts photos like this.
Earlier this week, she posted an image of herself in a bikini.
At first glance, it looked like one of those typical before-and-after photos.
But, as the caption revealed, it was anything but that.
Instead, Pack posted the photo to highlight what a difference thirty seconds makes.
This is not a transformation photo. This week I’ve decided to do the 30 second transformation photo. These pics were taken second apart this morning.
By simply adjusting her posture and pulling up her bikini bottoms, she was able to change her appearance quite dramatically.
On the left my posture is poor, I’m pushing my belly out as far as possible, I adjusted my bottoms to show my gross, unsightly and horrid love handles. These are often concealed by my high waisted pants and bottoms that do fit so much better now.
On the right I’m standing straight and comfortably. I’m lightly flexing and I’ve adjusted my bottoms to hide my love handles. I’m thankful for bikini bottoms that now fit well and hide these but I’m also trying to show that they still exist quite a bit and that not everything we see meets the eye here on social media.
She added that she wanted to be “real and honest and open” in the future.
Being vulnerable and imperfect is hard but lying to yourself is worse. I know I’m hard on myself, it’s a flaw on its own, but I’m slowly learning to be gentle and kind but it starts with being truthful to myself and knowing and understanding my imperfections and realizing that, although they exist, they don’t define me.
I am not a before picture. I am not an after picture. I am not fat nor am I perfect. I’m flawed. I’m scarred. I’m insecure. But I’m learning and I’m hopeful that one day I’ll fully love me
The post has received thousands of likes, and has been featured in publications like Buzzfeed, Elite Daily and Teen Vogue. Commenters have praised Pack for demonstrating that not everyone on Instagram is “perfect”.
I respect you so much for being real and sharing things like this!
Truth. I hope this encourage everyone to be honest to themselves and able to embrace their flaws.
As for Pack? She’s been a little overwhelmed by the attention, but has been making good on her promise of staying “real”.
For transparency sake, I really don’t like the way my stomach looks here, and I almost didn’t post this. But I reminded myself that it is perfectly ok to be a work in progress.
More of this, please.
