Why No One Believes This Woman's Butt Is Real
When Liza Parker, a 29-year-old from Ontario, Canada, posted a before-and-after photo of herself to celebrate her one-year anniversary of following Instagram fitness star Kayla Itsnines’s Bikini Body Guides (BBG), Kayla regrammed the progress post to her own 5.2+ million followers:
When Parker realized her photo had been reposted, she was completely stoked. “I’ve posted many progress pictures over the past year, and to see that [Kayla] noticed mine made me feel great,” said Parker, whose journey has been a long one. Riddled with body insecurities and an obsession with her weight, she used to eat restrictively and exercise obsessively, which left her feeling tired and weak.
But after three rounds of practicing Kayla’s 12-week fitness program, increasing her weights each round, Parker got so excited about her physical progress - including booty gains - that she stopped weighing herself altogether.
“This is the best pic yet,” one user commented, comparing Parker’s transformation to the ones Kayla typically regrams, which tend to showcase weight loss - not muscle gains. “The other ones don’t show that their butt developed from exercising, but this one does.”
While Kayla’s shout-out earned Parker some 3,000 extra followers over the course of three days, the response wasn’t all positive. Instead of applauding her hard work, many commenters on Instagram and Facebook, where her photo was also posted, accused her of Photoshopping the pictures and getting surgical enhancements - two accusations Parker calls “absolutely false.”
“I tried to accentuate my gains with my shorts and pose because I was proud,” she said. “But it doesn’t take away the fact that I have made gains.”
Not willing to let strangers discredit her efforts, she responded by posting a video - “a message to the haters just to show that this is me,” she says. The video features her butt shown from a variety of angles to prove that one super-flattering shot doesn’t make your body any less real.
Because literally everyone shares only their best angles when they post, Parker’s message really resonated. Although she began with fewer than 18,000 followers, the video racked up more than 70,000 views. “I still can’t get over the response from my video,” she said. “All of this feels pretty surreal now. [But] my emotional wellbeing has truly been what I’m most proud of.” How’s that for #real?
Get all the ~FiTsPiRaTiOn~ directly in your feed.
More from Cosmopolitan:
Follow Facebook.com/CosmoBod.
