The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast is hosted by Jenn Trepeck, discussing wellness and weight loss for real life, clearing up the myths, misinformation, bad science & marketing surrounding our nutrition knowledge and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store. In today’s episode, Jenn discusses perception vs. reality while using social media. Many people spend a lot of time on social media, but what is it really doing to our mental health? Focusing on others’ highlight reels can leave us envious, jealous, and trapped in a cycle of comparison and competition. In this episode, Jenn provides some insightful information and helpful tools for how we can handle social media intake and other people’s highlight reels to maintain a healthy relationship with it. Tune in today to learn how to change comparison into a healthy admiration and celebrate other’s joy!IN THIS EPISODE:●   [6:23] How have we lost the sense of what’s real in life? The overuse of autotune, facetune and filters. ●   [12:09] What is the balance between curated information and the over-sharer on social media?●   [16:05] With Twitch’s recent suicide, what have we learned about the highlight reel and what may be going on behind the scenes? ●   [20:26] We don’t know most of the people we are following; we only know the persona they are putting out there.●   [21:42] What do we see from celebrities on social media and their ads? ●   [31:08] What we see and assume based on someone’s posts is likely an inaccurate depiction of their life. ●   [37:06] How can we manage how we feel when looking at social media? ●   [40:20] What happens in our minds when looking at social media and magazines?  ●   [42:10] How do we recognize that our brains are wired to connect dots?●   [47:16] How do we experience comparison and competition from what we see on social media? How is comparison similar to admiration?   ●   [54:10] How do envy and jealousy differ?●   [57:47] What does Freudenfreude  mean and why do we need more of it in our lives?●   [1:01:30] What is Self Righteousness and how does it play into our wellness journeys?●   [1:04:10] What must we do to avoid issues with social media?  KEY TAKEAWAYS:●   What we see on social media is inaccurate, but it intensely impacts our life and perception of reality. Our brain likes to connect dots and makes assumptions - which leads us to believe that what people show themselves doing on social media is what they are doing every day of their life. ●   Comparing ourselves to others is 100% not a choice. We are hardwired to compare, and we will always do it. All we can do is be aware of it and choose how we let it affect us. ●   Finding admiration and joy in uplifting others is something that we can all benefit from. Surrounding yourself with people trying to do better and be better will help you move away from comparison, jealousy, and envy and move you towards working on yourself to become the best version of yourself (which is not a version of anyone else).QUOTES: “What we see, we assume, is somebody’s all the time. What we see somebody eat, we assume it's what they eat all the time. What somebody wears, what somebody is doing, any activity, like when somebody posts a video of themselves on a boat, we assume they are on a boat every day. There's something about those assumptions and filling in the blanks and filling in the dots; that’s part of this challenge.” - Jenn Trepeck “Women need other women who think they are a big deal, no competition, no backhanded comments, no jealousy, not hate, just I love you, I support you, and there’s no one on earth like you.” - Jenn Trepeck  “I just want everyone to think about and remember, especially as we look at wellness stuff, and especially as we make progress and progress through this year even, everybody is simply just doing the best they can in any given moment with the tools and knowledge, and information