She looks like she's lost age as well.

True. Here is a gallery of more Imgur weight loss pics: http://imgur.com/gallery/SqZJN

From Reddit: "Just stalked her Instagram she posted below [..] and it appears that these two pics are actually two years apart ..."

Two years is still impressive.

Bethany's Instagram: http://instagram.com/Bethanyruehls

2 years is impressive... it's also more realistic.  No way she could've lost that in 1 year w/o major health problems

Agreed. Here's another Imgur weight loser who took two years:

And another.

And another.

Bottom line: real, sustainable weight loss takes years.

Weight loss pictures explained:

Mel, an Australian personal trainer and owner of MelVFitness, was fed up with misleading "Before and After" pictures used to sell fitness programs and diet pills.

Inspired by a similar project by personal trainer Andrew Dixon, Mel decided to make her own transformation in under 15 minutes (via Gawker).

All it took was better posture, some tanning lotion, and black bathing suit bottoms:

"Check out my transformation! It took me 15 minutes," Mel wrote to her followers on Instagram.

"Wanna know my secret? Well firstly I ditched the phonewallet (fwallet) cause that *** is lame, swapped my bather bottoms to black (cause they're a size bigger and black is slimming), smothered on some fake tan, clipped in my hair extensions, stood up a bit taller, sucked in my guts, popped my hip, threw in a skinny arm, stood a bit wider #boxgap, pulled my shoulders back and added a bit of a cheeky/I'm so proud of my results smile. Zoomed in on the before pic, zoomed out on the after and added a filter. Cause filters make everything awesome."

She also followed up with a blog post on how misleading transformation pictures can be, and the dangers of having unrealistic expectations for quick results.

"What a before and after shot doesn’t tell you how the person achieved it," she writes. "It doesn’t tell you if they did it a healthy way or if they starved themselves for weeks on end to get there."

"It also doesn’t show you the persons mental state, their self worth, how the hours of exercise they did, the lifestyle change, the early mornings, the skipped lunches, how they handled social situations or how many skinny mini teas they chugged," Mel adds.

More: 

http://pandawhale.com/post/25745/lose-weight-in-only-15-minutes-by-changing-your-stance-hair-clothes-camera-zoom-and-filter

Facebook ads for "fast weight loss" is easily faked, so don't believe the ads:

This is what she says about the two photos:

In the first picture the bathing suit does not fit me well and is a heinous colour. See how the darker, more supportive bathing suit is instantly slimming.

Also notice the long hair down one side in the "after" picture. That plus the smiling face makes a huge difference.

In addition to standing with better posture, I've added some bronzer and oil to contour the natural curves of my body (+ some abs). Flexing my legs and turning them out fakes a "thigh gap".

And finally, notice the different scale of the two pictures. You can almost see my feet in the "after" picture - and did you notice that I'm wearing nude heels?

If this can be done in 30 minutes with only products in my bathroom, imagine what a team and some photoshop can do! It's healthy to set goals for yourself and to want to get fit - but you can't get REAL results in as fast as these ads claim.

Imgur comments: http://imgur.com/XeSPMsw

Reddit comments:

http://reddit.com/r/pics/comments/20z11f/for_everyone_out_there_like_myself_who_is_getting/

Strength training plus cardio beats cardio-only:

http://pandawhale.com/post/47258/you-cant-serve-two-masters-the-miss-fits