Lady Gaga never shies away from showing off her body on social media, but she showed this week that she's not doing it to make others feel insecure.

The singer's weight has yo-yo'd in the past but she is currently slim and toned thanks to a love of yoga and hard work at the gym.

Posting on Instagram yesterday, Gaga looked thinner than ever, although she made sure to explain to fans that her concave stomach was something of an illusion.

Sharing a picture of herself doing a crab-like yoga pose with an elastic strip around her legs the star wrote, "Up early for hip exercise! I have to do these everyday to keep my hip strong, otherwise I have pain. (fyi I'm not really that thin it's just the stretch! Trust me! Haha)."

Back in 2013 Gaga was left in too much pain to walk after injuring her right hip during a performance on her world tour. She was eventually forced to cancel the rest of the tour and later underwent surgery to fix the problem.

However as is clear from her recent Instagram post, the singer still needs to do certain exercises regularly to keep herself pain-free.

It's no surprise that the Born This Way hitmaker is being cautious with what she says and does on social media of late, as last week she became the subject of some scrutiny following a controversial tweet about sunbeds.

Many users hit back at the star for "promoting" the use of tanning beds when she took to Twitter to write, "Diet, diet, diet, gluten-free, plant, bio, macro, whatever. Sometimes a girl just needs a diet coke and a tanning bed."

Although the tweet was never deleted, it was discussed by a number of high-profile media outlets, and we're sure the bad news made its way back to Gaga's camp eventually.