Amanda Roberts is a 25-year-old mom who has been on an epic weight-loss journey. Starting at 330 pounds, Amanda has shed 150 pounds. But with that weight loss comes a lot of excess skin.
"I spent a lot of time working on loving myself with loose skin because… I always knew I would eventually need skin-removal surgery to deal with the rashes and such," Amanda told LittleThings "When I made the decision to love myself — as I was at that stage of my journey, loose skin and all — I think a lot of people were under the impression that I planned to keep my loose skin forever."
But Amanda decided that she would make the personal decision to remove the excess skin.
"When I announced that I was finally getting my loose skin removed through the show The Doctors, I had an outpouring of support, love, and understanding from my friends and followers who knew my story," she told LittleThings. "But of course, there were critics who would ask, 'If you love yourself and your loose skin so much, why are you removing it?'"
But while Amanda was proud of her decision, she received a lot of unnecessary backlash from strangers online. Many said that, if she loved herself, she shouldn't have changed her body. But since it's no one's decision but Amanda's, she wanted to explain exactly why she did it.
Amanda wasn't going to stay silent while people made rude remarks to her for changing her body. "Don’t let anyone shame you into staying the same if you want to change," she wrote on Instagram.
With a long caption, Amanda uploaded a set of photos from before and after her surgery. In her caption, she reminded people that it's no one's decision but yours if you want to change your body, and that you can love yourself even if you make the decision to get a surgery like she did.
Keep scrolling to see what Amanda had to say about her critics and her amazing transformation.
Amanda Roberts let her 70,000 Instagram followers in on her weight-loss journey.
"There were quite a few points where people would make very harsh, degrading comments about my body and journey," Amanda told LittleThings. "I very much felt like shutting down my Instagram and continuing my journey more privately." But she decided to keep posting.
The mom of one shared before-and-after photos of herself when she weighed 330 pounds and now at 185 pounds.
Amanda never hated her loose skin. In fact, she'd always made it known that she was proud of it.
"This was my body after losing 150lbs," she wrote in the caption for this photo. "Back when I had found love within myself for my loose skin and all of the hard work it represented."
But not everyone had nice things to say.
On October 21, 2017, Amanda uploaded a set of three photos at all different stages of her weight loss.
Amanda made the personal decision to get her excess skin removed — which she shows in her last photo.
But she received a ton of backlash from strangers about the decision.
"Some people would even try to discredit me as a Self Love activist and say that I never truly loved myself and that I was lying to all of my followers, which couldn't be further from the truth," she told LittleThings.
"I’m here to tell you that you are allowed to do WHATEVER you want with your body, and still love it," Amanda wrote on Instagram. "It’s YOUR body, YOUR life — not anyone else’s. So don’t let anyone shame you."
With that mentality, Amanda continued to be proud of her decision.
Amanda made it known that she loves herself at any weight and doesn't want anyone to shame people who are on a weight-loss journey.
"My biggest piece of advice would be to look at yourself in the mirror — I mean really look at yourself — every single day, and remind yourself that though you may never be 'perfect' by society's standards, you and your body are worthy and amazing," she told LittleThings.
As you can see, Amanda had a lot of excess skin after losing weight. Now, with surgery, she looks completely different but is happy to look either way.
"Appreciate where you came from, love who you are at every stage of your journey, and look forward to the future you will create for yourself," she wrote alongside this photo.
Amanda is proud of her body no matter what it looks like. But she has been grateful for what her body has done and how it has helped her.
"I haven't ever stopped loving myself because my self-love is much more than skin-deep," she told LittleThings.
She calls her loose skin a trophy of her weight loss.
"I've come so far in this journey. I've worked hard for this body, just as it has worked hard for me my entire life," she wrote.
With her surgery, Amanda now calls her scar a trophy for what she's achieved.
Amanda does admit that she deals with body dysmorphia after her surgery, but it hasn't stopped her from loving every inch of her body.
She told LittleThings:
The hardest part has been dealing with my body dysmorphia after surgery. I’ve spent almost all of my life in a body that was plus-size, and even after my weight loss, I still had a lot of loose skin that “imitated” a plus-size body. So, to suddenly be living life in a completely different body type after 20 years of living in my old body, it’s very disorienting and confusing at times.
"So many people have it ingrained in their mind that to be a part of the body positivity community, especially here on IG, they aren’t allowed to change," Amanda wrote. But Amanda's posts are slowly changing that mindset!
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