29-year-old Amanda Kurtz broke 200 pounds when she was only 12 years old. By the time she was 16, she weighed 330 pounds. It wasn’t until she couldn’t fit into seats in hockey stadiums that Kurtz realized just how large she’d become.
“I hit a point like, ‘Wow, my favorite thing to do I can’t even enjoy it because of my weight. I need to do something,’” she recalled.
Now, Kurtz is on a massive weight loss goal, doing everything from undergoing a vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) back in May to dieting and working out.
The VSG procedure significantly reduces the size of a person’s stomach, ensuring that they eat less food so they can more effectively lose weight, but isn’t necessarily for everyone.
For Kurztz, after having joined various weight loss programs with little success, surgery seemed to be her best option.
In the days leading to the operation and every single one following, Kurtz has shared each step of her journey – big or small, bad or good – on her Instagram for everyone to see and better understand how the weight loss process actually goes.
For instance, although VSG does help people lose weight – it comes at a price. Kurtz wasn’t able to eat solid food for weeks leading up to and following the procedure.
Just 14 weeks ago, Kurtz shared some side-by-side photos of herself at her heaviest (when she was a 16-year-old weighing 330 pounds) and after she’d lost over 100 pounds, post-op (when she was 28). “Oh and I'm wearing a LARGE SHIRT!!! I haven't been less than xl in about 50 million years!!” she adds in the caption.
11 weeks later, Kurtz hit up Instagram again, this time to share her emotional expression when she realized she’d finally dropped to less than 200 pounds.
Although Kurtz has hit many milestones already, she still knows that she has a long way to go on her weight loss journey.
She isn’t, however, discouraged by these prospects. When asked, she explained, “I’d hoped that I would get to this point, and it’s kind of been a mind game since surgery. The changes have happened so fast, and I’m still trying to catch up with everything. But I feel so much better about myself in almost every aspect.”
Kurtz’s ultimate goal is to have a BMI of 24 – and we have no doubt she’ll get there.
