An 18-stone woman humiliated by her college crush after he told her “I’m not into fat girls” underwent an incredible transformation – and now he wants to date HER.
Amber Dickison was morbidly obese by her late teens after years of gorging on pizza, family-sized bags of potato chips and cookies.
Throughout school she was cruelly taunted by bullies who dubbed her “lard ass” and mocked her for being the biggest in the class.
Even so, brave Amber tried to shake off their nasty jibes and plucked up the courage to ask her college crush out on a date.
But when she suggested they go for coffee together in her first year of college, he frowned at her and said, “No, I’m not into fat girls.”
That night, Amber went home and cried herself to sleep – but the comment drove her to transform her unhealthy lifestyle.
She cut out junk food, switched burgers for salads, ditched sugary soda for water and started working out four times a week.
The 5ft2 economics graduate dropped 7.8stone from 18 stone to 10 stone, slimming down from a morbidly obese size 22 to a size 12 (UK).
And around two years later, when he saw how great Amber looked, the guy she was rejected by asked HER out – but she said no.
Amber, now 24, of Burnside, Kentucky, said: “I never thought I was that big but the teasing was so bad. It made me feel like I wasn’t even human.
“Every day I would eat a lot of fatty food but I didn’t do anything about it.
“I decided to lose the weight when I asked a guy out in school in my freshman year.
“We were friends and we were hanging out, and I asked him if he wanted to go for coffee. I was trying to be flirtatious.
“He frowned and said, ‘I’m just not interested. You’ve got a great personality but I’m not into fat girls. You’re not my type.’
“I was hurt and humiliated. I tried to shake it off and I didn’t cry in front of him, but I did cry later that night. I was really upset.
“I looked in the mirror and it hit me. I decided I needed to change.”
Amber cut out fatty foods, stopped guzzling full-fat soda and banned herself from snacking, cutting her calorie intake from 5,000 a DAY to 1,400.
She ate granola for breakfast instead of chocolate cereal and ate salads for lunch and dinner instead of pizza and burgers.
Within three months of the rejection in 2012, the Eastern Kentucky University student lost 40lbs and her friends began to notice.
Opening up about her journey for the first time, Amber said: “I felt so much better. I carried on with my new lifestyle and within three years I had lost 100lbs.
“A lot of people couldn’t even recognise me because my face changed so much.
“The guy I asked out did actually come onto me a few times after I lost around 50lbs but I was no longer interested.
“I thought, ‘I look great and feel fantastic.’ I had higher self-esteem. It wasn’t just me being petty, I told him, ‘Thank you for noticing, I worked hard.’
“While I knew he liked me, I was still shocked to actually hear those words come from his mouth.
“It made me feel pretty good about myself.
“It did feel good to reject him. It felt like I completed a quest, as ridiculous as that sounds.
“What he did was horrible at the time but it helped me change my life.”
Around five stone into her weight loss, Amber met a new man, Jack Hansma.
She and the 25-year-old health insurance worker hit it off and started dating, and now they are planning a future together.
Amber added: “If the guy I asked out had never said those things, I may have eventually lost the weight, but it might not have been until my late 20s or 30s.
“I’m actually in a new relationship now. It has given me a lot of confidence – I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
