Getting trapped in a trampoline park in front of everyone was the moment Amber realized she could no longer go on as she had been.
Amber Uhler weighed as much as 136 kilos and had already received a rather serious warning from her doctor: if she continued down that path, she could end up facing an “early death”. But there was another experience that finally shook her. During a visit to a trampoline park, she became trapped in a foam pit, and not even three men managed to get her out.
Amber decided to change her habits and began a process that over the following five years led her to lose around 77 kilos. Along the way, she also began to imagine something that at the time seemed very far away: someday taking part in a beauty pageant.
And she did it. At 41, she became Miss Michigan and made it all the way to Miss USA, where she was also the oldest contestant in the competition.
Five years earlier, she had needed people to try to pull her out of a foam pit. Now she was onstage competing for the Miss USA crown.