I was and am a curvy girl that wears crop tops, short skirts and bodycon dresses. I am a firm believer in the best way to get a bikini body is putting a bikini on my body.

My philosophy has been fostered by my parents and my love affair with clothes. My parents are chic, classic and effortlessly stylish, and as their child, they dressed me as such. I loved it. My mom was always in tailored dresses, pearls and swept up chignons tended to mirror my dad’s style, tailored slacks, button downs, and Ray-ban aviators.

I was always and still am that person who loved to dress up and look beautiful. I loved going shopping with my mom, and I loved watching her get ready to go out. In fact, my mother was always advising that one always looks her best in heels, and she wore hers during her entire pregnancy with me. When I was born, the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around my neck. My mom’s logic: Amanda just came into the world accessorized.

This fostered my love for fashion. I soon would shop along with my mom, I’d pour over fashion magazines for the best looks to recreate, never paying much attention to the size of the women modeling the clothing. It wasn’t always glossy magazines and great fitting button fly Levi’s. I had to develop a thick skin, between getting clothes that were two sizes too small or two sizes too big for Christmas presents, or getting backhanded compliments about my style choices, like “I would never be able to pull that off. You must be more confident than me.”

In fact, I am confident. My parents always made sure that I felt comfortable in my own skin. There they were, always telling my how beautiful I was, but most importantly celebrating my positive character and personality traits. I learned that my worth was far deeper than my soft stomach, chubby cheeks and thunder thighs.

For Amanda, when other people are concerned about covering her “rolls,” it’s clearly their problem not hers.

The problem is, as I became more comfortable in my body, with the encouragement of my parents, others didn’t. Point is: most people are just socially conditioned to believe only size two’s can pull off a bikini. Even friends of mine reach over to pull down my skirt, or saying “wouldn’t you be more comfortable with a jacket on?”

To this day, I am surprised at the amount of confidence people have when they react negatively to my body. Most of the time, it’s covert, almost in a nice way. If I had a dollar for every time a woman has said “Wow, you must be very confident to wear that,” I would be able to buy a pair of black stiletto Louboutin’s to go along with my disruptive clothing.

Most recently, I was at a dinner party for a girlfriend’s bachelorette party. We decided to all dress up for dinner and I had the perfect dress, a black infinity floor length dress that I choose to style backless. Rolls and all. During the dinner my girlfriend and I went to the restroom. The hostess sees us and says “both of you are beautiful” but as I walk past her I guess my back was too disruptive for the dining customers, she places her hand on my shoulder and says “stop” and begins to fix my dress to cover my back rolls.

In shock, I let her do what she felt was right. I didn’t let it ruin my night, on the contrary, I let it roll off my fabulously curvaceous back. Clearly, her problem not mine.

I await the day that people won’t be concerned with what parts of my body are not covered in a way that makes them comfortable. I didn’t let that Olive Garden hostess stop me from having a great night with some great people, and celebrating a momentous occasion. I ate those delicious breadsticks, and looked fabulous doing so.