- Title: MEXICO: World's most obese man slims down, plans walkabout
- Date: 14th May 2008
- Summary: MONTERREY, MEXICO (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF MANUEL URIBE TALKING TO NEIGHBOUR GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS CERTIFICATE HANGING ON THE WALL URIBE BRUSHING HAIR GENERAL VIEW OF URIBE'S ROOM URIBE TALKING ON PHONE GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS CERTIFICATE HANGING ON THE WALL AND PORTRAIT OF URIBE URIBE SHOWING FAT (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MANUEL URIBE, SAYING: "Before, my diet was very unbalanced. I used to eat a lot of carbohydrates, pizza, junk food like hamburgers, french fries, a lot of beans, a lot of rice. Food with a lot of carbohydrates. Now I know a lot more - because I've been taught how much food influences your body - that I didn't know about before. So, I ate a lot of food that made me gain weight during many years. So now I know what effect a certain food has on your body and it's very interesting because you choose food depending on what you need, and imagine the results I've had because I've lost many kilos. I'm much healthier every day, that's interesting. My cholesterol levels are fine, I'm very healthy." MEDICAL APPARATUS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MANUEL URIBE, SAYING: "My body continues to loose corporal fat, but I'm gaining muscles, that I didn't have before. You can notice my strength and my muscles now. Why muscle? Because the proteins that I'm eating are helping me. I haven't lost much weight because I'm gaining muscular mass. I will eventually get rid of all the fat from my body and I'm going to be physically fine." URIBE TALKING TO WOMAN EXTERIOR OF URIBE'S ROOM
- Embargoed: 29th May 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Health
- Reuters ID: LVA7M0GKTGJM8A6AANXNR5CXB0Z8
- Story Text: Manuel Uribe, once known as the world's fattest man, tries to set a new record for losing weight.
Mexico's Manuel Uribe, once the world's most obese man, is now vying for a different record: the human who has lost the most weight.
His bed can be seen from an open door at street level, where he likes to chat with his neighbors to stop the boredom. His Guinness World Records certificate hangs on the wall.
Uribe, who weighed as much as a small truck at more than half a tonne, is dieting while confined to a reinforced bed that he has not left for the past six years because he is so heavy.
He has lost 518 pounds (235 kilos) since March 2006 on a diet of grapefruits, egg-white only omelets, fish, chicken, vegetables and peanuts.
Uribe spent the 1990s guzzling pizzas, burgers and fizzy drinks in the United States, working as a computer repairman.
Addicted to junk food, he eventually bulged to 1,235 pounds (560 kilos) back in Mexico, bingeing on greasy tacos.
That made him the world's heaviest man and won him a place in the 2008 edition of the Guinness World Records. It is not clear if his dramatic weight loss means someone else will take the title next year.
Photos of his time in Florida and Texas show the transformation of a once chubby man to a bloated, whale-like figure with tire-size tumors hanging from his legs.
"Before, my diet was very unbalanced. I used to eat a lot of carbohydrates, pizza, junk food like hamburgers, french fries, a lot of beans, a lot of rice. Food with a lot of carbohydrates. Now I know a lot more - because I've been taught how much food influences your organism - that I didn't know about before. So, I ate a lot of food that made me gain weight during many years. So now I know what effect a certain food has on your organism and it's very interesting because, you choose food depending on what you need, and imagine the results I've had because I've lost many kilos. I'm much healthier every day, that's interesting. My cholesterol levels are fine, I'm very healthy," said Uribe, his torso still huge with flaps of puffy white skin and sagging, fatty bulges.
In Mexico, Uribe underwent a tummy tuck operation that sloughed off fat but caused massive, permanent swelling, doing nothing to reduce his weight.
"My body continues to loose corporal fat, but I'm gaining muscles, that I didn't have before. You can notice my strength and my muscles now. Why muscle? Because the proteins that I'm eating are helping me. I haven't lost much weight because I'm gaining muscular mass. I will eventually get rid of all the fat from my body and I'm going to be physically fine."
Abandoned by his wife, his health failing and with no income, Uribe despaired and pleaded for help on Mexican television, stirring up intense international interest.
Uribe, cared for by his mother Otilia, turned down offers of gastric bypass surgery in Italy. Instead he took free medical help from U.S. doctor Barry Sears, choosing to follow the Zone Diet, which is high in protein and low in carbohydrates. That made him lose weight.
Now weighing 717 pounds -- the size of three hefty men -- Uribe is still unable move his swollen legs but hopes to get out the house next month for only the third time in six years to celebrate his 43rd birthday.
He will still be in bed, hauled onto a tow truck for a trip to the mountainous countryside outside his home city of Monterrey in northern Mexico, in a re-run of a failed attempt in March that was thwarted when his bed hit an overpass.
Uribe, who relies on his family's small wholesale clothes business and the generosity of friends to survive, says Guinness have spoken to him about his rapid weight loss and could eventually put him the record books.
U.S. woman Rosalie Bradford, who died in 2006, held the record for losing the most weight, shedding 736 pounds in the early 1990s, according U.S.
media reports. Guinness World Records was not immediately available for comment.
Uribe, who became an Evangelical Christian during his weight loss drive, says his goal is to weigh 285 pounds by 2010, meaning he would have lost 950 pounds.
Records aside, Uribe just wants to get out of bed and make a living out of preaching the benefits of healthy eating. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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