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in da middle of da nite! - Sunday, Jul. 10, 2005
the usual sunday drivel de snivel!
first off the bat, a message from woot!! and now, on with the show! happy sunday!!

heres a i dunno if ya call this a sad story per se, but it touched my heart, and just goes to show you determination to improve yourself. but this is a bit extreme. if i was in this guys shoes, i dont think i could do this at all!

Saturday, July 9, 2005 (SF Chronicle)
HEAVY FOOTSTEPS/400-pound man walking from San Diego to New York on weight loss quest Amy Argetsinger, Washington Post


Peach Springs, Ariz. -- This week, his 13th on the road, has been the hardest so far for Steve Vaught, a 400-pound man trying to walk across America.

On Sunday morning, he found a creek just as the desert heat forced a midday break. But when he woke from a nap and tried to fill his water bottles, the stream had already gone dry. Late that night, he walked right past his scheduled motel stop in Truxton, a flyspeck on historic Route 66 so slight it vanished when the sun went down.

On Monday, out of water in 102-degree heat and miles from any town, he sent a frantic text message to his wife, who called the local police. They drove him to a hotel, where he rested a night and a day, sick with dehydration. On Wednesday, he started late and tangled with a scary dude on the desolate highway.

"I'm quitting," he told his wife this week. She said OK.

But within hours he hit the road again, as they always sort of knew he would. For quitting is not so easy when you're 500 miles from home.

This spring, as he neared his 40th birthday, Vaught had an epiphany: If he didn't lose the weight, he would die before 50. But dieting would not work, he decided, and neither would normal exercise. He knew he was the kind of guy who could rationalize his way out of one 3-mile walk after another. "My weakness," he said, "is the easy way out."

So Vaught made it hard. On April 10, he left his San Diego home -- and his wife and two children -- and started walking, alone, to New York.

The trip has not gone completely as planned. He has only rarely come even close to the pace of 20 miles a day he estimated would put him in verdant Missouri by now, not Arizona in July. He strained a couple of ligaments shortly after he started, and he lost three toenails climbing the final mountain pass out of California.

On the bright side: That 400-pound man now weighs only 350.

"Does this seem insane?" Vaught wants to know.

Well, that depends on what you mean by "insane." Doctors, certainly, would call it inadvisable. A seriously overweight person embarking on any kind of strenuous physical activity could dangerously stress his joints and heart, said Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

Such activity is especially worrisome in an area of environmental extremes, without someone to support him, Klein said. Even if he weighed 100 pounds, "walking across a desert without someone standing next to him with an umbrella and a fan and Gatorade might really be a problem."

Vaught, meanwhile, has been almost completely on his own. Now and then, a friend catches up with him for a few hours or days. But mostly it is just him and his 75-pound pack.

Yet on the question of "insane," the responses to the Web site chronicling his journey -- www.thefatmanwalking.com -- appear to be running heavily against. On a recent afternoon, Vaught accepts a ride from a reporter 35 miles down the road to a public library, where he checks his e- mail.

There is one from a 37-year-old guy preparing to run his first marathon. A 62-year-old woman planning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. People in such places as St. Louis and Altoona, Pa., offering food and water and a place to stay when he comes their way. Overweight people nationwide begging to know Vaught's daily mileage so they can match it at home.

Only a few call him crazy. Almost all say what an inspiration he is.

Even at 400 pounds, he never thought of himself as a fat guy. Perhaps because he never used to be, perhaps because it was the least of his problems.

Fifteen years ago, he was the fun guy. A slew of girlfriends, a bunch of friends, a witty streak so hot he would gladly take the stage at a comedy club open-mike night. Then one evening in October 1990, driving too fast against the setting sun, he struck and killed an elderly couple crossing the street.

The accident sent him to jail for 10 days, ruined him financially and dulled him emotionally. When he started to put on the weight, he just didn't care. He remembers little about the next three years.

After the birth of their first child, he grudgingly went to therapy, just so his wife, April, would know she had done everything she could in case he killed himself. Medication snapped him out of his depression. But life didn't get any easier. A few businesses failed, and they went deep in debt on a house. And the weight, he realized, was bringing him down.

"There's nothing appealing about fat people," he says bluntly. "You can't impress them when you're fat." His jobs steadily declined in quality. In March he said he walked away from the latest, managing a muffler repair shop, after the owners sniped about him sitting down too much at work.

One morning that week, he turned to April in bed. "I ought to walk across the U.S.," he said. Once he left, he added, it would be hard for him to quit.

"If that's what it's going to take," she replied.

So he has a lot to think about as he walks. About the anger he carried around so long, and how pointless it seems now. About how accepting help from people doesn't shame him anymore, now that he sometimes has to ask strangers for water. And about the value of living in the moment, of just surviving that next stretch of road.

"It has nothing to do with weight anymore," he says. "It's about getting back to the person I was."



well, what can ya say about that! i just hope the poor guy makes it!

nothing much went on yesterday, i went to farmers market in the morning, gave 25 bux to the local public radio station here, and they will send me free movie tickets! i slept sporatically, also i got a t shirt with the farmers market logo on it, and a big ice cream cone, and a pound of cashews for 5 bux, which when i got home, was devoured in an hour! i have a weakness for cashews, and these were great! roasted, and not too salty, like planters cashews is!



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have a hot dog eatin sunday!!! i will be asleep!

WELCOME BACK TO THE WEB: UNKYMOODS!! YAY!!!



CAT OF THE DAY!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! IN COLOR EVEN, JUST LIKE THE NEWSPAPER!!




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