Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Monday, March 17, 2008 8:13:30 PM
But even the open road wasn't big enough to handle Uribe's dream of celebrating a budding romance and his success in losing about 440 pounds.
Uribe was halfway to a picnic near his Monterrey-area home on Sunday when one of the posts holding a sun-shielding tarp over his bed hit an overpass.
Uribe's blood pressure dropped so much his doctors advised him not to go on and the celebration — being documented by about two dozen photographers and reporters from around the world — was canceled.
"We were going to celebrate that I've been losing weight for two years and that it was my girlfriend's birthday," Uribe said in a telephone interview. "The saddest part was that I couldn't fulfill my dream of taking my girlfriend out to eat."
Uribe says that after losing weight on a high-protein diet he started two years ago, he's down to about 800 pounds.
Last year, Uribe left his house for the first time in five years. Six people pushed his iron bed on wheels out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered to see the man who once weighed 1,235 pounds.
At the time, the 42-year-old mechanic rode through the streets of his native San Nicolas de los Garza to enjoy the sun and wave to neighbors.
Uribe weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent, and he just kept growing.
Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him. He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on national television in January 2006.
Uribe says despite the setback, he still hopes to go out with his girlfriend on June 11, when he will turn 43.
"We'll just have to plan it better," he said.
Does he really think taking his girlfriend out to eat is a good idea? I understand how mean it is of me to state this, but isn't eating the neighborhood what got him there in the first place? When he reached the 400-pound mark, don't you think it would have been a good time, a really good time, to do something about the weight? The man weighed approximately 200-pounds as kid "and just kept growing." That's probably because he just kept eating! The article doesn't say anything about a genetic disease or any other illness (besides the obvious mental one) which could have been responsible for his massive weight gain. On the bright side, this shows just how much you can accomplish by simply continuing to eat the world around you.
In a related story:
Midwest Zoos Put "Chubby" Animals on Diet
CHICAGO — Gorillas on Weight Watchers? Polar bears slurping sugar-free Jell-O shots? Giraffes nibbling alfalfa biscuits?
The days of letting visitors throw marshmallows to the animals are mostly history at zoos around the country, replaced by a growing focus on diet and nutrition that parallels the fitness craze in humans.
And thanks to mounting research on wild animals' food needs, today's zoo staffers are trying new feeding tricks to keep their lions and tigers and bears healthy and happy.
Avoiding obesity is part of the program.
Like humans, many zoo animals "like the good stuff. They like the sugary, high-fat food, and they're not moving as much as they're genetically programmed to," said Jennifer Watts, staff nutritionist at suburban Brookfield Zoo, west of Chicago.
Adding to the challenge is that food is used for training and to help keep animals psychologically stimulated. Too much "enrichment" can result in love handles, even on bears and gorillas.