Manuel Uribe: Lost almost 1000 pounds
One of the most heartwarming diet, health, and weight loss stories that has been ongoing since January 2006 is the effort being undertaken by former half-ton man Manuel Uribe, aka “The World’s Heaviest Man,” to lose almost 1,000 pounds and save his life. Manuel Uribe Garza (born June 11, 1965) is a man from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, and was one of the heaviest people in medical history. After reaching a peak weight of around 597 kg (1,316 lb) and being unable to leave his bed since 2001, Uribe lost considerable weight with the help of doctors and nutritionists, and by following the Zone diet.
Uribe drew worldwide attention when he appeared on the Televisa television network in January 2006, but turned down offers for gastric surgery in Italy. In March 2007, Uribe set a goal to lower his weight to 120 kg (265 lb). He has also been featured on “World’s Heaviest Man”, a television documentary about his bedridden life and attempts to lose weight. By the end of 2008, Uribe had reduced his weight to 360 kg (800 lb). His weight loss efforts continue to this day.
David Smith: Lost 400 pounds and became a personal trainer
This is an amazing weight loss success story of a former 630-pound man named David Smith. In 2003, David weighted over 600 pounds and decided to change his life only through carb cycling and exercise. After 4 years, he weighted a stunning 229 pounds, losing 401 pounds but still had excess skin on his body. He underwent several surgeries to remove the excess skin; since then, he looks just like any other guy, and became a certified personal trainer through ACE.
Rosalie Bradford (1943 - 2006) holds the Guinness World Record for most weight lost by a woman. In 1987, the longtime binge-eater weighed an astounding 1,199 lb, having spent 8 years immobile in bed. Following an intervention from friends and weight-loss guru Richard Simmons she started exercising as best she could (she could only clap her hands to Simmons’ videos at first) and amazingly eventually slimmed down to about 200 lb.
Sadly enough, in one of the five sessions of surgery to remove excess skin during her weight loss, she had some complications that later caused her death. She died on November 29, 2006 at a hospital in Lakeland at the age of 63. Rosalie Bradford posthumously continues to hold the world record for having lost the most weight.
Jon Brower Minnoch: Lost 22kg per month
Michael Hebranko (b. May 14, 1953) suffered from an extreme case of morbid obesity, known to be among the heaviest people in the world.
After a stay at the St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, he dropped his weight from 411 kg (910 lb) to 90 kg (200 lb) and waist size from 290 cm (110 in) to 91 cm (36 in) in 19 months with the help of the dieting and exercise coach Richard Simmons and was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest recorded weight loss in 1990. He lost some of this weight from surgical removal of fat. He then toured the United States lecturing about his experiences and advocating dieting and exercise and appeared in infomercials promoting Richard Simmons.
However, seven years later, he gained up to 453 kg (1,000 lb) and had to be repeatedly hospitalized to the Brookhaven Rehabilitation and Health Care Center. In June 1999, Hebranko was at his peak weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb).
Steve Vaught undertook an incredible challenge beginning in 2005: to walk across the US. He began the 3,000-mile trek from his Oceanside, California home to Manhattan on April 10, 2005, when he weighed 410 pounds and was suffering severe depression after accidentally killing two pedestrians while driving 15 years ago.
Apart from attracting his fair share of media attention, he managed to shed over 100 lb in the process. But Vaught’s journey was not without controversy. Questions were raised by both the media and fans as to whether Vaught caught rides and did not in fact walk every mile. Vaught was also still morbidly obese upon completion of his journey. In his defense he claims “You can’t cheat. There is no possible way to cheat. It was my journey (…) I didn’t care about where I was at and where I was going. I don’t care if it was 2,800 or 1,500 miles. . . . It’s about where your head is.”