'Fat Man' completes cross-country trek in Big Apple

[question everything]

'Fat Man' completes cross-country trek in Big Apple

By Elizabeth Lesure
ASSOCIATED PRESS

7:07 p.m. May 9, 2006

NEW YORK – Steve Vaught didn't count each mile he walked or weigh himself every day along the way. And as he completed the final leg of his trek across America, he said making it to New York City from California on foot was only part of his story.

“I'm glad that I'm here, but for me it's never been about the destination,” said Vaught, 40, as he crossed the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to Manhattan more than a year after he began the trip to lose weight and find happiness. “It's been about the journey.”

He began the 3,000-mile trek from his Oceanside 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. He ended the journey Tuesday – about 100 pounds lighter.

(snip)

Vaught chronicled his progress on a Web site, TheFatManWalking.com, which lists the names of dozens of supporters in 26 states. His trip attracted the attention of documentary filmmakers and national television, and he plans to write a book about his experiences.

(snip)

On the Net:
www.thefatmanwalking.com

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20060509-1907-walkingacrossamerica.html

[Arugula Latte]

1. I recently read "The Memory of Running" by Don McLarty

which is about a depressed fat guy who rides his bike across the country and loses lots of weight.

[SeattleGirl]

2. Our local news did a story on this man yesterday.

I say, good for him!

[eridani]

3. Has anybody noticed--

--that 310 lbs is STILL FAT? If walking across the country didn't turn him into an average-sized person, then nothing is going to to that. A good indication, also, that whatever you weigh, it shouldn't stop you from taking on a project like this.

[Arugula Latte]

4. Well, he did lose 100 pounds.

That's not bad!

Yes, he has a way to go ... and he must be in much better cardiovascular condition and have many more fat-burning muscles than when he started.

[Yollam]

5. I kind of agree with eridani.

If he has only lost 100 lbs in one year with CONSTANT walking, then he has not really reined in his overeating, and will rebound the minute he reverts to a sedentary lifestyle.

No reducing regime is complete without a PERMANENT change in eating habits, including learning to be satisfied with a smaller calorie intake. It's crucial. By the same token, dieting alone without cardiovascular exercise will not produce the best health results.


His efforts are commendable, and it must have been a fascinating journey. (Although I believe I read that this guy was a right-winger). I hope he continues the walking, and works a bit more on the overeating.

[eridani]

6. How would you know whether he was "overeating"?

There is only a loose correlation between caloric intake and weight gain.

[Yollam]

8. Ummm... Okay. Sure.

I've lost almost 80 lbs. strictly by limiting caloric intake and every doctor I've ever talked to has said that caloric intake was key to weight management, but whatever you say...


In America, a 2500 calorie diet is considered "normal" for an adult male. But the fact is that this many calories per day will lead to inexorable weight gain, especially as metabolism slows with aging. We would do well to emulate people in other countries around the world, most of whom eat an average of only 1800 cal. per day or less. At least that's my belief. Lower calorie intake on a long-term basis has also been associated with much greater longevity.

[eridani]

20. There is someone, somewhere in the world

--who has done exactly what you have done and not lost anywhere near that amount of weight. Eat less, and your metabolism changes to use less. How much it changes depends on biological factors that are entirely out of your control. Some people can get ahead of the game and others can't. Those who can are not morally or in any other way superior to those who can't.

[GirlinContempt]

21. There are many people with conditions

that cause them to gain & keep weight that have nothing to do with over eating. While weight is often tied to diet and exercises, these conditions seem to be occurring more and more frequently.

[eridani]

7. He may not be going anyplace

I have a friend who joined a health club (company discount) and got active on a regular basis. Over two years, she went from 385 lbs to 285 lbs and plateaued out, not losing any more weight. She got instant improvement in insulin response though (well before any weight loss), and gave away most of her insulin (keeping some on hand for dealing with illness or stress situations). I'd call that a success, and I'd call the walker a success, regardless of whether or not he loses more weight.

[Champion Jack]

10. And, he can lose another 100 on the way back!

[jpgray]

25. Actually two pounds a week is a very healthy rate of weigh loss

If he continues in this way he won't lose much muscle mass, and it won't be a strain on his system.

[Jamison]

9. Keep in mind, he was only WALKING.

If he would have been RUNNING 10 or so miles/day instead of walking, he would have lost a lot more weight. Walking helps, but it doesn't raise the heart rate up like jogging/running. Intensity is key when it comes to a workout.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. And at 400 pounds he would have destroyed his knees

and probably have arthritis and a shitty back now.

But, on the other hand, he could have done a round trip in this much time. :7

[eridani]

17. But apparently he doesn't

Arthritis is genetic, and 85% of the population has or will have partially incapacitating back problems at one time or another.

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. Huh? Of course he doesn't - he didn't run.

:shrug:

[eridani]

31. His weight isn't particularly relevant

Runners as a group have a very high incidence of skeletal injuries of some sort or another. At Bicyling magazine, the joke is "Welcome aboard--all you runners have to become bikers eventually."

[Rabrrrrrr]

33. I'm so lost.

I agree with what you say - running is bad for skeleton, etc. etc. etc. Which was totally the point I was making before, when someone said he should have run and I said "But that would have destroyed his knees".

I'm only re-asking out of my own confusion, because perhaps you thought I said something different than I did. :shrug:

reminds me of a conversation I had with someone, using no specific nouns, and after we had full agreement only realized I was talking generically about one thing, she was talking about something completely different, but because neither of us were ever specific, the conversation flowed beautifully. :-)

[eridani]

34. Sorry-- I think I was confusing you with someone else on the thread

It happens. Not as embarrassing as when I posted a criticism intended for a Castro thread on a Chavez thread, though!

[eridani]

18. Not necessarily

Fat stores aren't a bank account. Only pop culture saturated idiots think that. There is no such thing as eating less than you "need"--eat less and/or exercise more and your metabolism changes to take that into account. Weight, like hormone levels, blood ion concentration and osmolarity, always tends toward equilibrium with homeostatic feedback mechanisms.

[Samurai_Writer]

12. why am I not surprised by some of the responses in this thread?

Instead of celebrating this man's remarkable accomplishment, people are just eager to point out that he's *gasp* *horrors* STILL FAT, and how he could have lost more weight by doing something different with his diet or exercise (although we have no idea what his normal eating consists of).

Walking across the country is something even a person of normal weight who lives a sedentary lifestyle would have difficulty with. At 400 pounds, it is REMARKABLE that he succeeded at all, AND lost 100 pounds in the process. If he never loses another pound, SO WHAT? He's accomplished something most of us never will.

[Beware the Beast Man]

13. I agree completely.

The dude lost 100 pounds, FFS. That alone should be laudable.

[vi5]

14. I'd love to have the gumption and courage to do it...

..and I'm only probably 10 lbs. overweight. Good for him I say. I don't even look at it from the weight perspective but from the "How much cool stuff must he have seen on such a journey" aspect. I'm envious.

I guess it's in people's perspective. The overweight part was almost completely secondary. It was the depression part that jumped out at me, and made me think how wonderful a piece of therapy this must have been for him.

[eridani]

16. That was my point

It isn't possible for people inclined toward that kind of weight gain to be normal-sized whatever they do. If they follow all the usual advice about diet and exercise, it improves their health, but its effect on weight is that they become fat people who weigh lsss. Expecting otherwise is to expect black people to turn into white people by not spending so much time in the sun.

[jpgray]

27. Eh, that's a lot of bullshit

If what you say is true, then we'd see a few fatties here and there in the depressed regions of Sudan or in the poor farmlands of North Korea, where people are starving to death. Turns out, folks there are pretty svelte. It's quite true that some people have conditions, environmental or otherwise, that make them predisposed to weight gain, but if the calories aren't there you can't gain weight--period.

[eridani]

32. I meant that it was impossible if you live in an industrialized society

It is utterly stupid and evil to advocate that people with a tendency to gain weight have no right whatsoever to take night classes, read to their kids, go to political meetings, etc., in order to be socially and medically acceptable. None of those things are aerobic, after all. It's similar to wingers demanding that gay people stay celibate for life.

It's possible to decide to starve for an entire lifetime when doing several crappy sedentary jobs surrounded by enough to eat, but few manage to do it. There is no reason why that should be a public health goal at all.

[jpgray]

26. It's a remarkable achievement, as is losing -one hundred pounds-

I don't see how anyone can claim otherwise.

[MissMillie]

29. Thank you for saying this

I think what is important is that he learned that everything, including weight loss, is a PROCESS, and that this is where we do our best work as human beings.

I say bravo to him!

[Squatch]

15. Average 100 calories burned for mile walked

(more if you have to lug 400 pounds around).

April 10, 2005 to May 9, 2006. What's that, 394 days?

Distance from LA to NY is 2843 miles (according to his website).

That's an average of a little over 7 miles a day for a caloric burn of 1015 calories (for a 220 pound man...the calculator didn't go up to 400 pounds). Link

3500 calories per pound of fat times 100 pounds = 350,000 extra calories burned over this trek.

That's 886 calories extra calories burned per day to lose 100 pounds (average).

So, he did not cut his caloric intake at all, rather increased it. To burn a total of 886 extra calories per day when you're burning 1015 by walking, you need to consume 129 calories more than you normally eat.

Somebody check my math.

[eridani]

19. Your math takes no account whatsoever of feedback loops

Simple addition and subtraction tells you nothing relevant about what is going on physiologically. He would have had to increase his calorie intake in order to do the walk at all--you need carbohydrate levels that you can't get by burning fat. Think of trying to set a log on fire with a match and no kindling.

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. Couple things wrong here - first, you calculated for a 220 pound man

And he was 400 when he started, and at 300 when he ended, so the entire trip he was between twice as large as your hypothetical man and 1.5 times as large. So your numbers are way off, there.

Also, I'm sure some of this guy's previously less dense fat was turned into more dense muscle; so theoretically he might have lost a lot more mass in fat, but gained mass in muscle.

[Nikia]

28. He would probably have gained quite a bit of muscle

Heavy people gain muscle more easily when they undertake exercise because it takes more strength to carry around their weight actively.
Some people don't burn as many calories as they theoretically should because burning fat is not the only possible response to a calorie deficet although exercise increases the liklihood that fat will be burned. As for me, I burn more calories than I theoretically should when I exercise and less when I am sedentary, which is why I am not doing much exercise until I can trust myself to eat enough.

[bmbmd]

22. Upon arriving, he stopped, turned around, and said

"I'm kinda tired now-I'm going home"/

[Scout1071]

30. I thought he was kind of creepy.

And he said his wife was divorcing him while he was away.