FAT MAN WALKING......

More Americans diet than pay taxes, get married, divorced or tattooed. There seems to be a new diet created every ten seconds. The reason is simple: they make the creators lots of quick money and more importantly don’t work. That allows the next diet maven to come out with another “guaranteed” diet that will fail.

The only sure way to lose weight is by dying. You don’t have to give up sugars, carbs. proteins or fats – just breaths.

The South Beach, French Woman Don’t Get Fat, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Low Carbs., High Protein, Sugar Busters, Jenny Craig are just some of the reduction plans that Americans spend billions on every year. The only sure thing is that none of them are sure to keep weight off you. But, men, women and kids are so desperate to look good in that new bikini that they will endure any “facockta” diet that will turn them into runway models. Everyone wants six-pack abs. I’d be happy with six pack beers.

To show how crazy this diet craze is and to what extremes a person will go to in order to lose some pounds – meet Steve Vaught. You’ve heard of dead man walking? Well, meet Fat Man Walking. Steve, 39, weighs 400 pounds. He left Oceanside, Calif., on April 10th on his trek to New York. Vaught is walking across the United States to lose weight. The blisters he’s sure to get will weigh more than he does.

Steve is in for an uphill climb. Severely obese men digest carbs poorly and have less endurance than women, making it difficult to lose weight. But studies show that a slow walking routine may help the heavyset burn more calories. At 400 pounds, Stevie might have to walk to Pluto….and back. At least this pudgy guy is trying something to help himself.

He’s planning on averaging 15 miles per day along Route 66. The self-titled “Fat Man Walking” has traveled 300 miles on foot so far and has lost 50 pounds. Besides losing poundage he’s hoping to make many new friends. If you happen to live in New Mexico and find the sun suddenly blocked it’s probably just Vaught walking your way.

Steve admits to liking food. That’s like Michael Jackson saying he likes sleepovers. Brad Pitt saying he likes Angelica’s lips. They’re all a given.

Steve Vaught didn’t wake up one morning to find himself portly. Steve never met a calorie he didn’t like. He could down an entire wildebeest before brushing his teeth in the morning. He tried weight reduction pills and hormones, bribing his scale to lie and every diet imaginable. His favorite was the garlic diet. He ate nothing but cloves of garlic….didn’t lose any weight but lost all his friends. That’s an old joke and I apologize for it.

Nothing worked. Medically he was at great risk: Heart attack, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure and even the heartbreak of psoriases. Vaught was thinking of having his stomach stapled but they couldn’t find his stomach and didn’t have enough staples. He decided that something drastic had to be done. Steve was tired of casting a shadow that covered an entire county; tired of having to shop in the Stout Man’s Tent store. He couldn’t pull himself up by his bootstraps – that would have killed him and caused a hernia the size of Cleveland.

So, Fat Man Walking was born. Let’s all wish him luck and hope that he reaches New York safe and slimmer. On the way he’d better not get tangled up with some 18-wheeler….Steve could really damage that truck.