Gary Long, a 52 year old, once nearly 400 lb obese man from Fenton, Missouri, has done just that. On 12/25/05, Christmas day, he woke up and exclaimed to his wife Cheryl, “I am tired of being obese and as of today I plan to start doing something about it.”
Gary had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, diabetes, enlarged heart, hight blood pressure and acid reflux disease. His health and energy levels werre at near critical stages as demonstrated by his inability to walk or stand for very long without getting short of breath and exhausted. On that Christmas morning, he doned a small back pack and started walking. He first walked around his neighborhood and within days he was walking up to a mile. Within a few weeks he was walking along a 10 mile stretch in his town. After 6 weeks he was able to walk the 10 miles daily and noticed he had lost nearly 20 lbs.
On 2/15/06 Gary set off on a year long cross country walk that would take him across America. He traded his small back pack for a 60 lb back pack with a tent, sleeping bag and other items he would need on his journey. Now nearly a year and 11 pair of shoes later and only 300 miles left to go, Gary has not only obtained his goal of losing weight and becoming healthier, he has done what few in the medical field thought was possible. His latest physical on 1/30/07 at St. Lukes Hospital in Chesterfield, Missouri, shows that he no longer has congestive heart failure. His Doctors Jeffery R. Zohner and his Cardiologist Magid Haikal, with Gary’s consent, both have agreed to release to the public their findings. Gary’s health improvement did not end with just no longer having CHF. Gary has not needed Diabetes or high blood pressure medicine now for over 6 months. His latest physical shows he is a non-diabetic.
After his journey, Gary plans to speak at schools and other organizations to educate children about the dangers of obesity in America. He feels the key to combating obesity is to educate the children about the dangers of being obese. Gary also talks about a life style change introduced to him by Doctors Bert and Judi Herring of Jacksonville, Florida. They took interest in Gary’s efforts to lose weight and shared with him their findings after compiling over 25 years of research on combating obesity. Dr. Bert Herring introduced his findings in a book called, “The Fast-5 Diet and the Fast-5 Lifestyle.” They accompanied Gary for nearly 2.5 months of his journey to teach him about the fast-5 lifestyle and Gary is now convinced that Fast-5 is the cure for obesity.
Gary wrote a journal documenting his journey across America. you can read about his journey by going to his website: www.afatmansjourney.com
