MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's Manuel Uribe, once the world's most obese man, celebrated his 43rd birthday on Wednesday with a very short trip outside his house.
In only his third outing in six years, Uribe, sitting on his huge reinforced bed, was dragged outside his garage bedroom and onto the pavement outside his house in Monterrey in northern Mexico. Presents of suckling pig and lamb arrived.
Manuel Uribe chats with a reporter during an interview at his home in the suburb of San Nicolas de los Garza, in Monterrey May 9, 2008. (REUTERS/Tomas Bravo)
Still weighing the size of three hefty men, Uribe sat on his bed wearing only a bedsheet, drank a beer and chatted to his mother, girlfriend and neighbors in the cool evening air, waiting for a cake.
"I'm happy that it is my birthday," he told reporters interviewing the man who weighed 717 pounds in May after losing 518 pounds since March 2006 on a diet of grapefruits, egg-white omelets, fish, chicken and vegetables.
Uribe is still unable to move his swollen legs and his dream is to walk again and visit the mountainous countryside around Monterrey.
Uribe spent the 1990s eating pizzas and burgers in the United States where he worked as a computer repairman. Addicted to junk food, he eventually tipped the scales at 1,235 pounds back in Mexico, bingeing on greasy tacos.
His bulk made him the world's heaviest man and won him a place in the 2008 edition of the Guinness World Records.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
