Manuel Uribe, once known as the world's fattest man, tries to set a new
record for losing weight. 

MONTERREY, MEXICO (RECENT) REUTERS -

Mexico's Manuel Uribe, once the world's most obese man, is now vying
for a different record: the human who has lost the most weight.
    His bed can be seen from an open door at street level, where he likes
to chat with his neighbors to stop the boredom. His Guinness World Records
certificate hangs on the wall.
    Uribe, who weighed as much as a small truck at more than half a tonne,
is dieting while confined to a reinforced bed that he has not left for the
past six years because he is so heavy.
    He has lost 518 pounds (235 kilos) since March 2006 on a diet of
grapefruits, egg-white only omelets, fish, chicken, vegetables and peanuts.

    Uribe spent the 1990s guzzling pizzas, burgers and fizzy drinks in the
United States, working as a computer repairman.
    Addicted to junk food, he eventually bulged to 1,235 pounds (560 kilos)
back in Mexico, bingeing on greasy tacos.
    That made him the world's heaviest man and won him a place in the 2008
edition of the Guinness World Records. It is not clear if his dramatic weight
loss means someone else will take the title next year.
    Photos of his time in Florida and Texas show the transformation of a
once chubby man to a bloated, whale-like figure with tire-size tumors hanging
from his legs.
    "Before, my diet was very unbalanced. I used to eat a lot of
carbohydrates, pizza, junk food like hamburgers, french fries, a lot of beans,
a lot of rice. Food with a lot of carbohydrates. Now I know a lot more -
because I've been taught how much food influences your organism - that I
didn't know about before. So, I ate a lot of food that made me gain weight
during many years. So now I know what effect a certain food has on your
organism and it's very interesting because, you choose food depending on what
you need, and imagine the results I've had because I've lost many kilos. I'm
much healthier every day, that's interesting. My cholesterol levels are fine,
I'm very healthy," said Uribe, his torso still huge with flaps of puffy
white skin and sagging, fatty bulges.
    In Mexico, Uribe underwent a tummy tuck operation that sloughed off fat
but caused massive, permanent swelling, doing nothing to reduce his weight.

    "My body continues to loose corporal fat, but I'm gaining muscles,
that I didn't have before. You can notice my strength and my muscles now. Why
muscle? Because the proteins that I'm eating are helping me. I haven't lost
much weight because I'm gaining muscular mass. I will eventually get rid of
all the fat from my body and I'm going to be physically fine."
    Abandoned by his wife, his health failing and with no income, Uribe
despaired and pleaded for help on Mexican television, stirring up intense
international interest.
    Uribe, cared for by his mother Otilia, turned down offers of gastric
bypass surgery in Italy. Instead he took free medical help from U.S. doctor
Barry Sears, choosing to follow the Zone Diet, which is high in protein and
low in carbohydrates. That made him lose weight.
    Now weighing 717 pounds -- the size of three hefty men -- Uribe is
still unable move his swollen legs but hopes to get out the house next month
for only the third time in six years to celebrate his 43rd birthday.
    He will still be in bed, hauled onto a tow truck for a trip to the
mountainous countryside outside his home city of Monterrey in northern Mexico,
in a re-run of a failed attempt in March that was thwarted when his bed hit an
overpass.
    Uribe, who relies on his family's small wholesale clothes business and
the generosity of friends to survive, says Guinness have spoken to him about
his rapid weight loss and could eventually put him the record books.
    U.S. woman Rosalie Bradford, who died in 2006, held the record for
losing the most weight, shedding 736 pounds in the early 1990s, according to
U.S. media reports.
    Uribe, who became an Evangelical Christian during his weight loss
drive, says his goal is to weigh 285 pounds by 2010, meaning he would have
lost 950 pounds.
    Records aside, Uribe just wants to get out of bed and make a living out
of preaching the benefits of healthy eating.