The Fat Man Walking Chronicles: Steve Vaught Loses Weight and Inspires Thousands Across the Web   - 4,628 Views, 1 Comment

And he’s sharing his mission, and his milestones and misses, with the world (or at least the web) as he chronicles his journey on The Fat Man Walking website.

His site starts out with this forthright explanation: “My Name is Steve Vaught, (born Stephen James Liller in Youngstown, Ohio). I am a 39 year old, happily married father of two great kids and I have a pretty good life here in Southern California. You would think that I would be happy because of these things, but I am not. I am not happy because I am fat and being fat makes every day unhappy. ”

After training for a few weeks starting in March, Vaught started his walk across the United States on Sunday April 10th. His first day he walked nine miles and, he explains in the day-by-day walk journal on his site, “Starting out is definitely the hardest part. First, it takes a while to really get warmed up and secondly, because your head is still busy with thoughts of things going on in the real world.”

As of the writing of this article, July 23rd, Vaught has made it as far as Flagstaff, Arizona, dropping pounds and picking up throngs of supporters along the way. In fact, so many well wishes have been posted to the The Fat Man Walking site that at one point the site was knocked offline until they could put it on its own server. As of this morning, there are a whopping 250 pages of guestbook-style comments on the site, many quite moving, and all supportive.

Anese writes “WAY TO GO!!! You are a man of courage and honor. I will read your website everyday for encouragement and support from you for my own weight struggles. I am 5′10 and 418…down from 440lbs. YOU are worthy of this. Keep on truckin soldier!”

And just this morning, Leio from China wrote “Hi, Steven, you do encourage someone like me to do something to change my life. I’ll keep a eye on your journey. Keep going on! ps. I’m now in Beijing. I wish I could be there and joined part of you journey…”

It would seem that this fat man with the weight loss plan is certainly touching and changing more than his own life.

But Vaught’s motivations are much closer to home: “I don’t want to miss out on birthdays, graduation, marriages and grandkids because I chose not to take my life back

Vaught actively invites people to watch for him and walk with him for a little ways. He says “I would not reject a little company from anyone who wants to join me on a walk through part of their city or state.”
You can find Steve’s website at TheFatManWalking.com. You can follow his route here,
and out where he is on any given day here. And finally, you can read comments from well-wishers, and add your own, here.

“I am going to walk across the United states from San Diego to NYC to lose weight and regain my life!” wrote Vaught, simply, on the front page of his site.

We wish you well, Steven Vaught. And our thoughts are with you every mile of the way.