THE BIG MAN
Walter Hudson is big. In fact, he's enormous. He weighs over 250 kilos. And yet Walter is on a diet. He's losing weight at an incredible nine kilos a week. He used to weigh over 630 kilos. That's more than half a ton, and it's heavier than a car or a young elephant. At his maximum size Walter's waist was 119 inches. His neck was as thick as a woman's waist. His biceps were as big as an average man's chest.
His diet was just as impressive. He used to eat enough to feed three families. For breakfast he ate two pounds of sausages, two pounds of bacon, twelve eggs, a pound of biscuits, six Danish pastries, a pot of coffee and four pints of orange juice. Lunch and dinner were even bigger. Then there were the snacks between meals. During the morning he ate twelve i doughnuts.
Each afternoon he ate ten large packets of crisps and in the evening a couple of family-sized pizzas. On top of all that he drank 96 cans of soft drinks. That was one day's food and Walter ate that much every day.
Until recently the world knew nothing about Walter Hudson. In the past 28 years he's only been outside for two hours. That was when his family moved house. He hasn't seen the sun since he was 25 years old and he's now 43. He lived in a secret world - a prisoner in his own home near New York. He used to watch television for 12-15 hours a day and he only left his bed to walk the five yards to the bathroom. Even that short journey was exhausting.
Walter's secret world finally hit the headlines ten months ago. He fell over on his way back from the bathroom and became stuck in the doorway. It took eight police officers and firemen to free him.
But that incident changed his life. While he was lying on the floor he decided that enough was enough. The next day he started his diet. He didn't just cut down on food, he stopped eating completely.
Every morning now he drinks a cocktail of vitamins in a pint of orange juice, and during the day he drinks a lot of water. And that's it. He also takes more exercise now. He still has a long way to go, because he wants to get down to 85 kilos. That's the right weight for someone of his height.
'Food,' says Walter, 'is an addiction. It's worse than drugs or alcohol. You can just stop taking them. But you need food. And it's everywhere.' Walter doesn't watch television any more, because too many of the jidverts are about food. He hopes that his example will help other overweight people, especially children. He encourages mothers to put photos of him on the fridge door. 'I want parents to say to their kids, "Do you want to look that big? If you keep putting your hands in the fridge, then that's how you'll look. That's what Walter did.'