A formerly-obese man from Arizona managed to shed 300 pounds of excess weight in three years after he challenged himself to walk to the nearest Wallmart every day to collect his food.

31-year-old Pasquale “Pat” Brocco used to weigh a whopping 605 pounds, but after his doctor warned him that his high blood pressure and high cholesterol were putting his life in serious danger, the Avondale man decided it was time to do something about his weight. He went home from his doctor’s appointment and took a photo of himself in the mirror. “My stomach was down to my thighs. My chest was hanging down here,” he told ABC News. “I was disgusted”.

Pat knew he needed to start exercising, but the gym was not an option. “I mean, at 600 pounds, I couldn’t even go to the gym,” he said. “I didn’t fit on the machines.” So instead, he decided that every time he was hungry, he would walk 1 mile to his closest Walmart to buy his food, then back home to eat the meal.

Photo: Pat Brocco

“You walk to Walmart three times a day, and you end up walking 6 miles,” he said. “It’s amazing because I never walked 6 miles in my life, and I was doing it every day.” His unconventional exercising routine paid off, as he claims that he lost over 200 pounds in less than two years.

After that, things got a lot easier, as he was able to go to the gym and use machines he previously could not. He replaced the walks to Walmart with incline walks on a treadmill and started lifting weights. He also changed his diet, adding vegetables, meats, sweet potatoes, quinoa and steel-cut oatmeal, and taking out foods that he learned were hampering his weight loss. “Once I figured out dairy was my downfall, I took it out of my diet, and instantly I started losing weight again,” he said.

Photo: Pat Brocco

Once called “Fat Pat” the now 330-pound lighter man wants to be known as “Possible Pat”. “I’m setting an example for my son so he can be Possible Pat too,” he said. His dramatic weight loss required Brocco to have 30 pounds of excess skin surgically removed. He’s now raining to be a bodybuilder.

And to think it all started with daily walks to the supermarket…

Source: ABC News