Chinese weight-loss camp helps U.S. man
Alonzo Bland from Green Bay, Wisconsin, arrived in Beijing weighing 640 pounds
He won all-expense-paid trip to a Chinese boot camp for obese
Bland said after losing his job, his weight ballooned
Bland has lost 240 pounds since May in China
At the Aimin Fat Reduction Hospital in the Chinese city of Tianjin, they have never seen anyone so big.
Bland said he misses his family and friends, but his goal is to lose the weight and be “healthier and happier.”
“Yes this is our record,” Dr. Su Zhixin proudly boasted.
He’s talking about 33-year-old Alonzo Bland of Green Bay, Wisconsin. When Bland stepped off the plane at Beijing Airport in May of this year, he weighed 640 pounds. In fact, he struggled to take more than a few steps, and as he lay flat on his back, exhausted, airport staff called an ambulance.
After repeated warnings from his doctor, Bland decided to come to China as a last-ditch effort to shed the pounds.
“I needed to take it serious because we were talking about my life.”
Bland’s weight yo-yoed for years, ballooning after he lost his job 12 years ago.
“Nobody wanted to hire a guy who couldn’t move, you know and so, [I] spent the next …12 years on the couch and watched my weight constantly going up.”
So far he has lost nearly 240 pounds — a result of diet, exercise and traditional Chinese medicine such as acupuncture, which doctors say reduces appetite and increases metabolism. He works out at a gym three times a week, he walks every day and plays badminton as well.
Bland’s doctors are impressed with his determination to shed the weight.
When he was in America, he had a different lifestyle, said Su. If he wanted to eat he would just order on the phone and “every day stay on sofa, playing games, watching TV,” Su said.
December 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am
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