Steve Vaught within 600 miles of cross-country goal

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, March 11, 2006 6:57 PM PST ∞

After losing more than 100 pounds in a walk that has taken him about 2,200 miles from his Valley Center home, Steve Vaught had a revelation that may be startling to the countless people around the world following his journey.

"Walking across the country isn't such a good idea for losing weight," he said from a motel room in Huber Heights, Ohio, last week.

With the end in sight, he hopes to make it to New York City in about six weeks, averaging 100 miles a week. Vaught said it would be more effective for him to stop walking and instead exercise in a gym, where he would follow a regiment designed by a professional fitness trainer who worked with him in Los Angeles in February.

But after coming this far and promising himself he would see it through to the end, he has no intention of stopping. There also is too much at stake at this point. A book deal has been signed to tell his story and he already has been paid an advance. A documentary crew has filmed hundreds of hours of his walk and already has edited almost 40 minutes of their movie. Vaught also knows that quitting now would disappoint supporters from around the country who see him as a new folk hero.

"I'm really starting to understand the philosophical implications of this walk and my responsibilities to myself and what I've uncovered this past year," he said.

Vaught left on his walk April 10 last year with a simple plan to lose weight by walking from coast to coast. Approaching his 40th birthday and weighing more than 400 pounds, he realized he was rolling the dice with his health and jeopardizing his future with his wife and two young children.

Every attempt at dieting ended with him giving in to temptation after a while, but this time would be different because there would be no refrigerator to raid and no couch to lure him on the open road.

But while his plan was simple, Vaught learned his problems were not. His marriage has fallen apart. He has come to terms with an addiction, now overcome, to anti-depressants. Skeptics have tried to discredit Vaught by accusing him of hitching rides, chasing publicity and being motivated by money.

"I think that had I known (what was in store), I would have chickened out," he said. "I would have walked more eagerly back to Marine Corps boot camp than chase that."

The reluctant folk hero


Vaught has signed a lucrative book deal, his story has been covered internationally, and a documentary is being shot about his walk, leading cynics to suspect him of being a grand self-promoter.

But Vaught never actively sought publicity for his journey, and his first media exposure was unintentional. As he prepared to leave for New York, some women noticed him as he took short daily walks in Valley Center and thought he had an interesting story.

He still isn't sure who did it, but somebody called radio station 91X, which did the first interview with Vaught. Next came a call from the sports radio station Mighty 1090, and then another station, and then television stations and newspapers. Soon he was turning down an avalanche of media requests.

Vaught said he also never sought sponsorships other than from the Oceanside sporting goods store Adventure 16, which gave him a 10 percent discount on equipment and agreed to refund his money if he finishes the walk.

Because he has family throughout the country, Vaught created a Web site, www.TheFatManWalking.com, so relatives he planned to visit would know where he was. The once-personal site soon became a base for people to leave messages of encouragement. It also has become a community that can be bickering, harsh, judgmental and skeptical. Sometimes Vaught wonders just what people expect from him.

"You're talking about a guy who lost his way and did everything opposite to what he should have done," Vaught said about himself. "And that's sort of the charm of this, because I just walked off to find out where I was. And some people get mad because I'm not doing it their way."

His guest book is filled with more than 100,000 entries and a Yahoo discussion group devoted to him has more than 1,000 members. The online discussion about Vaught ignited recently when he left the road for a full month to work with a professional trainer in Los Angeles. Many people following his story saw the move as a cop-out, tarnishing what they saw as a pure quest to lose weight on his own terms.

Vaught responded with a reminder that his walk was always about losing weight, not about gaining a book deal or becoming a folk hero.

"If I lose the book deal or if the media lose interest because this does not fit into what they think is the story, then I guess that they must go," he wrote in his journal. "Because this is now and always has been about regaining my life, through behavioral modification, self-introspection and discovery, and then ultimately weight loss."

The reality is that the walk alone was not working. After losing about 90 pounds, his weight was stuck at 320 pounds for 90 days, so he decided to work with professional trainer Eric Fleishman, who shared a mutual friend with Vaught, when the walk was finished.

But Vaught decided to do the training sooner after he and his wife, April, agreed over Christmas to get a divorce.

"The thing that I didn't tell anybody about was that after all the stuff at home with April wanting a divorce, when I got back on the road, I actually gained weight," Vaught revealed. "I went up to almost 340 pounds."

Vaught spent most of February in Los Angeles with Fleishman, who taught him upper-body exercises he designed specifically for overweight people.

"I didn't realize the importance of exercise," said Vaught, who is quick to note that he is not discounting the importance of the walk itself. "This walk got me to the point where I was able to go inside a gym," he said. "The idea was just frightening to me before."

The trainer also adjusted his diet to cut out carbohydrates like cereal and potatoes.

"I was thinking potatoes were something that were good for me, but it was one of the worst things I could have been eating," he said.

Vaught's weight now is about 295 pounds.

Healing the mind


In 1990, Vaught was involved in a car accident that left two pedestrians dead. He served 13 days in jail and the following years were plagued by a dark depression that left him emotionally devastated.

"At 33, I made a statement that if the next 33 years were like the first, I wasn't interested," he said. "They thought I was going to kill myself. I was so hurt and down, even my beautiful 3-year-old girl couldn't get me out of it. I could not self-correct at all."

Vaught was prescribed two anti-depressant medications and took them faithfully for seven years.

"All it really did for me was make me feel nothing," he said. Somewhere in the isolation of his walk, he decided it was time to find what he was like in a natural state.

"There I was, out in the desert trying to find who I was, and everybody and his brother are checking in on me, saying, 'Hey, have you found yourself yet? Have you found yourself yet?' I decided that if I was going to make any realistic change in my life, the meds had to go."

Vaught tossed his pills in a ditch one August day without telling anyone. His behavior became erratic. He threatened the documentary crew following him. He got in an argument with April and smashed his phone against a wall.

Throughout the Texas Panhandle and into Oklahoma, Vaught admits he was unbearable.

"I was out of control, not listening to anybody," he said. "But that's what it took for me to deal with these things. It was necessary, because that's the real me. Those were all the things I was suppressing for seven years."

When he reached Elk City, Okla., in early October, his head finally cleared and his emotions became stable.

"I was actually happy for the first time in many, many years," he said. "And I hadn't felt happy in a good long time."

On March 28, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is scheduled to broadcast an interview the show's host conducted via satellite with Vaught last October, and "Dateline" also has a segment on him in the works. Vaught said he also has been told "The Today Show" will cover his arrival in New York in mid-April. His book is scheduled for release two weeks after he arrives.

Where his life will take him after that, Vaught is not sure. He hopes to keep losing weight, but admits that it will be a struggle. He plans to move, but not far from his two children.

"I don't know where I'm going," he said. "But I know wherever I go, whatever I do, it'll be better than it was before."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410.