Nine months on the road, 1,900 miles from home and 90 pounds lighter, Steve Vaught is somewhere in Illinois today, trying to keep a promise to himself while also trying to keep warm in 30-degree weather.

"I'm -- where the hell am I?" Vaught said on his cell phone while walking on a road shoulder. "I'm close to Highland, Ill., in between St. Louis and Effingham."

Vaught, of Valley Center, walked to Illinois from Oceanside, and he plans to keep walking until he reaches New York City. He left April 10 with a good pair of walking shoes and an overloaded backpack that he could barely strap onto his bulging, 410-pound frame. Facing his 40th birthday and with a wife and two young children at home, Vaught saw his time running out and hit the road in a daring, novel attempt to lose weight.

It didn't take long before he realized his battle wasn't just with the bulge, but with his personal demons. His trek became more than exercise: It was a voyage of self-discovery.

Before long, the world also discovered Vaught, whose story was featured internationally in newspapers, radio, magazines and television, including interviews on the "Today" show and with Oprah Winfrey.

"In St. Louis, I sort of got inundated with fans," he said. Among them was a woman who had followed his story and invited him to dinner, only to surprise Vaught by also inviting several other guests, plus local media to cover the event.

Vaught attracted more attention at the airport in St. Louis when he was swarmed by people who recognized him as he prepared to catch a flight home to spend the holidays with his family.

"Sometimes they kind of want to draw me in, live vicarious through me," he said about some people who have followed his story. "Some think I'm going to be some kind of Buddhist Zen Pez dispenser, with little nuggets of wisdom for them."

Road scholar

Originally setting out with neither music to listen to nor books to read, Vaught since has picked up challenging reading material that has helped him understand his life, deal with his problems and interpret the world around him. Stashed in his backpack today are "The Three Pillars of Zen" by Philip Kapleau Roshi, "Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective" by the Dalai Lama, and "Postmodern Man" by Huston Smith.

Vaught has been doing some contemplative writing of his own since he began packing a laptop computer in his backpack. Pouring his soul into the journal section of his Web site, TheFatManWalking.com, his entries have ranged from profound thoughts on the existence of man to his frustrations with a dog that wouldn't leave him alone on the road.

His journal entries also have been about his struggle to lose weight and his slow realization that exercise alone is not the answer. More important, he wrote, are changing bad habits and moderating his diet, which Vaught ties to the Buddhist concept of "middle way," or not living life in an excess of either indulgence or aestheticism.

"I have been living in an illusion posing as reality," he wrote in an entry about how people filter out much of life and focus on what they perceive as real. "I have been looking at life incorrectly for 40 years now, it seems. I have been battling with things all these years in an attempt to get control over my life, when all along I have been fighting myself at every turn because intellectually I have not been ready to face the truth of who and what I am. My mind has been feeding me exactly what I needed to get by and no more. Now I'm beginning to see that the default mode has been secretly steering this boat from below deck, and of course all along I was thinking that I was in charge. Delusion at its best!"

Not everybody gets it.

"Does anybody read Steve's journal and say 'Huh?' What the heck is he talking about?" one person wrote on his site's message board. "It is like cotton candy. It takes up space, but has no substance."

More common, though, are the comments like one from Paolo in the Philippines, who wrote on Dec. 26: "I'm also another person with too much weight on his body. I'm 260 pounds and 5'10" and borderline hypertensive. Reading your article (on-line) really helps me in trying to lose weight."

Paolo confided that he had dieted down to 170 pounds, but his weight ballooned after a break-up.

"I ended up eating to cover the hurt," he wrote.

Vaught can relate, although in his case the pain came from something more serious than a break-up. In 1990, he was a buff former Marine just four years out of the Corps when his car struck and killed an elderly couple in a Clairemont crosswalk. He spent 13 days in jail, but his self-inflicted punishment lasted for years.

He found happiness in a new marriage and two children, but the guilt and lingering traumas from childhood manifested in self-destructive behavior, anger and overeating.

A typical day began with two breakfast meals at McDonald's, washed down with a regular soda. After snacking at work all morning, he would have a three-quarter pound cheeseburger, fries and two or three sodas, followed by afternoon snacks back at work. Dinner at home was followed by more snacks on the couch while he watched TV.

"By the time I realized I had a problem, I was 300 pounds," he said. "I was just walking around feeling sorry for myself, and what do you do when you feel sorry for yourself? You look for comfort."

A visit home

While Vaught was kidding when he referred himself as a Zen Buddhist Pez dispenser, he realizes that his months on the road have left him with something to say.

"I don't know if anything I've come up with so far is really that profound or revolutionary, but I've had time to think of these things," he said.

In his latest journal entry, Vaught admitted that loneliness on the road can be a problem, and sometimes he hopes he will be recognized just so he will have somebody to talk to.

Back home for a brief visit over the holidays, months of silent contemplation were unleashed during an opportunity to sit and talk.

"Everything has to be done in proportion," he said, relaxing with a coffee outside a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Escondido. "Eating, sleeping, reading. You can't spend all day in introspection."

While everybody needs distractions, Vaught said, too many people make them a way of life.

"They need all that white noise to distract them from their own self-reflection," he said. "If you want to know what kind of mental condition you're in, take everything out of the room and see how much time you can spend in it."

Stopping in the Philosophical Bookstore in Escondido, Vaught picked up more reading material for his trip and held court with store volunteers fascinated by his journey so far.

"They say emotional problems are like layers of onions," he said. "That's crap. The things that happened to you when you were 15, they're no more tangible than the dream you had last night.

"Whether your life is positive or negative is just how you look at it."

Back on the road

Vaught returned to the road Dec. 26, picking up where he left off, and is less than 1,000 miles from his goal of reaching New York City. As for his weight-loss goal, he said he knows he won't be Mr. Universe when he arrives in New York, but he vows to keep exercising by walking. A personal trainer will work with him during the next few months to help build overall strength and adjust his diet for greater fat-loss and muscle-building.

A book about Vaught's journey is scheduled to be released on April 1. But an appearance on the Oprah show to promote the book fell through because, he said, she made unreasonable demands such as asking for all the footage shot by an independent documentary crew working on a film about him.

Other major publicity, however, already is lined up, including a People magazine article, an appearance on NBC's "Dateline" and two upcoming interviews with the "Today" show, which will film his final approach into New York City, Vaught said.

The last 1,000 miles should go faster than the first part of the trip, as Vaught has increased his pace from 10 miles a day to 18. He also is forcing himself to get an early start each morning by camping outdoors rather than staying in warm motels with tempting, comfortable beds that are hard to leave behind.

He also has lightened his backpack with equipment from GoLite, a camping company that stresses taking only what is needed and using equipment that performs more than one function. His backpack lightened from 55 to 16 pounds, and Vaught sees an analogy with his own transformation.

"That backpack is a symbol of the whole trip. As I've gone along, I've lightened the load.

"When I left, I thought I had 15 emotional problems to deal with. As I got down the road, I realized, 'What an idiot. I've got one problem: It's that I think I've got 15 problems.' "

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at gwarth@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5410. To comment on this story, visit www.nctimes.com.