Manuel Uribe poses for a portrait at his home in the suburb of San Nicolas de los Garza, in Monterrey May 9, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, May 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Manuel Uribe from Mexico, once the world's most obese man, is now slimming down and vying for a new record: the man who has lost the most weight, media reported Thursday.

    Uribe, who weighed as much as a small truck at more than half a ton, has lost 235 kilometers since March 2006 on a diet of grapefruits, egg-white only omelets, fish, chicken, vegetables and peanuts.

    Now weighing 325 kilograms, Uribe is still unable to move his swollen legs but hopes to leave the house next month for only the third time in six years to celebrate his 43rd birthday.

    Uribe got addicted to eating pizzas and burgers in the 1990s when he worked as a computer repairman in the U.S., during that period he eventually tipped the scales at 1,235 pounds.

    His bulk made him the world's heaviest man and won him a place in the 2008 edition of the Guinness World Records.

    "It's a miracle I've got this far. I was going to kill myself two years ago when my wife left me, but God sent me excellent doctors," said Uribe.

    Uribe, relying on his mother Otilia and the family's small wholesale clothes business, turned down offers of gastric bypass surgery in Italy. Instead he accepted free medical help from U.S. doctor Barry Sears. He lost weight following the Zone Diet, which is high in protein and low in carbohydrates.

    (Agencies)