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Obesity Battle via Bikes & Exercise
Husband & wife battling obesity on 16,000 mile bicycle journey around America.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina 10 March, 2007 — Most people would think that traveling 16,000 on foot and bicycle is a rather big change, but according to Priscilla Houliston, 43, a Pennsylvania native, it is what is needed to help her win her nearly 30 year battle with obesity. Priscilla topped the scales in June 2006 at 390 pounds. Her body was becoming immobile from the excess fat. Things like getting out of a chair and putting on her own shoes were a struggle. According to Priscilla, she was simply eating herself to death.
Then the light went on over her head. Returning from Scotland with her husband Morton, an Edinbugh native, to help care for her mother, the couple set about making little changes in their lives. They started taking walks, very short at first. They were aware that the history of illness in Priscilla's family was all down to weight control. Her mother had suffered a severe stroke and it was as if Priscilla had gotten a glimpse into a crystal ball and saw what her future was going to hold.
The pair set off walking from Key West to Key Largo on January 1, 2007. Learning a lot along the way, they decided to include bicycles on their massive journey. Their goal is to return to Key West, after walking and bicycling some 16,000 miles around the entire coastlines and borders of the United States. The couple have just crossed their 1,000th mile on bicycle in Georgetown, South Carolina.
A typical day is spent talking to anyone that will listen about the dangers of obesity and sharing their message of, "There is hope for everyone". The first thing you have to do is be aware that you need to have at least 30 minutes of exercise in your daily life. These two spend between six and eight hours daily on their bicycles or walking, eating a packed lunch beside the road. Never knowing just where they are going to end up spending the night, they are relying on the kindness of strangers and seeing things that most will never get a chance to see.
The website, www.LittleChanges.com, is tracking the entire journey. The public are invited to watch, from the comfort and saftey of their own computers, for free. You will see photos, videos and get to peek inside the daily journal of this adventure-in-progress. Visitors will also see the pair shrinking before their very eyes. They have lost a combined weight of 130 pounds so far. There is a blog where you can even keep track of your own little changes. Priscilla and Morton are currently entertaining over 100,000 visitors daily on this incredible trek.
Funding for the journey is done by donations and sponsors. At a budget of only $400. a month, the husband and wife are living from food out of cans one day and feasting on a donated meal another. They have camped in unusual spots, encountered all types of weather and have even had to sit out a tornado in Florida.
If there is one message they want to get out to the public, it is that obesity will kill you and take away your quality of life. "Until a person can see that there is no magic pill or quick cure, that the answer is within themselves, the light will not come on over your head", says Priscilla, "Get your head right and your body will follow"
Obesity Exercise