One of the top stories making the rounds this week.
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162586325/instead-of-surgery-man-pedals-off-the-pounds
"A lot of Americans are struggling to lose a whole lot of weight, and they try all kinds of crazy things.
Ernest Gagnon — a man from Billerica, Mass. — decided to shed pounds by getting into the often intense, high-adrenaline sport of cyclocross: racing road bikes on obstacle courses.
Two years ago, Gagnon tipped the scales at 570 pounds. He was depressed and embarrassed to leave the house.
"Being as big as I was, I really felt like I didn't belong anywhere," Gagnon says. "I was stuck in my house for almost 10 years, just going to my work and back."
Back then, Gagnon's diabetes was getting more serious. He was losing the circulation to his legs, and his doctors were talking about gastric bypass surgery.
Then, some sort of a switch flipped in his head and Gagnon decided he was going to race bikes, something he'd wanted to do since he was a kid.
Gagnon contacted Cosmo Catalano, a cyclist from Hartford, Conn., on Facebook, and asked if he wanted to go for a bike ride.
"He's like ... 'by the way, I ride kind of slow ... I'm 500 whatever pounds,' " Catalano says. "I [said] ... 'OK, I can deal with that.' "
This is how hundreds of New England cyclocross racers met Gagnon."
