THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 15, 1994 TAG: 9408130052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
THE U.S. POSTAL Service gets a lot of heavy criticism these days, but it has also gotten a heavy compliment.
The compliment comes from Robert W. Coburn, a Norfolk native who weighed 456 pounds several months ago when he returned to Hampton Roads for a new job.
``My wife and I had been living in Florida and I guess they don't have much except old people and fat people down there because there was no trouble finding a scale to weigh myself.''
But after deciding to begin dieting here, Coburn looked but couldn't find scales that registered weight above 350 pounds.
``I phoned several hospitals,'' he recalled. ``They didn't have scales for people of my weight,'' he said. ``The health clubs didn't have them either.
``I also tried obesity clinics. Interesting that they didn't have scales that went over 350 pounds, either.''
Then he tried visiting some of the seafood outlets around Lynnhaven Inlet in Virginia Beach, thinking they might have scales for bulk seafood that he could use. ``I had no luck there, either,'' he said.
Coburn, who works for an energy conservation company in Virginia Beach, said it's tough to go on a diet unless you can keep track of how much weight you are losing.
``I haven't always been fat,'' he explained. In the late 1970s, he worked out during the day while selling subscriptions to European Health Spa. At night he would eat several pizzas but he exercised so regularly he easily burned the calories he consumed with food binges.
In 1980, he accepted a job with an energy conservation company. The work was sedentary, but he continued his normal eating habits and ballooned to more than 300 pounds, eventually reaching 456.
After several weeks of looking, he phoned a local post office, figuring the postal service might have scales that weigh bulk mail.
``A postal employee suggested that I try the post office at Viking Drive and Lynnhaven Parkway in Virginia Beach,'' he recalled.
A few days later, Coburn walked into the Viking Drive post office and told postmaster Donald Coats about his problem.
Coats told him there were scales that could handle his weight and introduced him to the other postal employees, Coburn recalled.
``He could not have been nicer, and all the postal employees have treated me with respect,'' he continued. ``Not one has made fun of me. I've made friends there.''
Coburn says the scales are on a loading dock outside the building where the contents of 18-wheel mail trucks are unloaded onto a platform.
``I have to wait in line sometimes for them to weigh the mail, but I don't mind,'' he said. ``I step onto the platform and go inside where a woman tells me how much I weigh.''
After about five weeks, he has lost 30 pounds. He says the postal employees have helped him lose weight because of their encouraging remarks. `It's the kind of reinforcement I've needed,'' he said.
The big man said his wife Ceil has been a big help, too, cooking lean meals and refusing to allow him into the kitchen when he has the urge to cook something fattening.
Coburn would like to trim down to about 250 pounds. He thinks that's a reasonable weight for someone of his height - 6'1'' - and physique.
When he slims down to 350 pounds, he won't have to go to the post office to weigh anymore. But he said he has made so many friends there that he'd like to continue using the scales. . . even when he's no longer a bulk male. by CNB