Well four years ago,
Eric was the self proclaimed fat guy
who was supposed to bike across America to lose weight
and win back his lovely wife, Angie.
Now, after his story went viral,
thousands of dollars rolled in and so did the critics,
saying Eric was scamming America.
Eric made it from Florida to Texas and then stopped.
Let's find out why.
Why my trip went so bad last time.
These aren't excuses, I'm just telling you why.
So one is really weather.
It was very hot and very cold weather.
I got to Pennsylvania last time in the fall
and it's just way too cold.
So I restarted in Florida and it worked out well
until we hit the heat in Louisiana,
it just started getting worse and worse
and that led into other things.
Health, Angie was having a lot of health problems
and I had some too and besides me being so big,
it was hard to concentrate on riding
and what was happening with the woman I love.
Another thing, a major reason, was depression.
I thought I was gonna be done in three months
when I first started this trip.
Oh, I was so wrong.
Everybody was counting on me
and that was a huge amount of pressure
and I had never done anything like this
and I just kept making mistakes.
But I'm not very good with money
and I'm not very good with planning.
I did spend it on the ride
but I could have done it more wise.
I stayed in places longer than I should have.
I spent days that I didn't ride staying in a hotel
to catch up on web pages and things like that.
And it was just bad.
I took some bad advice. I took some good advice.
And it was just a bad combination.
I did my best, but I just didn't do good enough.
Okay. So you understand,
you set yourself up for a lot of criticism.
I mean, it just seemed like you kind of had
an excuse for everything and instead of keeping rolling.
But in spite of it all,
I keep coming back to the fact that you rode 1600 miles.
Angie, you say you're worried about his health
and your mental health. Yeah.
What's getting to you?
Thinking about him dying, you know?
I'm already a, I was a widow when I met him.
I didn't want to throw myself into a marriage
where I might possibly lose someone early again
and I'm going to end up alone again.
Do you hold his feet to the fire? Do you?
I try, yeah, but he's 700 pounds.
I do the best I can.
We checked the fridge.
To see what was out here
and there were pudding snacks,
sugary and diet sodas,
hot dogs, sausages, sour cream, big bag of cheese,
strawberry, orange banana, artificially flavored drink mix,
Ramen chicken noodle soup, flour tortillas.
I know and work with nutritionists a lot
and those are things that they just simply
wouldn't put in there for somebody
that was dealing with heart health, morbid obesity,
some of the issues that you deal with,
but yet we opened the fridge
and that's what you've stocked it with.
Old habits die hard, you know?
And you eat a lot of sugar.
I do, I drink a lot of,
I drink a lot of pop and then I stop
for like a month and I think I've beaten it
and then it comes back
and then I'm back hard on it again.
We had a statement from your boss earlier this year,
he said, "I have not witnessed him
"trying to lose the weight.
"I would see him eat while he is working."
Are you taking this seriously?
Yeah. Yeah I am.
I'm trying to make the right choices.
Here's a statement from Eric's trainer back in March,
"I haven't received a food journal in a month from Eric,
"not consistent and hard to get ahold of."
I'm really bad at that.
I'm lost. I don't know where to start.
I'm just depressed and feel like I'm completely worthless
and I'm just, like I said,
I don't even know how to go about this.
I don't know. I don't have the answers.
I don't want to fake it and say I have the answers.
I'm just, it's beyond my scope.
I don't know what to do anymore.
I've tried to do it myself.
I've tried different diets,
different things like that
and I just, I'm bad at it.
I think you may remember, years ago,
I told you that I had two nephews
that have been over 500 pounds.
(Angie crying) Since that time
we've buried one of them.
This gets real.