Manuel Uribe, who once weighed half a tonne, left his house yesterday for the first time in five years.

Six people pushed Mr Uribe’s wheel-equipped iron bed onto the street, as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered to see the man – thought to be the world’s heaviest – who once weighed 560kg (88st).

“The sky is beautiful and blue and what I want is to enjoy the sun,” Mr Uribe said after taking a sip from a bottle of champagne.

Unable to leave his bed for more than five years, the 6ft 3ins divorcee has lost 180kg (28st) since he began a high-protein diet a year ago. He now weighs about 380kg (60st).

To celebrate the milestone, a forklift lifted Mr Uribe’s bed onto a trailer pulled by a pickup truck and the 41-year-old former mechanic rode through the streets of San Nicolas de los Garza, a Monterrey suburb.

Dozens of reporters and photographers followed Mr Uribe as he passed the town’s plaza and church, waving at crowds of onlookers eager to get a glimpse of him.

“It fills me with joy to see he’s getting better and getting a little sun,” Mr Uribe’s neighbor Guadalupe Guerra said. “I would go crazy if I had to be inside my house for so many years.”

Mr Uribe was a chubby child, weighing more than 115kg (18st) as an adolescent. In 1992, he said his weight began ballooning further.

Since the summer of 2002, Mr Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him. He keeps a television and a computer he uses to update his Web site near his iron bed.

He drew worldwide attention when he pleaded for help on national television in January 2006. Afterwards, Italian and Spanish doctors visited and offered him gastric bypass surgery.

But Mr Uribe chose to accept help from Mexican nutritionists working with the Zone diet. He said he will stick to that diet until he reaches his goal weight of 120kg (18st).

He said: “My goal is to leave the house on my own but I know that will be a long process.” Doctors say it may take between three and four years for him to reach his goal.

The Zone diet, conceived by American nutritionist Barry Sears, advocates a 40:30:30 split of calories obtained from carbohydrates, proteins and fats respectively to promote a “hormonal balance” said to boost energy levels and cut excess weight.

Mr Uribe said: "People think that I can eat a whole cow but it's not just over-eating, it's also a hormonal problem."

He plans to start a foundation to help overweight people get medical assistance and teach them about healthy eating habits.

Guinness World of Records could not confirm Mr Uribe’s weight, but said they do not have details of any living person weighing more than 380kg on record.

Jon Brower Minnoch, of Bainbridge Island, Washington, who died in 1983 aged 42, holds the record for world’s heaviest ever man at more than 100st.

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