Imagine being so large you could not buy clothes from a store, or sit in a movie theatre, use an aircraft washroom, drive a car, or wear your favourite footwear.

Imagine, too, that every time you went out in public you felt people were staring at you and/or whispering behind your back. That you could not sit on a beach for more than four minutes before you became intolerably overheated. Or that, with snow and ice on the ground, you were sweating through the sheer effort of moving while everyone else was shivering.

All this, and more, was the world of Brian Perry. Never a lightweight, he had endured the embarrassment of being overweight from childhood. At school his fellow students would taunt, tease or shun him. "Fatso'' was one of the kindest epithets they used. As an adult, he had few close friends, and even some of those, he later discovered, were ashamed to be seen with someone so outsized.

And Brian was very outsized. Unemployed -- "I was a spoiled little rich kid'' -- his days were primarily filled with television, junk food, and pizza deliveries.

Following the death of his mother when he was 16, the young man cooked for his father and himself -- a task that not only developed his culinary skills, but his appetite and girth.

Months turned into years, and the weight piled on the couch potato's frame. Of course he had labour-saving devices to conserve his energy -- like the remote control for the television set.

Admittedly, Mr. Perry made several efforts to lose weight, including having his jaws wired shut, and he once dropped 50 pounds, but always he went back to the familiar lifestyle.

Now there are hundreds of fat people who vehemently deny they are unhappy with their size. "It is not true that inside every fat person there's a thin one longing to get out,'' they shrill. Brian Perry was not one of them.

Inside, he was miserable, and despite an outgoing -- even flamboyant -- personality, he did things like picking up the tab for bar and food bills whenever he was out with friends in a subconscious attempt to buy affection.

As for clothes, shopping in stores was out -- they had nothing to fit him, so he either bought fabric and had things made, or he shopped in "fat man'' catalogues. Thus his "wardrobe'' consisted of shirts as big as sails, and jeans, jeans, jeans.

"I would buy, maybe, three different colours of jeans, and when they wore out I'd send for more of the same,'' he relates. "Of course, nothing was ever fashionable.'' For ten years, while everybody else went to the movies he stayed home: no seat could accommodate his bulk. Neither could any economy class airline seat so, while he enjoyed travelling, he was forced to go first class. Even then, he couldn't fit the food table into the seat. Nor could he enjoy a drink. In fact, the day before he travelled he stopped his liquid intake because he knew he would never fit into an aircraft toilet. Rides at amusement parks were out -- he was more than 200lbs. over the maximum personal weight allowance.

Unlike ordinary mortals who plop down on chairs, Mr. Perry had to ease down gently, having first determined which furniture would safely accommodate him.

At outdoor functions, he either stood or sat on the ground because the lawn chairs were too small.

Big as he was, and getting bigger, he kept on with his lifestyle -- until the end of 1998 when he finally decided he'd had enough of hiding from cameras, paying for attention, and going around in a food-filled circle of low self-esteem.

Thus it was that, on February 26, 1999 weighing 405.5lbs., and with a 64-inch waist, Mr. Perry took control of his life and resolved to lose weight. This time, however, he would do it for himself and not at the urging of others.

"I was barely 30 and I figured I would rather lose weight voluntarily than get to 40 and develop a bunch of problems that made it compulsory,'' he explains.

In this regard, he received excellent advice from the one person he took into his confidence: his aunt, Patricia Ward.

"Don't tell people you are losing weight because if you fail you will feel worse,'' she cautioned. "Just do it quietly.'' And so he did.

Working with King Edward VII Memorial Hospital outpatients' registered dietitian Mrs. Jasen Moniz Mr. Perry began a regime that included exercise and emphasised nutritious food choices from regular grocery stores. From day one he kept a meticulous daily diary of everything he did and ate.

Every two weeks his weight was checked by Mrs. Moniz and recorded on a personal "report card,'' which today reads like a falling thermometer.

March 10, 1999: 401lbs.; April 7, 388.9lbs.; May 5, 363lbs. By May 28 he had lost 48lbs. "Spectacular'' wrote his dietitian. By October 26 she was writing "superb'' against the 119.5lb-weight loss. By November 17 he weighed a "superlative'' 223lbs., and the ecstatic Mrs. Moniz was running out of adjectives.

When Brian Perry left for Christmas in Canada on December 21, 1999 he weighed just 193lbs. It was his turn to be ecstatic.

Instead of a suitcase filled with dull, shapeless shirts and boring blue jeans, it now contained fashionable clothes from some of his favourite designer labels: Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Dior, Versace. At long, long last he had been able to indulge his passion for fashion in real stores. But it didn't stop at clothes. He also exchanged his unruly, dark brown, post-shoulder length mop of hair for a short, curly cut and bleached it very, very blonde.

"I wanted a completely new persona,'' he explains of the radical move.

Such was the transformation, in fact, that when he arrived at his relatives' home in Canada and entered with a cousin whom he'd let in on the secret, not a soul recognised him.

"They were polite and said hello, but asked my cousin who I was. It really took some convincing to get them to believe it was me. They were in shock!'' So, too, were the so-called friends who had always relied on good old Brian to pick up the hospitality tabs.

"I decided I didn't need to do that any more, and when I stopped paying they disappeared,'' he recalls.

Of course, his true friends stuck by him as always, demonstrating their joy and pride at the transformation.

Heavyweight weight loser Indeed, his closest friend Bruce Hill even swapped clothes with him on evenings out, so impressed was he with Brian's new wardrobe.

With the blessing of his dietitian, Mr. Perry relaxed his dietary regime whilst on holiday, but not to excess. The few pounds he gained are now being worked off in daily gym sessions with his trainer.

Instead of sitting in front of a couch, his mornings are filled providing domestic cleaning services to a variety of clients who think the world of him.

If this seems an unusual occupation, Mr. Perry is not bothered.

"It gets my butt off the couch, gives me a purpose and independent income, and besides, I love housework,'' he says.

Except for the $15,000-worth of outsized clothes in his closet, and a lower abdominal flap of stretched skin which only surgery can remove, there is little to connect the former heavyweight with today's tall, well-proportioned, thirty-something man. Indeed, such is the transformation that Mr. Perry must now update all photo identification documents because no-one believes the man in the pictures is one in the same with the man in the flesh.

"I never, ever want to look like that again,'' he shudders.