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Marino kicks off 'Million Calorie March'
By PAMELA MIETH news@woburnonline.com

WOBURN - This week Woburn resident Gary Marino takes the first steps in a very long journey - the beginning of a 1,200-mile walk from Jacksonville, Fla., to Boston to raise awareness and funds for programs to educate and inspire the public to combat obesity.

Dubbed the "million calorie march," Marino expects to be on the road for about four months, covering 15 miles a day. But, his journey really began several years ago.

Marino, 38, says he was a food addict who spent the better part of three decades trying quick-fix diets. Three years ago, he tipped the scales at 397 pounds.

"I decided to fix what's broken," Marino said during a recent interview, fulfilling a promise he had made to his mother, Lorraine "Rainbow" Marino, diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor in 1999.

So, in 2000, Marino hired a nutritionist, a fitness trainer a sports medicine doctor and a therapist specializing in weight-loss issues.

And, he began walking.

Over the past three years, Marino has lost 130 pounds. Of the 1,200-mile trek he has planned, he quips, "What better way to get the last 50?"

Really, the walk is just the beginning of Marino's plans to keep helping himself and to help others.

"I decided instead of just fixing myself," Marino said, "to stay involved and help others."

Marino formed a non-profit organization called Generation Excel, a positive spin on "generation XL" which he hopes will provide education and support for children and adults trying to fight "food addiction the sensible way."

Generation Excel's mission is to:

- provide information to help individuals make healthy food choices,

- promote physical fitness,

- and, eventually, to help fund an educational DVD for parents, "Waisted Youth Strategies for Keeping Your Child Healthy,"

- fund obesity research, scholarships to weight loss camps and physical education programs in the schools.

The walk

The million calorie march is the kick-off fundraiser and public awareness campaign.

Marino said there have been fundraising walks and bike rides for AIDS, diabetes and all sorts of diseases, but there hasn't been one for obesity, because no one thinks of it as a disease and "no one's willing to throw themselves out to be the poster child for the cause."

Until now. Marino said his walk is kind of a "shock and awe" campaign, a "big guy walking up the Eastern seaboard" gets people's attention.

Along the way, Marino will be stopping to speak with weight loss groups, walking clubs, individuals and companies to share his experience and health information. "I'm a grown-up statistic," Marino said, "not a doctor ... just someone who's managed to reverse the trend."

Part of what he will be telling people is to "laugh at the insanity of the weight-loss industry, what's going on with fast food, then take a look in the mirror and get started."

While Marino had the help of a team of experts, he also walked his feet off. That can be done for free, but his website also includes some suggestions for trying to put together one's own team, noting that some health care plans pay for counseling or nutrition classes and local gyms are an option.

The walk will take him from Florida, through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, New Jersey, New York and home to Massachusetts.

Those interested can follow Marino's trip on his website, www.millioncaloriemarch.com. He will be keeping an online journal from the road.

Marino will have a team helping him along the way including two road managers and a cook following him in a mobile home.

He will also be followed by a documentary film crew.

And there's more. Marino noted recently that Barnes and Noble subsidiary iUniverse will publish his book, "The Big & Tall Chronicles: Mis-Adventures of a Life Long Food Addict!" and will be one of his walk sponsors, along with Autopart International, Todd G. Patikin Charitable Endeavors, New Balance, Nature's Path, Trader Joe's, Zone Perfect, MassEnvelopePlus, and others.

Marino hopes his walk will raise $1 million. "I've got big ideas," he said.

The co-owner of Marino-Harmon Entertainment, a talent agency and production company, Marino said partner Julie Harmon will be running the day-to-day business while he is on the road.

A mission

For now, however, Marino is on a mission. As he noted on his website, "When I began this project back in 2001, 61 percent of Americans were overweight. As I write this, that statistic has changed to 65 percent. Even worse, 1 in 3 children born in the year 2000 will develop type II diabetes ... I for one will not sit by and watch it happen. Not without a fight."

Marino hopes his walk will help people realize they have the power inside themselves to change; that if a "20-year food addict like myself can turn the entire Eastern seaboard into his personal, treadmill, that you too can find and create your own 'million calorie march' in your hometown and in your own life."

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