I could die any day says 40 stone Birmingham City fan Barry Austin

Nov 8 2009 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

BARRY Austin’s obsession with food found him fame – but little fortune.

The 41-year-old once tipped the scales at 65 stone and was crowned Britain’s fattest.

His weight saw him feted by the nation’s lad mags and filmed for highly intimate TV documentaries about his life, hosted by the likes of Top Gear’s Richard Hammond.

“Fat Baz” was a regular figure of fun.

But the hilarity didn’t last for long for the Brummie man mountain.

He now lies bed-ridden in his council house, in Smiths Wood, Solihull, which he has not been able to leave for NINE months.

Accompanied only by his rottweiler Bailey, and relying on regular visits from his doting mum Lillian and ex-girlfriend Debbie Kirby, Barry has revealed he fears he is being “stalked by death”.

Speaking to the Sunday Mercury, the former taxi driver opened his heart about his never-ending fight against the flab – and how he thinks he could die very soon.

Currently weighing a whopping 40 stone, he said: “Death is constantly on my mind, it is always in the back of my head, stalking me.

“My mortality is right in front of me every day. Carrying this amount of weight is like carrying a ticking timebomb.”

By the time Barry was in his 20s, he weighed a massive 65 stone.

His typical daily intake was three English breakfasts, two portions of fish and chips, three roast dinners and a family-sized trifle.

This was all washed down with 17 litres of cola, Monday to Thursday.

And at the weekend he would guzzle 40 pints of beer and a couple of bottles of spirits, followed by seven or eight baltis.

Nearly two decades later and after having a gastric balloon fitted, Barry guesses he weighs about 40 stone.

He admits he can’t be sure.

But he says he is positive that the years of excess have finally caught up with him.

“I have got serious problems with my legs now,” he said. “I fear I could lose them if I get DVT or something like that.

“One of them has a growth, which the medics think weighs about two to three stone in its own right.