A Giant Leap for 700-lb. Man : Health: South-Central resident who was near death three months ago is 342 pounds lighter thanks to a crash diet--and the help of a county physical therapist.

Slim chance this is going to work, thought physical therapist Sherman Gardin when the 700-Pound Man whispered that he intended to get out of bed and start walking.

It had taken a dozen strong men to carry Tommy McGruder into his house in South-Central Los Angeles after he had returned from a county hospital three months ago after nearly dying from his crushing weight.

Now, as he lay on a heavy-duty bed that filled half of his living room, McGruder was the biggest challenge that Gardin had ever faced in 32 years of therapy work for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

“He was so huge, I didn’t think Tommy would ever get up,” admitted Gardin.

But then McGruder started losing weight on a crash diet designed by volunteer doctors who took the unusual step of visiting his East 60th Street home and removing boxes of snack crackers, peanut butter and cupcakes from his cupboard and pork chops and frozen pizza from his refrigerator.

And on Tuesday--342 pounds lighter than he was in May when rescuers piled him onto two gurneys and rushed him to the hospital--McGruder took his first 15 steps with the aid of a walker to reach the front door of his home.

Now that he is moving, there will be no stopping him as he tries to lose an additional 150 pounds through exercise and a continuing low-fat diet, McGruder vowed.

Virtually housebound for years, McGruder, 35, pledged that in the future he will walk right by the fried chicken outlets and burger stands that helped start an eight-year eating binge that eventually left him immobile and barely able to talk.

“My world was my room, the kitchen,” said McGruder. “Friends would call to get me to go out and I’d give some excuse. My life was a nightmare.”

In the old days, he would start the morning with a fried steak, six scrambled eggs with sausage on the side, “a big plate of hashed browns” and 10 slices of toast, McGruder recalled.

On Tuesday, breakfast consisted of chunks of cantaloupe and a cup of tea--part of a low-fat, low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet carefully monitored by the nonprofit Lean for Life Foundation of Costa Mesa.

“To be honest, I don’t miss the food,” McGruder said.

“The craving isn’t there anymore. I think I was eating out of anger--in the old days I’d have a smile on my face, but I was faking it. I think when I hit age 26 I went into a fit of depression and stayed in it.”

McGruder’s drastic diet is not for everyone. But his weight was suffocating him, said Dr. Peter Vash, the foundation’s director.

Other breakfasts consist of cereal or low-fat cottage cheese and a piece of toast. And lunches and dinners are dietetic-type meals or things like broiled fish minus the tartar sauce, Vash said.

McGruder’s weight loss will slow now that much of the excess water in his body is gone, Vash said. From now on McGruder will probably lose about 40 pounds a month until he reaches his goal of between 200 and 250 pounds, he said.

“At that point we’ll assess him psychologically. We want to help him get a job after that,” Vash said.

McGruder hopes for a career in art. He plans to start by using his own drawings to illustrate the story of his slow weight gain--and his dramatic weight loss. His experience may help others with severe weight problems, he said.

McGruder grinned as he stood in his doorway and waved to friends outside. “How about this! I’ve never stood up this good . . . this feels good!” he exclaimed.

“C’mon, let’s go shoot some hoops, man!” shouted a longtime buddy, Joe Fields, from the front yard.

Standing in the background, therapist Gardin was beaming, too. His county assignment to work with McGruder is coming to an end, he said. But he plans to return on his own time to continue helping him work off the weight.

“He’s a real success story,” Gardin said. “And I want to be part of it.”