Mexico ? A man who once weighed well over a half ton left his house for the first time in five years Wednesday – wheeled outside on his bed to greet neighbors and see a mariachi band.

“The sky is beautiful and blue and what I want is to enjoy the sun,” said Manuel Uribe, who had once been certified by doctors as weighing 1,235 pounds.

Though still unable to leave his bed, Uribe has lost 395 pounds since he began a high-protein diet a year ago. He now weights about 840 pounds.

To celebrate the milestone, six people pushed Uribe’s wheel-equipped iron bed out to the street as a mariachi band played and a crowd gathered. Then, a forklift lifted him onto a truck and the 41-year-old rode through the streets of San Nicolas de los Garza, a Monterrey suburb.

Uribe was a chubby kid and weighed more than 250 pounds as an adolescent. In 1992, he said his weight began ballooning further.

Since the summer of 2002, Uribe has been bedridden, relying on his mother and friends to feed and clean him.