Stanley Hollar has already been through an incredible weight loss journey, but he's still looking for help to pull off his most important goal.
Hollar, a substitute teacher from Rushville, Indiana, says he can't remember a time when he wasn't overweight.
"I was always the biggest guy in the room," he told WTHR. "In kindergarten I was over 100 pounds."
He says that he tried to lose weight a number of times, only "to gain it back - with interest."
At his heaviest, Hollar weighed 678 pounds, so much that he "couldn't even get myself off the floor." Hollar's weight loss dreams seemed like they were dashed forever after he suffered an accident in college.
In 1996, when Hollar was 20, he injured his knee playing soccer with friends. An MRI might have been able to save his leg, but Hollar was too large to fit in the machine.
Eventually, doctors amputated his leg. While he was fitted for a prosthetic leg, Hollar's weight restricted him to a wheelchair.
"I really thought my life was ending," Hollar remembers about that period in his life. "But like my weight, I got used to it and kept on keeping on."
That determination to keep on going, no matter what, eventually paid off in a big way for Hollar.
Three years ago a wake-up call from his doctor convinced him to lose weight, and the results he achieved are incredible.
In 2015, Hollar's doctor told him just how bad his health had become: he needed to lose weight, or he would die before his 40th birthday.
Incredibly, Hollar took to his doctor's advice right away and hasn't looked back yet. He burned off 250 pounds by lifting weights and hitting the gym, and another 250 pounds thanks to weight loss surgery.
Hollar told People he's "so glad" he finally made the big change. "I got a whole new lease on life. I should have died in 2015, but now I am alive and really learning to enjoy life. The life I should have had all along."
But there's still one part of his old life that Hollar is dying to get back.
The new man wants to walk again, for what would be the first time in 20 years. Of course, after losing a quarter of a ton, Hollar's old prosthetic leg is much too big.
"As you can tell, I can fit my whole waist in it now," he said. "This thing used to fit snug."
Fitting a new prosthetic leg would take two surgeries to remove the excess skin on Hollar's limb. Because the procedure isn't covered by his insurance, Hollar is crowdfunding the $25,000 bill on the website YouCaring.
Hollar is hoping that, with the kindness of strangers, he'll be able to take his first steps as a new, healthier man.
"You start small and build," Hollar advises anyone still thinking about changing their life.
"You go a little farther or you do a little more each day. Before long, you won"˜t recognize the new you ...The key is to just start."
You can donate to Stanley Hollar's surgery fund on his website.
Stanley is living proof that we can all change, one step at a time.
