Andalusia -- John "Tiny" Likely is in a rush these days.

He's in a rush to tell his story, a rush to get it all out. He is in a rush - let's face it -- to live a life it took him 30 years to discover.

"I feel like I've been reborn," he said, as it all gushes out. "I'm still trying to learn how to live a normal person life."

Because 19 months ago, when Likely got a job at Zaxby's in Andalusia, he weighed a quarter of a ton. He marvels at that now, he can't believe he ever got the job. Why after all, would anybody put someone like him in their kitchen, he still wonders.

John "Tiny" Likely before and after (special)

"A 500-pound person at a fast food place is almost impossible," he said. "I couldn't do the work. I couldn't keep up."

He couldn't stand more than 10 minutes at a time, couldn't move without stopping for breath. He couldn't pull his weight - literally or figuratively - on the team, and couldn't even fit into the Zaxby's uniform.

Still, he got a chance.

He's convinced now it saved his life. He would have died if he had remained on his old trajectory. He would have been satisfied to death eating family meals at fast food joints, playing video games at home and avoiding even the appearance of exercise.

But he got a chance. And something clicked. He decided he wanted to change his life, and all of a sudden he found support everywhere.

His then-manager, Clint Short, became his personal trainer. The owner, Scott Brown, got him a gym membership. Co-worker O.T. Green passed along nutrition tips he learned in football and anatomy class at Andalusia High School, and the team in the kitchen helped him make it through the days. He was allowed to work a few hours and go home to rest before finishing the rest of the shift. And they kept him away if he showed too much interest in the fried food.

"They gave me life," he said. "They gave me hope. They actually believed in me."

And everything changed. This time 19 months ago Tiny - he calls himself that with a pride he never felt when the nickname was just ironic - had to climb on an industrial scale at a junkyard to find out he weighed 500 pounds. Today he weighs 239 pounds.

He's heard all the jokes. He's half the man he used to be. He's lost a whole person. And that's sort of the way he feels. He's lost the old Tiny, as he calls him, and gained a life.

Tiny is proud that he has done it the old fashioned way, with exercise and proper nutrition, without diet aids or surgery.

"I had to change everything about me," he said. "I had to change me."

All of a sudden Tiny, that slow, plodding, breathless hulk of a man, is staring down the barrel of his 200-pound goal and darting around the kitchen. He is giving nutrition advice, of all things. And he wants the world to know. Not to give him credit or attention, but because he believes his story is bigger than he ever was.

"Everybody who I see I'm telling them about healthy living," he said. "And this is from the 500 pound John Likely from back in the day. If you do this and you do that, if you have faith and believe in yourself you can do anything."

He's preaching it, like the gospel of some dietary deity. Bam, bam, bam. One after the other.

"You are your own limits. You are the only one who can hold you back."

"If it doesn't challenge you it doesn't change you."

"You can do this!"

He has become the nutritional conscience of this community, and the community has rallied around him in ways that lift him like a hug. His Facebook page "Team Tiny Andalusia" has become a sensation. And that matters to him.

He doesn't want others to know the pain he so often felt. There was a lot of pain.

"I never in my life have been in trouble with the law," he said. "But I have been in prison my whole life."

His father died when he was two, his mother when he was nine. And he, the youngest of 20 siblings - that's right, 20 - was heartbroken and spoiled as the baby of the big family. He was loved - with food -- almost to death.

He couldn't fit in a desk at school in those days, couldn't play pee-wee football after his first year because at 8 years old he could no longer make the weight limit of 200 pounds. He dreamed up excuses and came down with illnesses to avoid school on days when the class was scheduled to run. He doesn't want others to go through that.

"Don't be afraid if you can't run a mile," he says. "Run half a mile. Or walk. I just wish someone had said to me as a child, 'well let's walk it together.'"

He tries to be upbeat all the time. But it is not always easy. There was a time when he almost gave up.

One of his sisters died, and he began to wonder about the point of it all. What's the difference it he gave it all up? What did it matter if he stuffed a bacon egg and cheese biscuit down his gullet?

He was having those thoughts when he heard a small voice behind him. "Tiny!" it said. And a little girl poked her head out of a car window.

"We're proud of you Team Tiny!" she said. "You can do it."

And he stopped in his tracks. A six-year-old stranger, like an angel sent from Heaven, was telling him to hang on when he needed it most.

"I realized that God wasn't doing this just for me," he said. And he believed it.

So he's been rushing ever since. To the gym. Around the kitchen. To tell his story to anyone who might listen.

It is bigger than him. It is bigger even than Old Tiny.

"You can do this!" he says to any who will listen. "You can do this!"

John Archibald is "doing Alabama" for a month, writing 31 stories from 31 places in 31 days. Follow his journey and help him out. Send story suggestions tojarchibald@al.com. Follow on Twitter @JohnArchibald (#ArchiBama) and on Facebook (John Archibald).