Michael's loss is Manitou's gain

Manitou Springs Fire Chief Keith Buckmiller found his star job applicant in Michael Willie, a thirdgeneration volunteer fireman and Manitou native who aced his aptitude tests.

Problem was, Willie weighed 361 pounds, which could pose a risk to himself and other firefighters when it came to the physical demands of fighting fires: How many people would it take to pull him out of a fire if he ran into trouble? How much stress could his body take if he had to race up several flights of stairs?

Buckmiller went ahead and hired Willie in August 2005, but his decision came with a gentlemen's agreement that the 27-year-old would try to shed some pounds.

The word "some," he would find out, was an understatement.

Willie dropped 191 pounds, more than half his body weight, in six months. Fifteen months later, the weight has stayed off. In that time, he's found new energy and uses far fewer oxygen bottles when he battles blazes.

"It just, like, clicked in my head one day and I said, ‘enough is enough,'" Willie said.

He used a doctor-supervised program of high-protein shakes and foods that reduced his calorie intake to 800 to 1,000 a day, compared with the 2,500 calories an average person needs. Today, he is on a maintenance program of healthful foods and exercise.

Since at least kindergarten, Willie was "the big kid," he said. He chalked up his size to genetics - his grandfather and father were obese - and never showed an interest in dieting. With a tight-knit group of friends, he largely avoided ridicule, and despite the weight, he was able to play sports in high school. Being obese, he said, wasn't something that significantly interfered with his life.

That began to change, though, as he got older. Willie became a volunteer firefighter in 1999, and the department had to specialorder his clothes and gear. He quickly tired during rescues and fighting fires. He was on multiple prescriptions to control blood pressure and cholesterol.

His doctor, Jay Adler of Colorado Springs Health Partners, said Willie's body mass index was over 40, making him morbidly obese by clinical standards. At his size, Willie was at risk of wearing out his joints and having major heart and circulatory problems. He also couldn't breathe normally because the weight prevented his diaphragm from fully contracting. With all of this going on before he was 30, it was questionable how long he might live. Adler said Willie would have been a candidate for gastric bypass surgery, in which doctors physically alter how much a person can eat.

Willie doesn't recall exactly what triggered his desire to change: his medications, his future in firefighting, or simply feeling better. Whatever it was, he didn't mess around. The diet, known as Medifast, was difficult at first, he said, but then it just became a part of his routine.

And with a new lifestyle of eating healthfully and exercising that's now nothing more than habit, he's not worried about gaining it back.

Adler said he's seldom seen patients so motivated to improve their health.

"He's the biggest loser. He wins, at least in my experience," Adler said.

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Contact the writer: 636-0198 or brian.newsome@gazette.com