Drastically overweight and afraid he was going to die, Bruce Petricca found a savior in Julie Oliver.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 30, 2005

BY TOM MEADE
Journal Sports Writer

WESTERLY -- Bruce Petricca knew he was in trouble when the only scale that would take his weight was at the town dump. Other scales stopped at 400 pounds.

A little over a year later, Petricca, who is about to turn 48, weighs 225 pounds, thanks to sound nutrition, exercise and Julie Oliver, a personal trainer and group fitness instructor at the Westerly-Pawcatuck YMCA.

"I owe my life to Julie," says Petricca, unable to stop his tears. "Before Julie, I was living to die."

Morbidly obese, Petricca had asked other personal trainers to help him implement an eating and exercise program designed by his cousin, a professional strength coach. On a crash diet, Petricca had lowered his weight to 378 pounds, but could go no further on his own. "None of them took me seriously," Petricca remembers. "They blew me off."

In the locker room at the Westerly Y, he was telling his story when another man said, "My wife's a personal trainer. Why don't you give her a call?"

"When we spoke on the phone, Bruce described himself, saying that he was very unhealthy," Oliver remembers.

"He said that he didn't exercise at all and that he really didn't watch what he ate. He said, 'I want someone to be as interested in my weight-loss goals as I am.' I was, and we were a good match."

"From the moment we met, there was an instant connection," Petricca says. "She knew I was serious, and I knew she was going to take me seriously."

"We first met in January, 2004," Oliver says, "and we established some short- and long-term goals."

Petricca's short-term goal was simply to lose weight. A lot of it.

Long term?

To live.

"I was 45 years old and was planning to die," Patricca remembers. He had prepared a will and put the rest of his financial affairs in order. He didn't have much of a retirement plan, though, because he figured that he wouldn't live long enough to retire.

He was in constant pain and always tired from carrying the weight of a whole other man.

Since he met Julie Oliver, Patricca has lost 153 pounds, and he says he is completely pain-free. He awakens at 4 a.m. and does office work until 6, when he heads to the gym. He he works late into the night as a manufacturer's representative. His total cholesterol has plunged from over 300 to around 150, and without the use of drugs.

He eats two breakfasts every day, two lunches, and often entertains customers at restaurants in the evening. Between meals, he snacks as he drives from one account to the next. "I'm a food-aholic," he says. "I've got to have food all the time, so I graze."

In the men's locker room of the Y Fitness Center, Petricca has become a source of inspiration and information about healthy nutrition.

"I shoot for 2,400 calories a day," he says. "Some days are over; other days are under 2,400.

"Fifty-five percent of that is complex carbohydrates: cereals and whole-grain breads, things like that. Thirty percent is protein: fish, chicken, turkey, and sometimes lean beef. I can have twice as much fish as beef, so I prefer the fish because I can eat a lot of it. I'm a big guy; I eat a lot a food.

The other 15 percent is fats, oils and sugar."

"It's basically the food pyramid," Oliver says. "A lot of whole foods, nothing processed. Everything in moderation."

Petricca eats a lot of cereal grains high in fiber. "I probably eat 45 grams of fiber a day," he says. "That's probably more than I should, but fiber is very filling." Oliver says 25 grams of fiber a day is beneficial.

Before his morning workout, Petricca generally eats a bowl of high-fiber cereal with skim milk. After the workout, he has another bowl of cereal with yogurt. "That's 20 grams of fiber with only 600 calories before lunch," he says

For his lunches on Monday, he ate two bags of prepared salad greens with other vegetables. Instead of olive oil, he uses flax-seed oil on salads because flax has more Omega 3 fatty acids for heart health. When he's on the road, Petricca often stops into a supermarket for a basket of fresh vegetables and fruit, and washes them in the men's room sink so he'll have snacks during the drive.

When he's taking a customer to dinner, Petricca selects restaurants such as Legal Seafoods, where he knows the menu will include fish prepared without fat. He limits his fat consumption to about 25 grams a day.

"You have to plan every meal," he says. "planning is everything."

Petricca exercises daily, walking, swimming or cycling. Sometimes he does all three. Twice weekly, he does circuit training with the Westerly Y's new, state-of-the-art fitness and free-weight equipment. At each machine, he does only one set of repetitions, but at the heaviest weight he can lift.

The cost of membership at the Y, plus the personal-trainer fee, he says, is equivalent to the price of a large cup of coffee each day.

In addition to health nutrition and exercise, Petricca believes that a strong dose of spirituality has fueled his journey to health.

He keeps a written record of his progress so Oliver can keep track of him. Sometimes, she'll call him to see how he's doing.

"I can't stress enough that it's really important -- especially when you feel that there's no hope -- to get someone who will help you do it all," Petricca says. "If I didn't have Julie, I could never have done this. Absolutely not.

"I owe it all to her. Everything I do -- my eating, working out, the positions on the equipment -- she has guided me through everything. I just showed up.I've got a whole new life, and she has given that to me."