Ex-Marine Amputee Fights the Odds, Loses over 100 Pounds

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WJBK) - Fighting for his country, fighting for his life and fighting for his health. This is the story of a metro Detroit man who proves there's power in perseverance. He's a weight loss winner because even though he was fighting some tough odds, he refused to give up.

"Once a Marine, always a Marine. I went to boot camp three weeks after I turned 17 years old," said Alan Opra.

The brave, young Marine soon found himself fighting for peace in Beirut, Lebanon. Opra was there when the 1983 terrorist attack killed 220 Marines.

"The building was leveled. I mean it was gone basically. Just people running around ... everybody just dirt covered trying to help. Snipers were shooting at us at the same time," Opra explained. "Body bags, pieces of people, it was just horrible."

Fast forward about 20 years on his motorcycle, and death came charging at Opra once again.

"I got hit by the drunk driver July 16th of 2005," he explained.

Unbelievably, he survived the crash, but his leg had to be amputated. Opra began a new, very challenging chapter in his life.

"My home wasn't accessible, so the insurance company put me in a hotel for seven months," Opra said. "I couldn't buy food. I couldn't really move around that much, so everything was brought in and I just ate. There was no exercise, and before you know it, I was 396 pounds."

Opra found himself trapped in his chair even with a prosthesis. Excessive weight as an amputee is like a jail sentence.

"I could wear a leg, but I couldn't wear it that long, and if I'd wear it a little bit then I'd have a problem. If somebody had steps, I couldn't go to their house. How wide were their doorways? Could I use their restroom?

He knew he had to make a change, so he joined Medical Weight Loss Clinic.

"The one thing that attracted me to Medical Weight Loss Clinics was you buy regular food, store bought food. You don't have to buy somebody else's food," said Opra.

He relearned how to eat, avoiding red meat and bread and sticking with salads and lean protein. It took just about a year and Opra went from almost 400 to 278 pounds. He's down 116 pounds.

He credited weekly weigh-ins with keeping him on track, and losing this weight means Opra delights in doing all of the things anyone with two legs can do.

"Within six months, I'll be running again," he said.

Just fitted with a new socket for his prosthetic, Opra's due for yet another surgery, and then he plans on continuing to lose weight and proving how perseverance pays off.

"No matter what you do in life, you have to picture yourself accomplishing your goal," he told us. "Once you can do that, there's nothing you can't achieve."