Podcast Episode 27: 'Possible' Pat Takes the Stage

Nick Collias: Hey, Nick here. Millions of people have used Bodybuilding.com's 4, 8, and 12-week challenges to change their lives and we've got a great one coming up, but this isn't the same old weight-loss challenge. It's called “Mission: Possible” and we're doing it together with ‘Possible’ Pat Brocco. Pat was over 600 pounds and lost well over 300 of them. We had them on the podcast recently and you can watch his video on our YouTube channel as well. During this challenge, he'll be sharing advice live, multiple times a week. The winners are whoever can lose the greatest percentage of bodyweight by the end of the year. This is important stuff. So, go to Bodybuilding.com/possible to learn more and sign up.

Hey everyone, welcome to The Bodybuilding.com Podcast. I'm Nick Collias, this is co-host, physique coach Heather Eastman...

Heather Eastman: Hello.

Nick: ...and today we have our first repeat guest, repeat offender. It's Pat, ‘Possible’ Pat Brocco. Thanks for coming back.

'Possible' Pat Brocco: Hey everyone, how you doing?

Nick: I don't want to dwell too much on backstory, because it's all out there. You can read Pat's story on Bodybuilding.com. You can hear our previous podcast. He's done an 11-episode series on our YouTube channel, and you've shared a ton on social media and on PossiblePat.com, which you own now. That's a good get. The last time we talked to you, I think you were something like four weeks out from a show, which is-

Heather: Almost exactly four weeks out. Yeah.

Nick: The WBFF transformation division.

Possible Pat: Correct. I went on to qualify for London, so ... in three more weeks, no, two and a half weeks I'll be in London competing for the crown of best transformation.

Nick: Okay and this was just a few years after waking up well over 600 pounds, too.

Possible Pat: Yes, correct.

Nick: That's quite a journey. We talked about what would happen if you didn't win-

Heather: You talked about what would happen if you didn't win-

Nick: Let's get the story though. First of all, who were you competing against when you went down there? This is in Arizona. Who were the people that were on stage with you?

Possible Pat: Just other weight loss people that wanted to step on stage. Maybe overcome some fears. Some people were still on their journey so it was a positive moment and when I first went on I thought it was going to be real competitive. I thought, "Oh, my god, I'm going to have to go against whoever it was," but it was more like, "Wow. Your story's awesome" and congratulating each other. London is going to be a different story, though. I'm competing in London.

Nick: Now, how is it set up? Like you go on stage, where is your story woven into it?

Possible Pat: It's just as-

Nick: Did you bring a video or-

Possible Pat: It's just as any bodybuilding thing. You get your minute and a half. You go onstage. You do your posing or at the time they're reading your story, as you're posing or if you want to just stand there whatever the case is. I posed. I didn't work 14 weeks to not pose. So, I went on stage, I posed and they just told my backstory and from how I got from 605 pounds to where I was that day.

Nick: Wow, 14 weeks, though. At that moment when you finally...

Possible Pat: I mean it was 14 weeks of knowing I was doing this show-

Nick: Years of it-

Possible Pat: ... but it was three years of prep for me. Everyone was like, "How long you going to prep for?" Three years.

Nick: When you're standing on the edge of the stage walking out there...

Possible Pat: The audience went crazy.

Nick: Were you ready for that?

Possible Pat: At first, I was just like, what are people going to think? Do I look good enough? I have scars from loose skin surgery. I don't look like everyone else and to be honest, people were amazed. It was a beautiful moment for me and I got to overcome some fears.

Nick: Mm-hmm (affirmative), but you've also done some modeling and things in the interim. You've done photo shoots for us.

Possible Pat: Yes, definitely.

Nick: It's not like you're, you're not, this isn't the first time that you've-

Possible Pat: Oh, no, no, it was-

Nick: ... had to show yourself at this point, luckily.

Possible Pat: It was just ... it was different. I had these tiny little shorts on, no shirt. Normally, I have shirt and pants on and-

Nick: Okay, so it's the full on banana hammock?

Possible Pat: Then, it was like 200 people in the audience. I was like, "200 people get to see me in these booty shorts." I was like, "And my fiancée’s here, great."

Heather: It sounds like, because we spoke to you before the competition, you had a lot of apprehension, it sounds like you've gotten over that hump and now you're going into, even though London is a bigger competition, you're going in a little bit more ... Would you say confident?

Possible Pat: More confident definitely, and this time it's easier for me. Knowing that I can accomplish it made this time a lot easier. My workouts, the prep, everything is easier, because I already know I can do it. Sometimes we get faced with challenges and we don't believe in ourselves. Once you believe in yourself and you-

Heather: Don't tell me you doubted yourself.

Possible Pat: Not that I doubted myself, but it was just something new. I didn't know that I can cut water for three days. I was just like, "Man, what am I going to do? I'm a fail and I'm a drink a gallon of water right before I go on stage. I'm not going to have no abs or nothing."

Heather: Just checking.

Possible Pat: Some people do it like, I've seen people actually at that show just like, "I can't do it" and just drinking water and I was just, I stood mentally strong. To be honest, it wasn't really mental, it was the mirror. I was, "Oh, my god, I look like this. I don't want to eat nothing. I don't want to drink no water. I don't want to eat a carb, nothing. I want to stay how I look right now."

Heather: I do have to ask, what was it like right after the show, because a lot of competitors will go out and just binge. Did you knowing that you'd won kind of ...

Possible Pat: I had ... two donuts.

Heather: Two donuts.

Possible Pat: First time I had donuts in probably over a year.

Nick: Did you carefully pick the donuts out or was it like the first two donuts you happened across?

Possible Pat: No. The day before we went to this, best donut place I've ever been to in life. They had so many different donuts and I picked two. That one and that one.

Nick: Tell us about these donuts. These sound pretty nice.

Possible Pat: One was a maple glazed bacon donut.

Nick: Oh, all right. That's pretty good choice.

Possible Pat: The other one was a ... Captain Crunch donut?

Heather: What?

Possible Pat: Captain Crunch. It was like filled with Captain Crunch and it had crunch berries on top-

Nick: Not just topped with it. It was filled with Captain-

Possible Pat: Yeah.

Nick: Okay.

Heather: They do that?

Possible Pat: Everyone's like, "Are you going to post a picture of that?" I'm like, "No. I can't show my followers I'm eating this. Everyone's going to think it's all right."

Nick: Then, you just, you had them for a day and you're just like...

Possible Pat: I had that and then I went to dinner. I got a steak. I didn't even get dessert that night. My son's birthday was the next day. I didn't eat cake. I did go to Vegas to take a week off and I had about three cheat meals. Came back and got right back on the prep.

Heather: Wow.

Possible Pat: I think it's because I had another show coming up that I didn't take a lot of time off. Maybe four or five cheat meals.

Heather: Okay, that's pretty good.

Nick: Now, we've talked with a lot of different competitors at different levels on the podcast about their first time, their tenth time. What do you feel like, what's the great lesson for you from this experience? As somebody who's never done this sort of thing before, when it was over, what did you think like, all right, what's the lesson I'm going to take away from this or share with all the people who are following you, who are not ever going to compete potentially?

Possible Pat: It's definitely a challenge, but taking yourself through this challenge you really get to see that I can really design my body how I want to. I didn't have much time from surgery to my show, it was under a year. Then, it was only six months of actually working out. So, the fact that I can do what I did in six weeks, I just tell people, "Imagine what you can do with six months or three years." That's just one of the beautiful things that you're in control of your destiny. You're in control of the way you look and how you want to be. So that's what I got out of it.

Nick: Was family in the audience?

Possible Pat: Yes. My mom flew in from Philadelphia. She flew cross-country to come see me. My sister, my fiancée, and about 100 of my followers came and it was amazing.

Heather: Wow.

Nick: Really? Wow.

Possible Pat: Yeah. It was amazing.

Heather: That's fantastic.

Possible Pat: I didn't expect it. Then, at the end we took this massive picture of all of us just out front.

Heather: Very cool.

Nick: Is your family at this point, are they, are you still blowing their mind or can they, is there anything that can even surprise them at this point?

Possible Pat: I think my wife's over it. She's like, "Okay, I get it. You look good now. Get outta the mirror." It's not that I'm conceded or cocky or by any means, it's the fact that I've never seen this person. Till this day I still see my body changing, and it's all new for me. Every day I wake up and there's something, I notice something different. The fact that I came from 600 pounds, it's really new to me. Sometimes I amaze myself. Sometimes I may feel like I don't look good and then I'll see pictures. I'll be like, "Did I really look like that?" Then, I'll be amazed again. That's what honestly keeps me wanting to keep moving forward to-

Nick: Blowing your own mind then.

Possible Pat: Yeah, results have been one of my biggest motivations, besides family and health. Knowing, just seeing the changes ... It's just, it's a beautiful thing.

Nick: Heather spoke into this in the past, that this is no joke though in terms of how tough it is for a family, too. Prep is no joke.

Possible Pat: My son didn't care. He ate Cheetos. He ate whatever he wanted. My wife, actually, she spent the last eight weeks with me prepping. She had a great transformation in the eight weeks as well.

Heather: Oh, good for her.

Possible Pat: She killed it. She absolutely killed it and supported me the whole way. It made her see the same things I was seeing. I mean, she went not having no abs to abs in eight weeks and she was like, "I think I like this." Now, we're working out every day, we're, she's still eating clean, which is amazing, because it's the first time ever for her. She's not overweight by any means, but she's first time being fit. So, it's been a growing experience for my family, even my son, sometimes, yeah, I give him Cheetos, but 90% of the time he's eating chicken and rice with me. He loves it.

Nick: What you do, is you take the chicken and rice and you sprinkle the Cheetos on top.

Heather: There you go. That's how you do it. Just this pouring of fairy dust, the Cheetos.

Nick: That's right.

Possible Pat: Now, you have to hide the Cheetos, because if he sees them there's no more chicken and rice. He's going to pick one.

Nick: Bury it in the rice. Then you get ...

Heather: That's what's so cool about your story is that you do have this long-term transformation for your followers who do have so much weight to lose, but then you also have shorter little, kind of like you said, your wife, eight weeks. Boom. She sees a difference. That's kind of what's so cool about it is that your able to appeal to such a wide audience because of your journey.

Possible Pat: Yes and I do, I am able to touch a lot of people, because, obviously, being 600 pounds and having 340 pounds to lose, I faced every journey. I faced the, "Oh, I have five pounds to lose." "Oh, I just want to lower my body fat." "Oh, I have 50, I have 100" ... I've walked in almost everyone's shoes when it comes to weight loss, unless someone had 400 pounds to lose.

Heather: See that's ...

Possible Pat: To be honest, I had someone that follows me and he actually did a challenge that I did a while ago and he was 700 pounds. He has, I think upwards of 450 pounds to lose. He's in his journey. He hasn't lost yet, but he's down 200 pounds.

Heather: Good for him. Yeah.

Possible Pat: So, he's definitely, definitely good guy. Definitely-

Heather: You showed him it's possible.

Possible Pat: Yeah, definitely possible and I look forward to seeing him do it.

Nick: That was going to be one of my questions though. As we discussed last time, you've been in dialog with a lot of people who are on the before end of this where it's like, "I need to do this." What sort of stories have you been hearing from people about, "Oh, my god, I can't believe what I achieved." Somebody who maybe didn't do everything you did, but has still been achieving something incredible.

Possible Pat: You know what? A lot of people have hit me up and said, "Since I started following you, I've lost 100 pounds" or "I've lost 60 pounds" or even, I talked to this young lady the other day in one of my lives, on Instagram and she'd lost 130 pounds. I'm getting to ... a lot of people losing the weight and just stopping. That's one of the things I don't want people to do. I don't want people to feel like, "Oh, I lost 100 pounds and I'm good," because that's how I felt when I first started. That I would lose the 100 pounds and I would be fine. I would be perfectly fine. I lost 100 pounds and honestly, I felt better. I looked better and I could have stopped there, but sometimes you really need to figure out what's healthy for you and not just set a pound goal. That's really what I want to show people. Take it all the way. Don't halfway your journey.

Nick: Yeah, what does come next? If somebody's like, "I don't want to stop at 100 pounds weight loss, but I don't necessarily want to go to the stage either."

Heather: Right, yeah. I don't necessarily want to compete.

Nick: What is the next step?

Possible Pat: There is, in my opinion, the stage is the last step. I've reached all my goals. I'm at a healthy body fat percentage. I've overcame diseases. I've overcame… every day activity. I'm healthy and I feel good. That's where I want people to get to. It's not necessarily about stepping on stage. It's about taking your body to the point that, not only are you confident, but you feel and you look great. That's what a lot of people need to chase. Not just the look, but the feeling. To be honest, a lot of people should get checked out, should really know where they need to be, because I have people that follow me that tell me, "I'm 5'4" and I want to weigh 180 pounds." I'm like, "That's not right. You were 280 and you maybe 200 now. You may feel like, 'Oh, 20 pounds I'll be good,' but 180 pounds at 5'4" just isn't healthy."

Heather: That's right.

Possible Pat: "You're still overweight." My thing is, it's not a fight for, it's a fight against obesity. Let's lower our body fat percentages to a healthy point, not overweight. That's really the goal. It's not, if you want to step on stage. Just be healthy.

Heather: You're really the only ambassador that can say that, because you've experienced both of those spectrums. A lot of fit people-

Possible Pat: 53% body fat.

Heather: ... haven't really gotten to feel-

Nick: 53.

Heather: ... what 53% body fat feels like.

Possible Pat: When I first got it measured. Before, it was just like off the chain numbers like, I couldn't even get it done, but after losing 100 pounds I was 53% body fat.

Nick: Now, there's a challenge coming up that you're doing with Bodybuilding.com as well that ties into all of this, right?

Heather: Yes. Tell us about that.

Nick: Tell us about that.

Possible Pat: So, we really want to give back and help some people like me or some people that have the 100 pounds to lose feel comfortable in actually joining challenges, because I know when I was 600 pounds, I joined a challenge, but I never posted. I didn't complete it. I mean, even though I went on to lose the weight, but I didn't complete the actual challenge. I didn't try to compete, because I never felt like I was acceptable. Me losing 50 pounds versus someone else losing 50 pounds is a big difference, especially if they only had 50 pounds to lose. So, we wanted to really target a longer challenge, because normally challenges are eight weeks. We want to really give people time to experience what you can do with that time. If I'm not mistaken we'll start it in October and it'll go through the end of the year.

Nick: You can sign up before then.

Possible Pat: Yes, in August. August we plan on kicking off registration I believe, while I'm in London and hopefully when I get crowned.

Heather: That would be good. You're crossing through all of the holidays, but kind of deliberately.

Possible Pat: Yes, you know what? That's one of the things that ... in my opinion is a great idea, because a lot of people battle with food. A lot of people that are overweight, that's their comfort. That's what they turn to and even during the holidays it's what makes them happy during the holidays, even when I did my show, I remember talking about last time. First thing I thought about, "What am I going to cheat with?" I still had the mindset of when I was overweight, turning to food for, whether it's me being sad or happiness. I want to show people that you don't necessarily have to turn to food for that.

Heather: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's right, it's about hanging out with your family and coming together. It doesn't have to be all about the food.

Possible Pat: Yeah, and you really just ... need to realize food has a purpose and it's really just to keep you going, to fuel you. A lot of people get away from that, even myself. Maybe, through the 16 weeks, we help people overcome some obstacles that they've never been able to overcome and actually start looking at food differently.

Nick: So, over the course of the 16 weeks, what's going to happen? What are you going to be doing?

Possible Pat: We have Halloween, so no candy on Halloween. Thanksgiving. I'm not going to tell people not to do Thanksgiving and hopefully, me and Bodybuilding.com can come up with some great healthy alternatives during the day. That's what I do on Thanksgiving. My wife will tell you, she'll make candy yams with marshmallows, brown sugar, and everything in them. Then, she'll just make me a plain old sweet potato.

Nick: Which I still delicious.

Heather: Still delicious, yeah.

Possible Pat: Still delicious and sometimes we'll add something to it that maybe doesn't have as much sugar or maybe we'll use an alternative. Then, we'll do just healthy, instead of potato salad, we'll do a quinoa salad. We have healthy options even though we still have the unhealthy options for everyone else that aren't on the journey that really want to enjoy the food that day. My family's really getting closer and closer to it all being healthy. To be honest ... you have to learn. You may feel like, "Oh, these foods are great." It's because you haven't experienced other foods. You haven't tried other foods. You haven't let your body adapt to them. Now, I have a quinoa salad, I'm like, "Yes, carbs." They're delicious.

Heather: Excited.

Nick: Now, over the course of the 16 weeks are you going to be offering advice, guidance? What are you going to be doing for people.

Possible Pat: So, obviously I've been thinking like after London, what's next? What is Possible Pat going to do next? The challenge came ... came to light. I was like, "Well, that's great. Now I have something to do over the next 16 weeks. Not only, I'm going to do the challenge with people. So, when I'm in London after my show I'll have a cheat week.

Nick: Cheat week.

Possible Pat: Yeah, cheat week.

Nick: Oh, you're going to load it up this time.

Possible Pat: I have to experience London and-

Nick: There's some excellent food for sure.

Possible Pat: Yeah, so I'm going to have a cheat week. When we start the challenge, I plan on reaching some new goals for myself and helping people reach their goals. We plan on doing Facebook Live, maybe twice a week, where we do live call-ins. We really help people figure out what's going on. Why they're not reaching their goals and help them get to the next level. We'll be offering recipes, workouts, throughout the course of the 16 weeks. I really want, really trying to work on the 16 weeks building how to lost weight, not just ... "Here's the challenge. You got to do it by yourself. We'll see you in 16 weeks." We'll post a motivational video every week. Sometimes when you are in my shoes, you need a little bit more guidance. Sometimes you just need someone in your face telling you, "Put the cookie down." I just did a video the other day, “Hide the Cookies.” Sometimes we need to be told what to do and stop waiting and hopefully this challenge will get people started and stop putting it off till tomorrow.

Heather: Then, I heard that you also have the category that's purely “most motivational” and that sounds like a shout out to the Pat from three years ago that was a like, "I don't feel like losing 50 pounds is enough, but I'm still doing it. I'm in it." So, tell me about that.

Possible Pat: Definitely. We wanted, obviously, there could only be one male, one female winner, but then there'll also be a motivational winner. The person that just kept going the whole time, or maybe this person didn't have a lot of weight to lose. Maybe this person was just there to support others, or just posting his workouts or his meals. Sometimes that really has, it's like a domino effect. I tell people all the time, "You may be losing 20, 30 pounds" and people tell me, "Well, I haven't accomplished what you accomplished," but there's someone watching you. Whether it's in your office, a family member, someone at your kid's school. They're seeing you make a difference and it's registering in their head that, "Oh, this can be done. He lost 20 pounds. Why can't I do it?" So, most motivational.

Heather: Very cool. I like it.

Nick: How are the winners being selected? The male and female winners.

Possible Pat: We're going to do most percentage of body.

Nick: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Possible Pat: The weight you lost compared to your body weight.

Nick: Okay and over the course of 16, if somebody's-

Possible Pat: Almost four months.

Nick: If somebody's looking at that four months, what's possible in four months for somebody do you think?

Possible Pat: So, in 90 days, which is 3 months, I lost 100 pounds. That was just me guessing. There wasn't no one helping me. There wasn't no one that I followed or looked up to, that I was getting advice from. Everything I did was purely online, just googling and we're hopefully, we eliminate that and we give you somewhere to go, somewhere to feel confident, somewhere to look up these things, and somewhere that you wake up every morning and you're like, "I'm a go to this page, because I know I need the motivation today." I believe over 4 months, I ended up losing another 30 pounds. So, I ended up losing 130 ...

Nick: Wow.

Possible Pat: 130 pounds in 4 months. It slowed down after that, but just starting and getting rid of all the sodas and sugars and pizzas and everything bad. That was step one for me. People don't realize, once you eliminate that you're going to lose weight. You're going to lose weight and sometimes it's not as complicated as people make it. They say, "You know what? I'm a juice for the next ... 100 days." I tell people, "Do a diet that you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life." So, if you don't want to fast for 16 hours for the rest of your life, or you don't want to juice for the rest of your life, just do something you can maintain, because at the end of the day, it's not just about going through these 16 weeks. It's about going through the next 16 years, or 20 years of your life and living healthy and never going back to the old you.

Nick: So now, what's the name of the challenge?

Possible Pat: Mission: Possible.

Heather: To be announced.

Nick: “Mission: Possible”–I like, if legal allows us, right?

Possible Pat: Yes, if legal allows us. Yes.

Nick: At Bodybuilding.com and through Possible Pat's many social outlets. Check it out people. Thanks again for coming by.

'Possible' Pat Brocco: I hope that we save some lives and change some.

Heather Eastman: Thank you so much! Absolutely.

Nick Collias: Absolutely.