Imagine Yourself Winning the Weight War w/Guest Patrick Tullio of "Weight Down, Life Up"

What happens when someone has an incredibly inspiring life story to share, and it ends up motivating everyone who hears it? Transformations start to happen! This is what happened when we spoke with our guest, Patrick Tullio of Weight Down, Life Up, and he taught us that there’s more to it than just watching the numbers on the scale.

Ready to arm yourself with all the right weapons to wage a healthy weight war? Our guest is a true “warrior”! He shares phenomenal fitness tips, nutritional knowledge, and life-changing lessons he learned on his personal journey of losing over 120 pounds!

"Tullio" taught us about the importance of Past, Present, and Future—who you were, who you are, who you want to be, and how to get there. The episode is packed with steps that show us exactly how he made certain life-changing decisions that led to his success and how we can make those same changes that will lead to our own victories!

What are you waiting for? Click “Play” and let’s win this weight war!

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Sandy Kovach [00:00:01]:

Life can throw a lot at you, but imagine if your life were different, better, not because of what's coming at you, but because of what's coming from you. Let's get there together. Join us and imagine yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:14]:

Okay. Here at imagine yourself, we're kicking it old school today, so let's get physical. I hope you're ready to imagine getting physical, Sandy. I'm Lanee.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:24]:

Are yousure you're not Olivia Newton John?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:26]:

Do you feel her coming through today?

Sandy Kovach [00:00:28]:

What is the leg not leggings they used to wear back in the day? The thing of the socks?

Lanée Blaise [00:00:31]:

The Leg warmers.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:32]:

Leg warmers. Thank you. Alright. So let's get our leg warmers on. Yes. And,

Lanée Blaise [00:00:36]:

And our headband. And our headband. Weights. And get ready.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:40]:

So now I'm picturing my friend, Tullio, who's our guest in leg warmers, and we're talking about his amazing journey to Excuse

Patrick Tullio [00:00:47]:

me while I throw up right now. He doesn't even myself and leg warmers. I don't know about that.

Lanée Blaise [00:00:52]:

What about the headband?

Patrick Tullio [00:00:53]:

The headband, maybe. I don't know.

Sandy Kovach [00:00:55]:

In all seriousness, though, Tullio, who I used to work with in radio a few years back, and now I follow on Instagram and Facebook to see this weight loss and workout journey. It's been over a £100, I think. He was featured recently on Channel 7 in Detroit because of his efforts and his inspiration. How much weight have you lost now, Julio?

Patrick Tullio [00:01:21]:

As of right now, £125.

Sandy Kovach [00:01:24]:

Wow. That is impressive. So was there one big catalyst that got this going?

Patrick Tullio [00:01:30]:

Honestly, it was tell you the date. It was March 13th. I had a doctor's appointment till of 2019. And I walked into my doctor, and I knew we were gonna have to go over my weight, over just other things that were going on. I just had blood tests done, everything done. Everything was looking great. I just had a stress test out of my heart. I had the heart of a marathon runner.

Patrick Tullio [00:01:47]:

But the problem was she looked at me and she got me on the scale, and she looked at the scale Lanee she looked at me. Kinda give you a backstory. Back in 2013, I lost, 160 pounds. K. And just walking 7 days a week and just eating right. But then life happened, stress happened, other things happened, and I Lanee all that back and then some. So when I sat down with my doctor, I had been trying to find this spark for, like, 4 years trying to, like, oh, I'm I'll, you know, I'll lose it. Oh, no.

Patrick Tullio [00:02:13]:

Then I go back to my old habits. Lose it. So I talked to her, and she looked at me and looked at the skin and looked at me back at me and says, you gotta lose this weight. And it was that spark. It was honestly, it was just the look she gave me.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:24]:

A look.

Patrick Tullio [00:02:25]:

A look. And I was like, wow. That night, I went and had my last bag of Taco Bell.

Patrick Tullio [00:02:31]:

Yeah. Because you gotta go out

Patrick Tullio [00:02:32]:

with a bang. You gotta go without with a bang. I mean, that was my favorite, without a doubt. But it was also my downfall too. I mean, that was my biggest

Lanée Blaise [00:02:39]:

downfall. Catch.

Patrick Tullio [00:02:40]:

No. And so I went I'm like, alright. This is it. This is my last bag. I took a picture of it too, I think, but I posted it on my social media. The next morning, March 14th, I had a healthy breakfast. I went to lunch, had a healthy lunch. And then right after work, I went right to the gym.

Patrick Tullio [00:02:54]:

I haven't looked back since.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:55]:

Oh my gosh. So you did the breakfast and the lunch, and you went to the gym. And a lot of people, their story would end, like, 2 weeks later.

Patrick Tullio [00:03:01]:

Right. Right.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:02]:

How do you prevent that from happening?

Patrick Tullio [00:03:04]:

Another thing my doctor said to me when she looked at me about a week later because I was committed. I gotta do this, and I met with her a week later because she wanted how everything was going. I said it's going really good, and she said, you have to stick with this. I said, well, yeah. I said, I well, I know that. She goes, look, you're healthy now. Everything looks great except your weight. But there's a reason I don't have 40 year old patients at your weight because they're dead.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:26]:

Oh my gosh.

Patrick Tullio [00:03:27]:

And it was like it was like the slap in the face that basically kept me going.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:32]:

At the end of the day, we all get this one life, and we wanna get it as right as possible. We wanna have fun. We wanna indulge. But how do you put the barriers between indulging and having fun versus still staying like a whole bodied healthy, not just the heart is good, but the rest might be falling apart.

Patrick Tullio [00:03:52]:

The way I looked at it too, it was a lifestyle. I had to change my lifestyle overall. Because if I didn't, I knew that it was either I had 2 options, keep living or die. That's what I had to put in my head. A lot of people go on diets. There's the keto diet and this and the South Beach. They can be great, but they're diets. And because every you know You're right.

Patrick Tullio [00:04:13]:

And everybody's looking just at the end goal. Like, oh, well, I'm gonna lose that weight and then, oh, then I'm good to go. No. You have to change your lifestyle. You have to change your habits. Because once you change your habits and your lifestyle, that's when you change your life.

Lanée Blaise [00:04:24]:

Because you saw that you had lost weight before and gained it back. I was. And you didn't want that to happen.

Patrick Tullio [00:04:31]:

Right. What I did was I just went on a diet back then. I was exercising every day, 7 days a week. I was just walking. I was doing walking 7, 10 miles a day. I was eating the same thing every day, same breakfast, same dinner, Lanee up at lunch. And then all of a sudden when I was feeling good about myself, had confidence back, and then I started dating somebody, it it was everything was going good, then I got comfortable. And I got too comfortable.

Patrick Tullio [00:04:54]:

And then all of a sudden

Sandy Kovach [00:04:55]:

Taco Bell.

Patrick Tullio [00:04:56]:

Taco Bell comfortable. Taco Bell at 1 in the morning comfortable. And it like, oh, like, I haven't eaten that much all day, so I can indulge a little bit. Well, then I indulge more, then I indulge more.

Lanée Blaise [00:05:06]:

And that became your habit.

Patrick Tullio [00:05:07]:

And the indulgence became the habit instead of the healthy lifestyle.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:11]:

I have heard so much research that it's not the decision as much as it is the habit. Of course, you had to make decision, the look in your doctor's eye.

Patrick Tullio [00:05:20]:

Correct.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:20]:

The I don't wanna be dead when I'm 40. Right. But how did you develop those habits? I mean, did you do something to reward yourself? Do you every day? Because and I'll read one of your posts later because one of the things that I really like is your post on Facebook to inspire yourself and others. But I see it's from your Facebook page, date 203. So for 203 days

Sandy Kovach [00:05:42]:

How how does this habit persist?

Patrick Tullio [00:05:45]:

Well, the point of the social media post was, at first, it was just accountability to myself. A lot of people say, oh, if you don't check into the gym, you didn't go. Well, no. That's not true. The reason I checked in all the time is I was doing accountability to myself. But then, I'm just started noticing people get a little more like, people reaching out to me saying, do you have inspired me or post this plan? How I stayed with it is because of the consistency. There are a lot of experts say it takes 66 days to form a habit, and it took me less than that. Because of the fact that it was the motivation that I found, the spark that I found, I didn't wanna go back to that old life.

Patrick Tullio [00:06:18]:

I basically said to myself, these are the 2 options, Either death or keep going. And I have to keep fighting. It's a struggle every day. Just because I lost a 125 pounds doesn't mean anything. There are days where I wanna just go out and get a bunch of Taco Bell. But it's knowing that I don't feel as good as I thought I did. When I indulge before, it was just maybe it was other problems and masking the way I felt, about myself. But then once I started getting in this healthier, again, healthier lifestyle like, the way I'm looking at it is I make, like, small obtainable goals.

Patrick Tullio [00:06:49]:

Right? When I did this Channel 7 interview. At that point, when she asked me to do it, which was back in September, I had lost a 100 pounds. But I said, look. I don't feel comfortable right now to be on camera. Maybe I can lose some more weight. So then I made an obtainable goal. Maybe I'll lose 20 more pounds by the time we do the interview in December.

Sandy Kovach [00:07:05]:

Mhmm.

Patrick Tullio [00:07:05]:

And we filmed that December, and I did. I lost another £20. And so it was, like, those small obtainable goals. So if you look at the end goal every single time, you're gonna fail because you're never gonna reach that end goal at month 1, month 2, month 3. If I wanna say I wanna drop 200 pounds, that's my end goal. That's my end goal. No. Drop the £10, then drop another 10.

Patrick Tullio [00:07:26]:

When I first started out at the gym, I did 3 minutes on a treadmill my 1st day. Mhmm. I blacked out almost. I was seeing stars. I could barely walk. And then I'm like, okay. I'll go sit down on a hand bike, because I had back problems too because of my weight. And I was on a hand bike, so I'm like, alright.

Patrick Tullio [00:07:41]:

I can maybe do this. 5 minutes, I almost passed out again. Wow. And you get discouraged when it happened.

Lanée Blaise [00:07:47]:

Yep.

Patrick Tullio [00:07:47]:

But then I said to myself, you know what? Tomorrow, another small obtainable goal. I'll do it 6 minutes

Lanée Blaise [00:07:53]:

Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:07:54]:

And then 7 minutes. And then he and you'd be surprised those small steps that you make if you stay consistent with it. Those small step steps had huge goals and goals I'd never thought I could be able to obtain.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:07]:

Like what?

Patrick Tullio [00:08:08]:

Obtain goals like being able to tie my shoes right, being able to fit into another piece of clothing Mhmm. And not wear the same thing every single day because it's the only stuff that fits.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:18]:

And not having the same meal every

Patrick Tullio [00:08:20]:

single day. The same meal either. The thing was I learned how to incorporate my lifestyle, a healthier lifestyle into and look. I'm not gonna lie. I have indulgence. I eat pretty much what I want, but I make healthier alternatives. I guess we're I'm kinda going, like, on 2 different subjects here. But to answer your question, like, basically, so what was the attainable goal?

Lanée Blaise [00:08:39]:

Yeah. That you just didn't see it coming, and then finally you landed it and got there.

Patrick Tullio [00:08:44]:

Not being able to do 10 minutes on a treadmill. And all of a sudden, 10 minutes out of nowhere. And then 15 minutes happened. And then 20 and then I'm, like, I'm never gonna be able to go over here and do weight lifting. All of a sudden, now I'm I'm doing amazing amounts of weight lifting. And just small little things, like I said, tying my shoes and not having just to put them on, slip them on. Hopefully, they were tied. Wondering if that chair is gonna crack when I sit in it and all that's gonna be And

Lanée Blaise [00:09:07]:

that back pain.

Patrick Tullio [00:09:08]:

And that bad but that that was the number one thing. And I thought it was never gonna go away. I had a fissure in my l five, and it was basically my disc was leaking out into my s one nerve root, which is the most painful nerve in your entire body. I could barely walk, and let alone I was I mean, let alone exercise, but I had to push through the pain because I knew the end result as far as even that small attainable goal losing 10, 15 pounds.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:34]:

Yeah. You know this because you already you said you've reached out on social media and things like that. But when people are listening to this story and they are struggling with some of the same things Mhmm. What are some of the things that they can hold on to and ride out with it? Because I have a cousin and she wanted me to mention her on this episode. But she has recently lost 64 pounds.

Patrick Tullio [00:09:59]:

Amazing.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:59]:

And yeah. And she's so happy and grateful, and she has done the lifestyle change. She's doing the fitness, whether it's in the gym or walking and eating fun foods that are different than ones she's ever done before. But she wants to make sure that she doesn't stop this forward progress and that she doesn't fall off the horse ever.

Patrick Tullio [00:10:19]:

What my advice to her would be, if you do fall off, there's always tomorrow. Wake up the next day and just keep following the healthier lifestyle. Create that habit. I wanted to give up so many times. And trust me, there were times I'm like, I didn't have anything to eat. I'm so hungry. I'm gonna go get fast food. No.

Patrick Tullio [00:10:36]:

You know what? I can't. So I keep things in my house that are healthier, like protein bars, and even bags of salad. I just make up a quick salad. You just brace how much that fills you up. But if you stay consistent, don't feel bad about what your look. Your past doesn't define you. You create your own destiny. I've seeked out therapy.

Patrick Tullio [00:10:54]:

Along with with this, I've suffered from anxiety and depression, and I'm very open about that too. And I've gone to therapy for the last 4 or 5 years. Recently, I sat down with my therapist, and she said, quit trying to be the person that you were. I always say I wanna be that person I was back in 2014 before all this stuff kinda happened, all this downfall that she goes, the past is the past. You can't change it. Trying to go backwards. You can be that person you were, but you wanna become that person. You know? And so that really stuck with me because I kept comparing myself, and we do.

Patrick Tullio [00:11:25]:

We live in a comparable society where you're comparing your chapter 1 to everybody tells us chapter 15. Yep. That issue lies a lot of the stuff going in the weight loss community. And then if you notice on you look on Instagram, it's just Instagram is 99% you know what. I mean, it's it's a lot of lies.

Sandy Kovach [00:11:41]:

A lot of, it.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:42]:

Right. Fake. Yeah. It's it's

Patrick Tullio [00:11:43]:

just it's all fake. A

Lanée Blaise [00:11:45]:

lot of

Patrick Tullio [00:11:45]:

fake and just photoshopped and you know what I mean? Yeah. But people put that in their head, and they say, oh, I wanna be that or what. Why am I not there? Because you're not there because you're not good at Photoshop.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:55]:

You know what

Patrick Tullio [00:11:55]:

I mean? That's I mean, honestly

Lanée Blaise [00:11:57]:

Yeah. Like that.

Patrick Tullio [00:11:57]:

And and really, that's what I mean, I I don't I'm not and, look, I'm not trying to diminish anybody that actually has achieved those things and that actually does look like that, but it's kind of a you're putting on a show for a lot of people.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:08]:

Well, there are so many apps that can just change you up.

Patrick Tullio [00:12:10]:

Oh, there is.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:11]:

And the filters you

Patrick Tullio [00:12:12]:

do have. The filters alone can take off 10 years or 10 pounds. You know? And so that's not reality. Reality is what you're living every day and what you're seeing every day, what you look in the mirror when you wake up in the morning. So when you change your reality in your own mind, that's when you're gonna change your lifestyle. Because honestly, when you set out obtainable goals saying, I can do this or I need to you know, it's gonna make your goals attainable. Don't look at the end goal. If you're only looking at the end, you're only you're always gonna fail every day because you haven't reached it yet.

Patrick Tullio [00:12:38]:

So until then, make these small attainable goals. I'm gonna walk an extra mile or I'm gonna park a little bit further. I'm gonna Mhmm. You know, I'm gonna eat a salad or I'm gonna eat a little more chicken, a little more add a little more vegetable on my diet. If you make these small obtainable goals, they add up to that 1 giant large goal at the end. You know, everybody has, like, these, oh, I wanna lose this amount of weight. I wanna I wanna get an Armani suit.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:00]:

Oh, sweet.

Patrick Tullio [00:13:01]:

I wanna get I wanna get Armani. Right. But I wanna be able to fit in one.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:04]:

I can't wait to see that Instagram picture.

Patrick Tullio [00:13:06]:

Right. Exactly. And then but I'm gonna have to lose a lot of weight to get that because Armani doesn't make big and tall. So That's alright.

Lanée Blaise [00:13:11]:

We don't want you putting any filters on that.

Patrick Tullio [00:13:15]:

I'm spending that kind of money on a suit. No. That's all natural, baby.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:22]:

so you were talking a lot about the past, and this must be fresh in your mind because your recent post on Instagram. If you're looking at your past asking why or what happened, I fallen victim to this on occasions more than I care to remember. Remember, sometimes life will not go as you. When this happens, breathe, and remember that life's richness often become comes from its unpredictability. Now that's just a snippet of what you wrote on Instagram. And this is the kind of stuff we get Yeah. From Tullio because of the battle. So the battle that you're fighting each and every day, and that's not even necessarily just tied to weight loss or exercise or anything else.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:04]:

That's real life.

Patrick Tullio [00:14:05]:

And that's how I approach it. Anybody can post about losing weight or this thing. The whole point is is to change your lifestyle, not just to drop weight, become healthier, healthier lifestyle. I'm all about that because if you just do it just to lose weight and and the diet and just to look good and whatever. You know? That's not a reality. Your reality is how you're gonna live your life every day. And if you're constantly looking into the past and you're constantly saying to yourself, oh, man. I wanna be that person.

Patrick Tullio [00:14:31]:

I wanna be, you know, that person I was before this or before that or before I had kids or before no. Become that person that you wanna be, not who you were.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:40]:

You could be a new person because we are not supposed to look like the people we were back in high school and when we were 18 years old. And like you mentioned for people who have had children, okay. Yeah. I'm supposed to look different after that.

Patrick Tullio [00:14:53]:

Exactly.

Lanée Blaise [00:14:54]:

And but that doesn't mean I totally give up just on everything and on my health and living. As humans, we evolve. We have to evolve. Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:15:01]:

Because if you don't, you're gonna be stuck. That's anything. That's weight loss. That's jobs. Whatever. That's whatever you do in life. You have to evolve with the times and the situation.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:11]:

Such a good point. So important to be accepting of ourselves and move forward from where we are. But if there's some place we want to go, we also need to have that self discipline. And I love this quote, be stronger than your excuse. And I have to say, that's true for everybody. But if you're fighting this battle and the obstacles that you've had to overcome, tremendous strength.

Patrick Tullio [00:15:39]:

Yeah. Someone once told me I remember because I I did a lot of blaming. I said, I Lanee because of this. I gained because of that. And they may be true. You know, they were factors. But when I'm pointing that 1 finger, you look at my hand, I still got 3 fingers pointing back at me.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:53]:

Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:15:54]:

And that's what it is. I created this. I can fix it. I need to fix it.

Lanée Blaise [00:15:58]:

So appreciate you included the mention of sometimes it takes therapy as well. Yes. Because this is another one. Like I said, my cousin, she had long conversation with you yesterday to prepare. But she said she wanted to make sure that people understand the power and how to fight against the power of emotional eating.

Patrick Tullio [00:16:18]:

Yes.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:19]:

And how you need to teach yourself and train yourself to stop and make a conscious decision. Am I about to eat x, y, and z because I am physically hungry and I need nourishment? Or is it because I am trying to soothe some type of emotional thing that's going through my head right now? And if you could take a good 30 seconds or so to identify that and then have the willpower to if you're honest with yourself, go ahead and say it was emotional. Let me just let it pass through and not eat this thing or this way or this time. That that's part of it too. You agree with that?

Patrick Tullio [00:16:55]:

Absolutely. Are you feeding to live or, like, eating to live or living to eat?

Lanée Blaise [00:16:59]:

Yes.

Patrick Tullio [00:16:59]:

When you say you're starving, are you really starving? Or you just is something going on? Mhmm. Look. You have to feed yourself. You have to eat, but you can't look at it as just food and temptation. You're looking as fuel for your body. Fuel for your body, fuel for your soul. And really, that's what it is. You have to just think of your body like a car.

Patrick Tullio [00:17:16]:

You're not gonna drive all the way up north on a half a tank of gas. You're gonna have a full tank. So when I go to the gym, I can't sit there on an empty tank. Your body is a machine and it needs fuel. But you have to think about what kind of fuel you're putting in your body. Is it the really junk gas that was 99¢ a gallon?

Sandy Kovach [00:17:33]:

Taco Bell.

Patrick Tullio [00:17:35]:

Taco Bell. Or

Sandy Kovach [00:17:37]:

She just got that. Yes. I know. Thank you.

Sandy Kovach [00:17:40]:

I'll be here all night

Lanée Blaise [00:17:40]:

. It hit me.

Patrick Tullio [00:17:42]:

But but or are you gonna put in the premium stuff? The vegetables, the fruits, the proteins, the grains. I I remember sitting now with the nutritionist. That's another thing too, and now we can talk about that if you guys want to. One of the big things was when I sat down with all my doctors, not just my primary, but I sat down with a nutritionist. I sat down with my therapist, and I sat down with a specialist who specializes in obesity. The team at U of M, which I love. They're my doctors. The nutritionist, she told me with my plate.

Patrick Tullio [00:18:12]:

Your plate should be half vegetables and fruits, quarter grain quarter protein. The one thing she said to me, there's a lot of diets out there that are taking out a lot of stuff out of the food pyramid. Don't eat this or don't eat that. No. No. No. No. There's a food pyramid for a reason.

Patrick Tullio [00:18:25]:

Each one of those sections of that pyramid have responsibility to your body, and they have a job. Each and every one of those have a job because this helps carry the fats here and helps store the nutrients here, helps do the They all have a job, and it's all about moderation. Yeah. You're not gonna load yourself up with carbs. I hate the fact that carb has become such an evil word.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:46]:

Well, remember back in the nineties, it was fat that was an evil word. Right. Now it's carbs.

Patrick Tullio [00:18:50]:

And now it's carbs now fat is the king, especially with keto. And look, I'm sure there's a lot of people that would disagree with out there. But after talking with my doctors, people who specialize in this kind of stuff, if you have a healthy balanced diet, eating in moderation, you're gonna lose the weight. And honestly, what it was was just as long as I'm exerting more calories than I'm taking in I'm burning more than I'm taking in, That's how I've lost this weight. Mhmm. I have that piece of pizza. Okay? I have my indulgence. I have that, when I go out for Mexican food or whatever, I had that taco or I had but I basically have to be smart about it.

Patrick Tullio [00:19:24]:

And you can't overindulge and overindulge. I'm so hungry. I'm, you know, I'm just gonna eat it all. No. And one trick that helped me too is when I do go out, no matter what I eat, I get take half of it, I put it in a box, and I save it for later.

Sandy Kovach [00:19:36]:

Oh, that's good.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:37]:

That is excellent discipline and tip. And and so you just do it right off the bat before

Lanée Blaise [00:19:42]:

you start filling

Lanée Blaise [00:19:43]:

it out.

Patrick Tullio [00:19:43]:

I when I asked for the meal, I asked for a box too.

Patrick Tullio [00:19:48]:

Surprised how much that works. Because it's honestly, when you're eating, it's a mind game sometimes, especially if you're heavy. When you're carrying all this weight, your body's burning more cal I'm I'm burning probably triple the amount of calories you are because of the fact that it's holding up all this weight. I have a lot more weight around and a lot more weight to burn than you do, and so your your body requires sometimes more calories. That's why when these people go on these on like, when I first started out, I was down, like, 1200 calories a day. That's why I dropped this weight dramatically. But

Sandy Kovach [00:20:19]:

How much?

Patrick Tullio [00:20:19]:

At the same time, my doctor said, okay. Now we're gonna increase it. Because you have to kinda find that balance of, like, burning. And because I I mean, I was exerting more than I was taking in, and so you gotta have to find that balance.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:31]:

You don't wanna be in starvation mode either.

Patrick Tullio [00:20:33]:

Because your body starts to store fat.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:35]:

There's healthy fats and there's healthy carbs. Everything doesn't have to be the enemy. No. I have a tiny question for you. Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:20:41]:

Go ahead.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:42]:

Did you get yourself to the point where now you like working out?

Patrick Tullio [00:20:44]:

I got myself to a point where it's an addiction. Really?

Sandy Kovach [00:20:48]:

Okay. I'm signing up for the Twilio school.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:51]:

Yeah. I'm

Patrick Tullio [00:20:52]:

in there 5 days a week. I take Wednesdays Fridays off. I take Wednesdays off because I my TV shows on Wednesdays. Yeah. My Chicago shows. So I take that day off. And Fridays, I take off because I want 1 weekend day just to kinda do whatever I want. Because Saturday and Sunday, I get up early in the morning.

Patrick Tullio [00:21:07]:

I'll go to the gym first thing, get it over with. I feel worse when I don't go. Even on on Wednesdays Fridays, like, today. Like, I'm talking with you guys, but I know that I'm just I'm just gonna go home. I'm not going to the gym. I'm like, oh, I can't but I have to get over that. I guess you have to let your body rest. Your body has to recover.

Patrick Tullio [00:21:23]:

Your

Lanée Blaise [00:21:23]:

muscles and

Patrick Tullio [00:21:24]:

Your yeah. Your body, your mind, everything has to rec you need a day just to chill. In my case, it's 2 days. But honestly, you know, some people are oh, I'm going twice a day, 7 days a week. And if you people do that because they want to lose that weight so much. They wanna you know, they they're so desperate to, like, I gotta get this weight up. And look, if you do in small increments, don't lose it all at once. This is weight that's not gonna come back.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:47]:

Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:21:47]:

You know?

Sandy Kovach [00:21:48]:

That's the key. Right?

Patrick Tullio [00:21:49]:

Right. Because there are so many I can't tell me how many times I've tried to lose weight, and I'll drop £20 like crazy. But then all of a sudden, I gained 20 right back. Because I looked at it as a diet, not a lifestyle.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:00]:

That's a message.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:00]:

You're not falling back, keeping the weight off. You're not getting tears and injuries and things like that, which would keep you out. And you like it. You're addicted to it now.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:08]:

How long

Sandy Kovach [00:22:08]:

did that take?

Patrick Tullio [00:22:10]:

It took I mean, it you know, trust me. There were days where I didn't wanna go. And I I went I sat in that parking lot for, like, a half hour just kinda like, oh, I'm just gonna go. I don't wanna go. I'm tired of kinda maybe I would take a 10 minute power snooze in my car. I woke up. I'm like, alright. I'm just gonna go.

Patrick Tullio [00:22:24]:

I'm only gonna do 10 minutes today. And then all of a sudden, once I'm 10 minutes in, I'm like, well, I can go 15 or 20 now because I feel great. Your endorphins start kicking in. And all of a sudden it's like, boom. It's like a bond that goes off in your body. It says, let's do this.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:37]:

Wow.

Patrick Tullio [00:22:38]:

And so, you know, in when I make my social post, I always put at the end of it hashtag not looking back, hashtag moving forward. And it's true because the only time you ever have to look back is to see how far you've come.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:48]:

This is the kinda hope we were looking for. That's right.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:52]:

This from somebody who could only do 3 minutes on a treadmill to now, I am just really disappointed that I don't get to go to the gym today.

Patrick Tullio [00:23:01]:

Yeah. I'm I spend I mean, I spend about 2 hours in there. But and the other fact of that is, though, I socialize in there, because it becomes a social factor too. Because once you have a team of support and I go to Planet Fitness. And, honestly, when they say the no judgment zone, it it really is. There's people in there of all shapes, sizes, and colors, and the staff's encouraging. I'm not I'm not trying to plug them right now, but but it's true. I mean, it's you know, I've been to other gyms where it's like, you get intimidated by some of the people that walk in there.

Patrick Tullio [00:23:24]:

And it's like, I walk in there, I go right to a machine. I don't even go to the locker room. I come fully dressed and ready to go. I go right to a machine or I go right to a bench or whatever, and I start working out. When it becomes that easy to start losing it and start getting in that habit, then it's like, okay. Now it's getting a little easier and a little easier. The main thing is stay consistent. Consistency is key.

Patrick Tullio [00:23:44]:

No matter what you're doing, if you constantly look at the end goal, you're always gonna fail. So if you make these small steps, these small attainable goals, and you stay consistent, there is no stopping you. I love that. Stopping you.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:56]:

And I like when you said, hey. I told myself I'm only gonna be in there for 10 minutes. And then

Patrick Tullio [00:24:01]:

I was in there for another hour and a half. Make

Sandy Kovach [00:24:03]:

yeah. Make it easy for yourself. And I was listening to another podcast about how your brain works, and they were saying to create as little friction as you can between you and what you needed to do.

Patrick Tullio [00:24:14]:

Right. So,

Sandy Kovach [00:24:15]:

like, you don't even go to the locker room. You just go right.

Patrick Tullio [00:24:17]:

Right.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:17]:

I've read about people that sleep in their workout clothes so that they can get right out. Oh, gosh. So little tricks to make it easier.

Patrick Tullio [00:24:23]:

It's and whatever works. Your brain is a powerful thing, and it can trick you into not doing things that you should be doing. But I'm telling you, if you can trick it to make us say, I'll just wear my workout clothes to work and then or I'll bring my workout clothes with me, and I can just go right I I don't have to go home. Because then I if I go home, then I'm gonna sit on the couch, Then you start thinking, like, oh, I gotta I gotta make dinner for the kids. I gotta do this. I gotta do that. This is why I go right after work because it's a habit. If you make it part of your life and look, Honestly, the gym is great, and the gym is great for losing weight, but it's not the main thing.

Patrick Tullio [00:24:53]:

Your diet is 90% of it. And if you make just healthier swaps like, if you want a burger, go have a burger, but make it a turkey burger. You know? Lose the mayonnaise if you can. You can still have cheese. Load it up with vegetables. If you want, you know, instant fries, have some rice. Have a salad instead of the soup. Just little swaps here and there that can make such big changes.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:16]:

And like Diane Randall said, we interviewed a nutritionist on our last podcast, concentrate on one change.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:22]:

Yes.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:22]:

Exactly the same thing that you're just saying.

Patrick Tullio [00:25:24]:

That's exactly right.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:24]:

Yeah. Because otherwise, you just get overwhelmed.

Patrick Tullio [00:25:26]:

I agree with that a 100%. When I first started out, I concentrated on just my just like, what I went hardcore on was just my diet. The exercise, I'm like, alright. I'll do 5 minutes, then I'll do 6. I made small increases, but my main focus was my diet at first. And then all of a sudden, I got my diet under control. I'm like, alright. This I can do.

Patrick Tullio [00:25:44]:

Now let's transfer all that energy into the gym. Let's see what I can do in the gym.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:47]:

Smart. Yeah. That way, like you said, you don't get yourself and your mind overwhelmed by trying to come at it from too many angles that you're just not prepared for.

Patrick Tullio [00:25:56]:

Well, right. And, again, going back to the comparability or comparable society is that everybody that's starting out this journey, they see the before and they see the after. They never see the journey. Good. And that's why, like me, I think that's why this interview hit so hard with on channel 7 is because, yeah, I've lost a £125, but I still have a ton to go. And so with that being said, it's just the mental aspect. That's why I always I I love talking openly about the mental health aspect of it because it really, I could lose £300 and be like I still, like, oh, I'm you know, my confidence is down. I don't really feel no.

Patrick Tullio [00:26:27]:

I don't I don't look good in that. I don't really wanna go. No. You have to get your mind straight. Look. This can change. Everything from your neck below is gonna fluctuate. It's gonna change.

Patrick Tullio [00:26:36]:

It's gonna go up. It's gonna go down. And it could stay the same, whatever. But this this is what stays consistent.

Sandy Kovach [00:26:43]:

Your head.

Patrick Tullio [00:26:43]:

Your head. No. I'm sorry. I forgot ring radio.

Lanée Blaise [00:26:48]:

Okay. So now you've got me thinking that anybody who is listening Mhmm. If they wanna do that aspect where they get to follow you on your journey Mhmm. How can we do that?

Patrick Tullio [00:26:59]:

How can you follow my on my journey?

Lanée Blaise [00:27:01]:

Yes.

Patrick Tullio [00:27:01]:

Okay. Well, I'm glad you asked. You can follow me on Instagram at weight down life up.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:09]:

Weight down life up.

Patrick Tullio [00:27:10]:

You can also follow me on Facebook, same thing, at weight down life up. And I'm launching a website here, within the next week or so, weight down life up.com. What it's gonna be is basically a a blog, kind of the stuff I do Instagram and Facebook. But I'm also gonna put tips in other things and just kind of a interactive website. This journey, I never did it for fortune, for fame, or anything like that. I did it for accountability to myself and to anybody out there that's trying to start this thing is 1. 1st and foremost, you have to want to do it. You have to get it in your head that you wanna do this for you.

Patrick Tullio [00:27:43]:

You're not gonna do it for the ex girlfriend that broke up with you because of this or that job you didn't get because it didn't look right. Don't do it for anybody else but yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:27:53]:

Wow. Now we always have a part called takeaway time. That is Tullio's takeaway time. If I ever heard one of these, that is so good. That's where it starts.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:03]:

We'll put all of Tullio's information too on imagine yourself podcast .com so that you can go and follow him, and we'll continue to follow-up and

Patrick Tullio [00:28:11]:

Absolutely.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:11]:

Everything.

Patrick Tullio [00:28:11]:

Yeah. Anytime you guys want.

Sandy Kovach [00:28:13]:

Yeah.

Patrick Tullio [00:28:14]:

I'm I'm happy to come on and talk with anybody or do anything you wanna do. I'm I'm all yours.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:19]:

Awesome. Appreciate it. This is exactly what we need to hear. 2020 is a new decade. And so we've got a whole 10 years to to get our mind right and start and start rolling before 2030 comes.

Patrick Tullio [00:28:32]:

I mean, tell you, just look forward. And because if you keep looking back, you're gonna be disappointed. That's who you were, not who you want to be.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:39]:

Lovett. We thank you so much for coming, for sharing, for being honest with us and real with us, for blowing my mind, especially about the whole you like working out at the gym.

Patrick Tullio [00:28:50]:

I know. Hey. I hear you. I'm just I'm just as shocked as you are.

Lanée Blaise [00:28:55]:

Yeah. So we at the end, we always just wanna encourage everyone. Imagine yourself being fit for life and having your weight down and your life up. Life up. Thank you.

Sandy Kovach [00:29:10]:

Thanks for listening. Now we'd like to hear from you. Got an idea for the show? Wanna share your story or just say hello? Make sure you connect with us. You can do that at imagine yourself podcast we'll talk to you again next time when we have something new to imagine.

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