From 360 Pounds to the Rebuild: My Real Health Journey (Still in Progress)

I was a swimmer in high school. Cross country runner, too. Then a volunteer firefighter and rescue recovery diver — the kind of guy who ran into burning buildings and dove into freezing water.

By the time I was running companies, I weighed 360 pounds.

That's the story most people don't tell. They skip the part where they were an athlete first, skip the part where they let themselves go, and jump straight to the transformation photos. I'm not doing that. The whole arc matters — because if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.

The Athlete Before the CEO

I wasn't always the big guy. In high school, I was in the pool and on the trails. Swimming built my discipline. Cross country built my endurance. I understood what it meant to train, to push through, to show up when you didn't want to.

Then I became a volunteer firefighter and rescue recovery diver. That's where I learned what pressure really feels like — the kind where decisions matter in seconds and excuses can get someone hurt. I learned to operate when it matters, and that lesson became the foundation of how I lead today.

I was in shape. I was capable. I was the guy you'd want in the room when things went wrong.

How I Got to 360 Pounds

Nobody wakes up at 360 pounds. It doesn't happen in a month or even a year. It happens the same way everything else happens — one decision at a time, compounding over years.

Here's what actually happened: I was building businesses. Multiple companies. Four kids. The kind of schedule that starts before the sun and doesn't stop. And somewhere in the middle of all that growth, I stopped taking care of the one thing that made all of it possible — me.

Food became fuel in the worst way. Fast, convenient, whatever was around. It wasn't a reward system — it was a coping mechanism. I was feeding stress, not hunger.

Sleep went first. Then training. Then the standard dropped. And when the standard drops, it doesn't drop once — it drops everywhere. Your energy drops. Your decisions get worse. Your patience thins. Your body pays the bill for everything you're ignoring.

I told myself the same lies everyone tells themselves: I'm too busy. I'll deal with it later. The business comes first. I'm built for this.

Here's the truth: I was 360 pounds and still running companies. The business was growing. The body was breaking. And nobody around me was going to say anything, because I was the CEO.

That's how you end up morbidly obese while still being "successful." The scoreboard says one thing. The mirror says another.

The Turning Point

In 2021, I was hospitalized with COVID pneumonia. They asked me to sign ventilator consent paperwork.

My answer: "I'm not dying. I'm going home."

That was the moment the mask came off. I couldn't hide behind the business anymore. I couldn't pretend that being a CEO meant I was okay. I was in a hospital bed, and the reality was staring at me: the same discipline I applied to building companies, I had refused to apply to myself.

But the moment that actually changed me wasn't dramatic. It was quiet. A hospital janitor looked at me, pointed to his head, and said five words:

"You beat it here first."

That was it. No motivational speech. No intervention. Just a stranger who saw something in me that I had stopped seeing — that the problem wasn't my body. The problem was what was happening above my neck.

The Decision

I didn't make a dramatic announcement. I didn't post about it. I didn't hire a film crew.

I made a quiet decision: the version of me running on empty was finished.

That's how real change starts. Not with a bang. With a decision that nobody sees, that gets tested every single morning when the alarm goes off and you'd rather sleep than train.

The Rebuild — What Actually Happened

I want to be clear about what this looked like, because it wasn't a 90-day program or a celebrity transformation. It was slow. It was humbling. And it's still going.

2022 — First Workouts: Humbling is the word. I went from being a guy who could swim, run, and carry people out of buildings to a guy who was gassed in 15 minutes. I showed up anyway. That was the whole strategy in the beginning — just show up.

Nutrition Overhaul: Protein first. Cut the garbage. Stopped treating food as a reward system. This wasn't a diet — it was a reset. I had to relearn what food was actually for.

Alcohol Under Control: This was the hidden tax on everything. Not a rock-bottom story — a compounding cost story. Sleep quality, decision clarity, morning energy — all of it was being taxed by something I'd convinced myself was just "culture." When I brought it under control, the infrastructure of every single day changed. Sleep transformed. Decisions got sharper. Energy stabilized.

2023+ — Structured Rebuild: I stopped trying to figure it out alone. I invested in real coaches, real programming, real professionals. Same logic I use in business — find people who see what you can't and invest in them. I started working with Hart Brecka at 10X Health. I treated my body like a business system: structured, accountable, measured.

What I Learned

Here's what 360 pounds taught me that no business book ever could:

1. Health is an operator problem, not a fitness problem. Business owners don't fail at health because they lack motivation. They fail because they've never treated it like a system — with structure, accountability, and investment. Your body is infrastructure. Not a hobby.

2. The decision precedes the result by years. My transformation didn't start with a program. It started with a quiet decision made in a hospital bed. Everything else was downstream.

3. Alcohol was the hidden tax. Not a rock-bottom story. A compounding cost story. Sleep, clarity, energy — all taxed by something labeled as "culture."

4. Consistency beats intensity. The rebuild wasn't dramatic. It was slow reps, early mornings, and showing up when nothing felt earned. Motivation is a visitor. Discipline lives here.

5. Invest in people who see what you can't. Coaches, doctors, practitioners — your body deserves the same leadership philosophy as your company. Don't figure it out alone.

6. How you treat your body sets the standard for everything else. Not a fitness philosophy. A leadership one. If the CEO's standard is low, the whole company's standard follows.

Still in Progress

I need to say this clearly: I'm still on the journey.

This isn't a before-and-after post. There's no finish line here. There are setbacks. There are weeks where the scale doesn't move. There are days where the alarm goes off and I don't want to get up.

But I get up. Because the 360-pound version of me made a decision, and I'm not going back on it.

Why I'm Sharing This

I'm sharing this because I didn't have this story when I was coming up. There was no roadmap for a CEO who was also morbidly obese — no one talking about what it actually looks like to run companies while your body is falling apart, or what it takes to rebuild it while still showing up for your team every day.

The fitness influencers show you the highlight reel. The business coaches show you the balance sheet. Nobody shows you the part where you're 360 pounds, running a company, and pretending you're fine.

I'm showing you that part. Because the work is the point. And the work isn't finished.

If you're a business owner reading this and you're in the middle of your own rebuild — or you haven't started yet — here's what I want you to know:

Start. It won't be dramatic. It won't be a transformation montage. It'll be one decision, repeated daily, for a long time. And it'll be the best investment you ever make.

The best supplement is sleep. The best program is consistency. The best coach is discipline. Everything else is a tool.

Fix yourself first. The business will be better for it.

• ·Patrick