September 7, 2026 • 10 mins
We're asking you to share your amazing stories with us and Phil kicked us off with an all-timer, detailing his incredible journey of weight loss...
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Amazing stories. If you've got one for us, you can
go to our website, kiss97. com. au, because we'd love to hear
what you've been through, what you've done.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yes, and we've been told that this is an absolute
cracker to kick us off. Hello, Phil of Callum Vale.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Hey, how are you going?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Hey, Phil. Good, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So what is your amazing story? What have you done?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I used to weigh 360 kilos and dropped about 180
to 200 kilos. Wow. Whoa. It was big. To be fair,
I am six foot seven and a giant build.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Phil, how did you get there?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I really don't know because it never really affected my life.
Everyone always goes, oh, you know, could you do this?
Could you do that? I'm like, yeah, I can do everything. Like,
you know, we'd go out and do like a 10K
walk around the city or explore somewhere and I'd always
do it. Like, it would kill me, but I'd always
do it. I think I was just eating incredibly poor
food all the time. A lot of like those little
(00:59):
microwave lasagnas and like the stuff you can chuck in
the oven. Like, that's what I mean. It's not necessarily
like I was going out and eating Maccas in case.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It was just like not healthy food. And also like,
you know, I think probably I wasn't moving around that much.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
And so what happened?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
What was the moment when you're 360 kilos and what
was the moment you decided to change things?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So it wasn't necessarily even a decision. I've always been
like pretty competitive. Like, you know, like you talk to
your friends and we, I had a bunch of mates
that went to the gym. We used to just sit
there and drink pre-workout and just sit at home.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah. So you'd have a pre-workout, but then not work out.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, exactly, because I thought it was fun. My friend
who loved the gym, who'd been going for like 10 years,
was like, you should come to the gym, and if
you work out on pre-workout, it gets really strong. I'm like, oh,
that sounds fun. We went to the gym, and you know,
when you're a big guy, you always think you're strong.
We went to the gym, and this guy was so
much stronger than me, it wasn't even funny. Right. I'm
(02:01):
talking like I was struggling to do basic lifts. Yeah.
And something in my head just went... nah, I can
do this. Literally, that was the exact, I remember it
so clearly. And I just started smashing weights. So, so much.
It surpassed him in about six months. And then I
was like, oh, I'm actually pretty strong. And I just
(02:22):
sort of kept going and going and going.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm guessing a man that weighs 360 kilograms is aware
of how he moves through the world. So are you
telling me it didn't bother you?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I grew up sort of pretty charismatic, pretty popular, didn't
really have people necessarily ragging on me so much growing up.
I played in bands my whole life. I got lucky
and joined a band, did a whole bunch of international
touring for like 10 years. It was never really like
something that was holding me back from doing anything.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
What about flying, Phil?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
When you weigh that much, how do you fly?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Flying still sucks.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It still sucks because your legs are so long.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah. Look, flying's not great.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But when you're 360, I mean, what are you doing?
Can you get away with one seat?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yes. Depending on the airline, like specific airlines, I would
definitely choose to fly.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
There must have been a point in which the weight
started to come off.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, I remember when I first started doing that, I
started to sort of lose a little bit of weight because,
you know, obviously you start going to the gym, you
start paying for it, like, I'm going to make the
most of it, weigh yourself, do this. When I was
going through school too, I finished a chefing degree. So
I was like, I can cook, I can do this,
I can make this boring food easy. And just for
three years, ate nothing but steak and broccolini.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Right. For three years?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
For three years, every single meal.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This was the kicker. You know, like when you start working,
I start losing weight. I had a picture in my
head of what I was going to look like at
the end of it. I was like, you know, I'm
going to look like a movie star. If you just
keep putting in work and putting in work and putting
in work, obviously you're going to get to that level, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
This was about the two and a half year mark.
I dropped down to maybe like 175. So half. I
was getting really sick. I was getting really like just
like depleted, no energy, no nothing. Went to the doctor
and the doctor like gave me a scan and went
over everything and goes, I don't know what you've been doing,
(04:31):
but he's like, you are malnourished. I was eating a
thousand calories a day for three years where I should
have been eating 4,000 calories a day.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Tell me about how your family's response to you as
a 360K man versus someone who's lost half that weight.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I guess my parents were pretty happy that I started
losing weight. My dad passed away probably about a year
into it, so he didn't really see too much. Then
my mum also passed away probably about two and a
half years into it, but she saw when I was quite,
I guess, the smaller size that I was.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Mate, what you've achieved, I mean, I'd say 0.0001% of
people for a whole bunch of reasons from you know,
just the willpower to like just the health, the absolute
belligerence that you have that is required and you're so
kind of like it's not a big deal. Like I
(05:23):
think you're extraordinary. Have the doctors told you whether you've
increased your life expectancy?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Um, no, they didn't. The one thing I did go
and do was a DEXA scan. I don't know if
you know what that is. Yeah, they're body compositions. Yeah.
My lean mass was 145 kilos. Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Wow. So, yeah, I feel like I've gotten it down
to a pretty happy point.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So now you've got to a point, a doctor has
told you that you are malnourished, so you've clearly got
to stop the weight loss journey as it is. But
to lose that amount of weight, even if you've done
it slowly, you would have had and have an extraordinary
amount of skin.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So what happened to that?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So... Just to narrow back around, when I left that
doctor's appointment, he's like, you're done. He's like, you're done
because you can't lose any more weight. I remember I
was saying, like, I thought I was going to look
like a movie star. And I came home and looked
at myself in the mirror and just cried. Because I
was like, I put in so much work and so
(06:31):
much effort and this is the outcome. It never even
crossed my mind that I wasn't going to look the
way I wanted to look. When mum was sick, she
was in hospital and we were talking about it and
she's like, when I die, I'm going to leave you
some money. I want you to go and get your
skin surgery. Cause you know, it's tens of thousands of dollars.
It is not cheap. I need it a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So give me the stats.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So I had two operations. Um, the first one, uh,
they cut off 18 kilos of skin.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Holy wow.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Uh, I ended up with 1800 stitches. It was about
six and a half foot of scars. And when I
was getting the operation done, obviously I had a budget
that I needed to stick to and, And half of
the surgery is anesthetic. So I was like, just get
it all done, do it all. And my surgeon's like, no, no, no,
(07:24):
you can't do that. And stupid me, 25 years old, going, no,
it's fine, it's fine, just do it, it's all good.
Oh my goodness, it was... I was in hospital for
a month. Honestly, my brain had blocked out about a
three-month segment of my life.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
It was so traumatic.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I mean, I guess it took so long to recover
that it wasn't like a next-day thing, but just dropping
18 kilos from one surgery, how different did that feel?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Honestly, I was so out of it. You don't know.
Then that was the other thing. Because I was such
an odd size, and I mean, I'm a big guy,
but I had a lot of muscle and a lot
of skin, so there was a lot of fat cells
and whatnot. anesthetic works differently in every person. When I
was talking to the anesthesiologist, he was like, oh, you know,
this is it. Anyway, I don't know if you've been
put under for anything, but usually you bounce back in
(08:11):
an hour or two. Like you wake up, you're all good.
I woke up and I was so groggy for about
four days after this. And the anesthesiologist came and saw
me the next day and he's like, how are you feeling?
I'm like, oh, honestly, pretty rough. He goes, oh, you know,
it was a bit touch and go there for a second.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
What?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And we're like, what? And he goes, oh, well, he goes, honestly,
we've never done anyone your size before. So there was
like a bit of guesswork to it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Well, you've got to hear, it's about how much anesthetic
they put in.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah. Well, he told me he gave me four times
the normal amount. Yikes.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
It's all about like your heart rate. So they're watching everything, right?
And if certain things drop, they've got to give you
more and more and more.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. I've had a lot of surgeries. And he did
not want you to wake up.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And that's the stuff that killed Michael Jackson, right? That's
the same gear, far out.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So, Phil, for a guy who was not desperately unhappy
at 360 kilos, and now what do you weigh now?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
About 180.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Was it worth it?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Oh, without question.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
And why?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I can go to the shops and buy clothes. I
can fit in the majority of cars. Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And then my final question is, because people will be
listening to this and thinking, I want... what he's got.
I want to be able to do what he's done.
Three things, three tips.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No one wants to go to the gym and just
sit on a treadmill. You can lose weight doing weights.
As long as you do lots of reps, lots of sets, whatever,
it's way more fun and it shreds weight off you.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Second thing is healthy food is very tasty.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And I know like maybe someone doesn't know how to
cook or whatnot, but I mean, people always go, I
can't eat this. I can't eat this. It's like you
can eat that. It's really easy. You just eat it. Right.
And the third tip, like you're saying, is just be tenacious.
It is one of those really frustrating things that there's
no instant gratification when it comes to it. It is
just genuinely consistency, consistency, consistency. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That is an amazing story.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
That's incredible, man. Well done. That's unreal.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Cheers, guys.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Do you need anything in your life at the moment, Phil?
Like a couple of hundred bucks?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think I'm not going to say no to a
couple of hundred bucks.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
All right. There you go. $ 250.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
$ 250.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Sorted.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Actually, we'll give you how much weight you lost. How
much did you lose?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
About 180, 200 kilos.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Okay, $ 250.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
$ 250. We'll round it up to $ 250. I like $ 250.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Sounds better.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
$ 250.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Robin, Keith and Corey Oates in the mornings.
Amazing stories. If you've got one for us, you can
go to our website, kiss97. com. au, because we'd love to hear
what you've been through, what you've done.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yes, and we've been told that this is an absolute
cracker to kick us off. Hello, Phil of Callum Vale.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Hey, how are you going?
Speaker 4 (00:19):
Hey, Phil. Good, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So what is your amazing story? What have you done?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I used to weigh 360 kilos and dropped about 180
to 200 kilos. Wow. Whoa. It was big. To be fair,
I am six foot seven and a giant build.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Phil, how did you get there?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I really don't know because it never really affected my life.
Everyone always goes, oh, you know, could you do this?
Could you do that? I'm like, yeah, I can do everything. Like,
you know, we'd go out and do like a 10K
walk around the city or explore somewhere and I'd always
do it. Like, it would kill me, but I'd always
do it. I think I was just eating incredibly poor
food all the time. A lot of like those little
(00:59):
microwave lasagnas and like the stuff you can chuck in
the oven. Like, that's what I mean. It's not necessarily
like I was going out and eating Maccas in case.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
It was just like not healthy food. And also like,
you know, I think probably I wasn't moving around that much.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
And so what happened?
Speaker 1 (01:15):
What was the moment when you're 360 kilos and what
was the moment you decided to change things?
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So it wasn't necessarily even a decision. I've always been
like pretty competitive. Like, you know, like you talk to
your friends and we, I had a bunch of mates
that went to the gym. We used to just sit
there and drink pre-workout and just sit at home.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah. So you'd have a pre-workout, but then not work out.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, exactly, because I thought it was fun. My friend
who loved the gym, who'd been going for like 10 years,
was like, you should come to the gym, and if
you work out on pre-workout, it gets really strong. I'm like, oh,
that sounds fun. We went to the gym, and you know,
when you're a big guy, you always think you're strong.
We went to the gym, and this guy was so
much stronger than me, it wasn't even funny. Right. I'm
(02:01):
talking like I was struggling to do basic lifts. Yeah.
And something in my head just went... nah, I can
do this. Literally, that was the exact, I remember it
so clearly. And I just started smashing weights. So, so much.
It surpassed him in about six months. And then I
was like, oh, I'm actually pretty strong. And I just
(02:22):
sort of kept going and going and going.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm guessing a man that weighs 360 kilograms is aware
of how he moves through the world. So are you
telling me it didn't bother you?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I grew up sort of pretty charismatic, pretty popular, didn't
really have people necessarily ragging on me so much growing up.
I played in bands my whole life. I got lucky
and joined a band, did a whole bunch of international
touring for like 10 years. It was never really like
something that was holding me back from doing anything.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
What about flying, Phil?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
When you weigh that much, how do you fly?
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Flying still sucks.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It still sucks because your legs are so long.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah. Look, flying's not great.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But when you're 360, I mean, what are you doing?
Can you get away with one seat?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yes. Depending on the airline, like specific airlines, I would
definitely choose to fly.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
There must have been a point in which the weight
started to come off.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, I remember when I first started doing that, I
started to sort of lose a little bit of weight because,
you know, obviously you start going to the gym, you
start paying for it, like, I'm going to make the
most of it, weigh yourself, do this. When I was
going through school too, I finished a chefing degree. So
I was like, I can cook, I can do this,
I can make this boring food easy. And just for
three years, ate nothing but steak and broccolini.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Right. For three years?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
For three years, every single meal.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
This was the kicker. You know, like when you start working,
I start losing weight. I had a picture in my
head of what I was going to look like at
the end of it. I was like, you know, I'm
going to look like a movie star. If you just
keep putting in work and putting in work and putting
in work, obviously you're going to get to that level, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
This was about the two and a half year mark.
I dropped down to maybe like 175. So half. I
was getting really sick. I was getting really like just
like depleted, no energy, no nothing. Went to the doctor
and the doctor like gave me a scan and went
over everything and goes, I don't know what you've been doing,
(04:31):
but he's like, you are malnourished. I was eating a
thousand calories a day for three years where I should
have been eating 4,000 calories a day.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Tell me about how your family's response to you as
a 360K man versus someone who's lost half that weight.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I guess my parents were pretty happy that I started
losing weight. My dad passed away probably about a year
into it, so he didn't really see too much. Then
my mum also passed away probably about two and a
half years into it, but she saw when I was quite,
I guess, the smaller size that I was.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Mate, what you've achieved, I mean, I'd say 0.0001% of
people for a whole bunch of reasons from you know,
just the willpower to like just the health, the absolute
belligerence that you have that is required and you're so
kind of like it's not a big deal. Like I
(05:23):
think you're extraordinary. Have the doctors told you whether you've
increased your life expectancy?
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Um, no, they didn't. The one thing I did go
and do was a DEXA scan. I don't know if
you know what that is. Yeah, they're body compositions. Yeah.
My lean mass was 145 kilos. Wow.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
That's incredible.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Wow. So, yeah, I feel like I've gotten it down
to a pretty happy point.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
So now you've got to a point, a doctor has
told you that you are malnourished, so you've clearly got
to stop the weight loss journey as it is. But
to lose that amount of weight, even if you've done
it slowly, you would have had and have an extraordinary
amount of skin.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So what happened to that?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So... Just to narrow back around, when I left that
doctor's appointment, he's like, you're done. He's like, you're done
because you can't lose any more weight. I remember I
was saying, like, I thought I was going to look
like a movie star. And I came home and looked
at myself in the mirror and just cried. Because I
was like, I put in so much work and so
(06:31):
much effort and this is the outcome. It never even
crossed my mind that I wasn't going to look the
way I wanted to look. When mum was sick, she
was in hospital and we were talking about it and
she's like, when I die, I'm going to leave you
some money. I want you to go and get your
skin surgery. Cause you know, it's tens of thousands of dollars.
It is not cheap. I need it a lot.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
So give me the stats.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So I had two operations. Um, the first one, uh,
they cut off 18 kilos of skin.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Holy wow.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Uh, I ended up with 1800 stitches. It was about
six and a half foot of scars. And when I
was getting the operation done, obviously I had a budget
that I needed to stick to and, And half of
the surgery is anesthetic. So I was like, just get
it all done, do it all. And my surgeon's like, no, no, no,
(07:24):
you can't do that. And stupid me, 25 years old, going, no,
it's fine, it's fine, just do it, it's all good.
Oh my goodness, it was... I was in hospital for
a month. Honestly, my brain had blocked out about a
three-month segment of my life.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
It was so traumatic.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I mean, I guess it took so long to recover
that it wasn't like a next-day thing, but just dropping
18 kilos from one surgery, how different did that feel?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Honestly, I was so out of it. You don't know.
Then that was the other thing. Because I was such
an odd size, and I mean, I'm a big guy,
but I had a lot of muscle and a lot
of skin, so there was a lot of fat cells
and whatnot. anesthetic works differently in every person. When I
was talking to the anesthesiologist, he was like, oh, you know,
this is it. Anyway, I don't know if you've been
put under for anything, but usually you bounce back in
(08:11):
an hour or two. Like you wake up, you're all good.
I woke up and I was so groggy for about
four days after this. And the anesthesiologist came and saw
me the next day and he's like, how are you feeling?
I'm like, oh, honestly, pretty rough. He goes, oh, you know,
it was a bit touch and go there for a second.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
What?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And we're like, what? And he goes, oh, well, he goes, honestly,
we've never done anyone your size before. So there was
like a bit of guesswork to it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Well, you've got to hear, it's about how much anesthetic
they put in.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah. Well, he told me he gave me four times
the normal amount. Yikes.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
It's all about like your heart rate. So they're watching everything, right?
And if certain things drop, they've got to give you
more and more and more.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah. I've had a lot of surgeries. And he did
not want you to wake up.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And that's the stuff that killed Michael Jackson, right? That's
the same gear, far out.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
So, Phil, for a guy who was not desperately unhappy
at 360 kilos, and now what do you weigh now?
Speaker 3 (09:07):
About 180.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Was it worth it?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Oh, without question.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
And why?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I can go to the shops and buy clothes. I
can fit in the majority of cars. Okay.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And then my final question is, because people will be
listening to this and thinking, I want... what he's got.
I want to be able to do what he's done.
Three things, three tips.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No one wants to go to the gym and just
sit on a treadmill. You can lose weight doing weights.
As long as you do lots of reps, lots of sets, whatever,
it's way more fun and it shreds weight off you.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Second thing is healthy food is very tasty.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
And I know like maybe someone doesn't know how to
cook or whatnot, but I mean, people always go, I
can't eat this. I can't eat this. It's like you
can eat that. It's really easy. You just eat it. Right.
And the third tip, like you're saying, is just be tenacious.
It is one of those really frustrating things that there's
no instant gratification when it comes to it. It is
just genuinely consistency, consistency, consistency. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That is an amazing story.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
That's incredible, man. Well done. That's unreal.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Cheers, guys.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Do you need anything in your life at the moment, Phil?
Like a couple of hundred bucks?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I think I'm not going to say no to a
couple of hundred bucks.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
All right. There you go. $ 250.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
$ 250.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
Sorted.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Actually, we'll give you how much weight you lost. How
much did you lose?
Speaker 3 (10:41):
About 180, 200 kilos.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Okay, $ 250.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
$ 250. We'll round it up to $ 250. I like $ 250.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Sounds better.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
$ 250.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Robin, Keith and Corey Oates in the mornings.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.