On June 1st, 2013, I found myself with the need to make a decision. I was 363.4 pounds at 6'4. My knees hurt, my ankles hurt, my blood pressure was 152/117. I ate, well, fiendishly, like I had for most of my life. For a while, I took the expensive Benicar which cost me $50 a month in an attempt to regulate my out-of-control blood pressure. This helped, but it sure didn't address my eating stupendous amounts of food.

When I stood up (which took some effort), blood would rush to my head and I'd get dizzy, hearing a "swooshing" in my left ear, along with my heartbeat, for the next several minutes. I wore 5X and 4X clothes and flowery "fat man" shirts, and of course, stairs were my sworn enemy. It took enormous effort to scale just two flights before needing to sit down. I mouth-breathed in the day, snored loudly at night, and sweated profusely. Seemed like I could never get cool. I would have the usual mysterious "big people" pains (i.e. hot flashes, frequent nighttime urination - not prostate related - bad circulation and itching, and horrible leg cramps) and I threw out my back at least twice a year requiring a specialist's help. A bum left foot, crippled from plantar fasciitis years earlier, was made worse by my obesity.

So it was June 1st when I decided to make a life-altering change to the way I eat. In fact, I never suspected I'd care about weight or diet again. I was at an all-time low and didn't ever suspect I'd come up from it. The change wasn't planned beyond this one day, but I knew that if it was to succeed, it had to be permanent.

What made me realize I had to make changes was, ironically, the same hedonist mindset that got me to overeat in the first place; only now, I had the correct perspective; if I was to continue to enjoy life in the here and now, I'd need to learn to control my binging. It was really that simple. The most basic common sense says that too much of anything is a bad thing. If I was to continue enjoying my food, I needed to cut back on it. I already knew how. I just needed to remember it.

Yes, good old atheist logic was what made me realize that the reason I was eating more and more was not because I was getting to enjoy my food, but because I WASN'T enjoying it. Like any drug addict, I'd built up a tolerance with a crazy level of insulin resistance. Nothing seemed to satisfy me anymore and I was putting down 6,000 to 9,000+ calories a day to try and up my brain's reward system to accommodate.

I was a psychological eater. Everything reminded me of food and I would eat to think, to rest and relax, and to gear up to do anything (which usually didn't extend beyond the walls of my place). It never ended. I ate twice or three times a day, sometimes more, plus two or three more snacks, depending on how stressed I thought I was. This meant cutting down made sense on another level because I would save serious money by eating less, which is always a good thing.

The realization hit me all too suddenly. I realized right then and there that I had to drop the pounds and keep them off. But how? What I resorted to was the only thing I'd ever been able to count on that I knew not only worked for me, but would continue to work for as long as I did it, regardless of age or level of exercise -- the one-meal-a-day plan, or as it is known in Ori Hoffmekler's book on the subject, "The Warrior Diet."

I've been eating one meal a day with one calorie-containing beverage for longer than nine months now. I went from 363 pounds to 197 pounds. I feel great, no longer have hbp or any other above-mentioned issues, am now in XL clothes (and am selling the old ones), and created this little corner of my online presence to explain how it's done. It works for anyone and is the only super-serious weight reduction plan for those who have a lot to lose and who have struggled a lifetime with portion control. This is not a new thing by any means. It's been around since before humans could be called humans, and unlike the modern competition, one can stay on it and not fear gaining unwanted weight back.

Yes, there is some sacrifice to be made doing what I do, but way less than you'd think--and anything worth anything costs something. I am neither a health/diet guru, nor an expert, but that's why I can be trusted to speak truthfully from my own experiences. I have nothing to sell you on and want nothing from you, and the fact that I'm not biased by "clinical studies" makes me more - not less - credible. With so much misdirection and nonsensical misinformation in the medical world, I have taken it on myself to right these wrongs, but the only stats I will ever quote and affirm as true are those observed to be true from my personal experience--the best teacher of all.

Here is how this is done...

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1241325-how-to-do-one-meal-a-day-the-basics