The public heard about Michael Hebranko for the first time in 1989, when a man engaged into the advertising campaign of Richard Simmons’s diet, claiming in talk shows and TV-commercials that it helped him reduce his weight from 411 (906 lb.) to 90 kg (198.4 lb.). His waist went down from 275 (108.3 in) to 75 (29.5 in) cm.