Kevin Smith, the actor-director-comedian known for playing Silent Bob can’t stop talking about his weight loss! The comedian always warns about the scatological side effects of the fat blockers he took circa 2000, “the most ludicrous thing I’ve done to lose weight. I was shitting pizza grease,” he says.
It all began when the director suffered a major heart attack on February 25, 2018. Kevin Smith’s weight-loss experimenting caused wild fluctuations—up to 80 pounds—and culminated when his heart stopped beating between stand-up sets at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. Technically speaking, the actor suffered an acute myocardial infarction, a 100 percent blockage of the anterior descending artery. The widowmaker. As Smith says, “After years of doing the yo-yo, the heart attack was like, Yo!”
High on a fentanyl drip, he lay in a room at Adventist Health Glendale with only a 20 percent chance of survival as the cardiologist placed a stent and performed emergency angioplasty. The director sang out loud the theme song to the tween TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation “because it was very hopeful,” he explains. “‘Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through’. . .”
Kevin Smith penned down these words about his weight loss:
“Six months ago from right now, I was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack I’d had the night before. When I went to my Doctor a week later, she told me, ‘The best thing you can do for yourself now is to lose 50 pounds.’ Half a year later, I can report that I followed Doctor’s orders: I started at 256 and now I weigh 205. This is the lightest I’ve been since high school! My hope now is I can slowly lose another 10 with #weightwatchersand get down to my birth weight of 195! But for now, I’m ecstatic to have reached this chunky milestone!”
Today the director is consistent with his vegan and low-sugar diet and practices portion control. He is even practicing scanning labels using the WW app. He recently became an ambassador for the program formerly known as Weight Watchers. Moreover, to get rid of any bad cholesterol and inflammation, he takes Lipitor.
Kevin Smith Weight Loss Strategies
Why did Kevin Smith need to lose weight?
Kevin Smith, 47, suffered a heart attack on Feb. 25 in between shows in California. When the doctor told him if he hadn’t canceled the second show and rushed to the hospital, Kevin Smith realized that he would’ve died.
The New Jersey native said doctors informed him the heart attack he suffered is known as a “widowmaker,” which gets its nickname from its low survival rate. Smith suffered from a 100 percent blockage in the left anterior descending artery (LAD), one of three arteries that supply blood flow to the heart.
The “Comic Book Men” host didn’t even know he had suffered a heart attack until he was in the operating room. He was awake as doctors went through his groin to insert a stent in his heart to save his life.
In classic Smith fashion, he said he was singing the uplifting theme song to “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” a Canadian teen television show, as the doctors worked on him. “I was talking the whole operation,” Smith said. “(The doctor) told me later on, ‘You’re very chatty.”’
The stent gave him immediate relief when doctors opened it.
“I felt like instantly better,” he said. “It made sense, none of the blood was going through there for who knows how long. I had 100 percent blockage, so I wasn’t getting proper oxygen. So now I feel great.”
How much weight did Kevin Smith lose?
Smith immediately had a 20-pound weight loss only two weeks after his heart attack and said
that he has now lost 32 pounds on the way to his goal of losing 50 pounds.
“This is the weight I was when I met my wife,” he said. “This is a good weight to be at. Last time I weighed this little, I scored big time.”
Half a year later, he started at 256 then weighed 205. “This is the lightest I’ve been since high school! My hope now is I can slowly lose another 10 with #weightwatchersand get down to my birth weight of 195! But for now, I’m ecstatic to have reached this chunky milestone!”
In 2019, Kevin Smith has reached another weight loss milestone within six months after suffering a massive heart attack. Now a Weight Watchers ambassador, he has shed another 51 pounds by switching to a vegan diet.
What did Kevin Smith do to lose weight?
Celeb Pal Penn Jillette:
The “Clerks” director — known for his “Silent Bob” character tweeted in 2018 that he was “officially down 20 pounds” after crediting a weight loss plan celeb pal Penn Jillette wrote about, in his book “Presto.”
All Potato Diet:
Kevin Smith credited magician Penn Jillette for introducing him to the Just Sides diet, or to use his own words, “getting me started with (this) potato famine.”
Yes, after his heart attack, Smith tried an all-potato diet and then graduated to a broader plant-based plan similar to the one his daughter follows. After 25 years afatal error, going vegan was the easiest way but not prettiest way to shed pounds. “Nobody wants to hear that,” he says, “and I don’t blame them. I don’t care how you prepare them; vegetables suck compared to a piece of cake or a steak. But I think of it this way: I know what that stuff tastes like. And it’s not going anywhere.”
Going Vegan:
Kevin has always given a shout-out to his vegan daughter, Harley Quinn. He called her “the little vegan astronaut who explored this meatless/milkless galaxy ahead of me.”
He continued, “Since I never wanted to see the inside of a hospital ever again, I simply copied “the Kid”. So this wasn’t a diet: these results came from a total lifestyle change of eating solely plant-based foods (which is tough because I hate vegetables).”
No Regrets:
Smith’s experience with mortality has given Smith a new perspective: “I ate the way I wanted to for 47 years; I will try the way I’m supposed to for one year and see what happens.”
Workouts:
Kevin Smith has a one hour walk, every single day, with his furry personal trainer Shecky, a miniature dachshund) —“Actually, she takes me,” he says. “She drags me”—to the top of Runyon Canyon, near his home in the Hollywood Hills.
Kevin Smith’s weight loss plan
- After Waking Up: Smith fasts in the morning and drinks unsweetened iced tea.
- Lunch: Mondo Nachos and Beyond Burger at Veggie Grill, or another vegan lunch.
- Workout: One-hour walk with his dog. He posts it on Instagram to be accountable to his 1.6 million followers.
- Dinner: Bombay Spice chickpeas or a vegan dinner.
- Guilty pleasure: Daily $35 full-body massage at Pampered Foot.
The director posted this on Instagram in celebration of dropping 51 lbs:
Even though Kevin Smith has no one else to praise but himself for his weight loss, he thanked his then teen daughter Harley Quinn Smith, who he said turned him on to a plant-based diet. Not only that he also took time the time to thank his fans for their support:
“But mostly, I wanna thank all of you as well — for the kind and encouraging words along the way,” Smith wrote. “Never underestimate the power of positive feedback: you folks telling me I looked better or healthier helped me stick with it. An encouraging word can really make a difference in someone’s life and your compliments kept me going!”