Smith is making some lifestyle changes after suffering a heart attack. He's starting by dropping all meat and animal products and eating only potatoes. So far, the move has paid off, with the director losing 20 pounds in less than two weeks.
Boil ’em, mash ’em, put ’em in a stew.
Kevin Smith is all about potatoes. In fact, they’re all he’s eating nowadays, thanks to a radical new diet plan that has been melting the pounds off the director, who recently suffered a heart attack.
The “Clerks” director, 47, had already lost 80 pounds several years ago, but after a doctor at the hospital told him he had to make some changes and lose 50 more pounds, he was looking for a new way forward.
In the March 17 episode of his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, Smith, who has embraced a plant-based diet, said a friend recommended he check in with magician and performer Penn Jillette, who famously lost more than 100 pounds in 2015 using a so-called “mono-diet.” The plan starts with two weeks of plain potatoes and nothing else, then adds in vegetables, and eventually, fruit and nuts.
Jillette told Smith to check out his book, “Presto: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales.” Smith got the account of Jillette’s weight loss-and-potatoes journey on tape.
“The program he went on is rather extreme, but it appealed to me because it dials into certain personality traits,” Smith said. (Gillette said that he wanted to excise his habit of social eating, for one.) He then met with the architect of the diet, Ray Cronise.
By the time of the podcast, Smith had been on the totally tuber-lar diet nine days and had lost 17 pounds.
On Thursday, Smith, a Red Bank native who grew up in Highlands, announced even more progress, with a total loss of 20 pounds in 13 days.
“My blood pressure is amazing,” he tweeted, giving Jillette’s book a shoutout.
In February, Smith sustained a heart attack caused by a blockage of his left anterior descending artery during one of his shows in Glendale, California. Doctors cleared the blockage, and Smith said he has been feeling fantastic ever since.
I’m officially down 20 pounds as of this morning! 20 pounds in 13 days & my blood pressure is amazing. How did this happen? @pennjillette & his book “Presto” turned me on to @RayCronise and his program at https://t.co/ktvv6VBbub My Doc said lose 50 pounds. 20 down, 30 more to go! https://t.co/n0iuJNdLWp
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) March 22, 2018
Smith said his daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, 18, has been especially happy about her father’s lifestyle change, since she’s already vegan.
“She’s like, ‘Welcome home, brother!'” he said. Smith has committed to eating no animal-derived foods, though he won’t yet call himself vegan.
“I’ll never eat the way I used to,” he said, noting that his diet wasn’t all that poor as of late, but the damage to his arteries had already been done during his childhood, when he ate Twinkies with abandon.
Still, Smith said he’s anxious about adding in vegetables. He apparently hates them, or at least thinks that he does.
“I’ll give it a shot, because why not? It’s that or the f***ing grave,” he said. “But I can’t guarantee that I’m going to become, like, a vegetable eater.”
Potatoes it is.
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.