Continuing on his weight loss journey! Jay and Silent Bob star Kevin Smith is speaking out about his new healthy lifestyle one year after suffering a massive heart attack.
“I started at 256, and I’m 198. So what is that, 58 at this point?” the WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers) ambassador, 48, shares exclusively with Us Weekly. “I honestly never thought I’d get to even 200, so getting under it is crazy town.”
The director, who announced that he had dropped 51 pounds in August, said that while he feels “wonderful,” shedding the pounds was more about health than appearances. “I just want to stress to those out there who care, it was never about dropping the weight. I wasn’t sitting there like ‘I wanna look good!'” he told Us. “It was about ‘Get this out of your system.’”
The filmmaker’s biggest wakeup call came after he nearly died after a comedy show in February 2018. “After the first show this evening, I had a massive heart attack,” he captioned a Twitter photo of himself in a hospital bed on February 26. “The Doctor who saved my life told me I had 100% blockage of my LAD artery (aka ‘the Widow-Maker’),” he wrote. “If I hadn’t canceled show 2 go to the hospital, I would’ve died. But for now, I’m still above ground!”
Smith discussed his methods for getting in shape and lowering his cholesterol with Us. “You know, the secret’s [really] simple. Eat green and it just falls off,” he quips. “Like, the thing is for me … it’s the culture of eating. … We’re trained to believe that we have to eat three meals a day and stuff. And that’s just blatantly not true. And in terms of what a meal is, it changes all the time based on what we’re sold from the outside world like the food pyramid which changes periodically.”
He continued: “You have to change your way of thinking about food. I used to eat to entertain, eat to reward. … I work hard all day or as hard as I work, do a lot of things and at the end of the night, hit the bed with a bunch of food and watch a movie. And for two hours, feed … and that’s late at night. It’s not like, then I got up and went running. I was sedentary and food was a reward. It made me feel happy, that was my entertainment.”
Now, the “Jay & Silent Bob Get Old” podcaster is more disciplined with his meals. Despite his disdain of greens (“I f–king hate vegetables”), he has found a way to make veganism work for him. “Look, eating is just what you do to live, that’s it,” he says. “You’ve just got to find a path that you can stay on. Like as long as you’re not eating meat or animal food products it’s all good. I eat a lot of beans, and beans are all free on the WW Freestyle program, so that’s been easy and amazing.”
The Chasing Amy writer, who has also taken up running in Runyon Canyon near his home in L.A., is encouraging fans to do the same. “It’s possible,” he assures Us.
Smith is also bringing awareness to the disease that nearly killed him, partnering up with WW for the #GetYourHeartOn campaign: for every photo posted to Instagram of fans making a heart with their hands. For every tag, the company will donate $1 to the American Heart Association.
With reporting by Marc Lupo
