Throughout his career, Will Smith has typically been known for being in shape. But all that changed this summer on a family vacation when the actor changed his diet and started indulging in “like four or five muffins” every morning.
Speaking on the Monday, September 23, episode of the family’s confessional Facebook Live show, Red Table Talk, Smith recalled that his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and daughter, Willow Smith, made up a nickname for him. “They started calling me Pudge Muffin,” he said. “I’d gotten up to 225 pounds and it was the most I’d ever weighed in my adult life. I got to 223 on Ali, and I got to 225 on the muffin boat.”
The 6-foot-2 Fresh Prince alum explained to the rest of the table — Pinkett Smith, 48, Willow, 18, his mother-in-law, Adrienne Banfield-Jones, 65, and sons Trey Smith, 26, and Jaden Smith, 21 — that the weight gain came after he kicked back and relaxed his dietary standards. “You know, Aladdin was successful, so I was like, ‘Muffin, muffin, muffin!’” he said. “Then for lunch, I would have a Moscow mule, I’d have a little vodka. That was pretty much my routine for the 10 days. I’d wake up, eat five muffins and go back to sleep.”
When the crew returned home, the 50-year-old actor said that he got back into his “disciplined mind” and fasted for 10 days. But while the technique worked for weight loss, it was terrible for his energy levels.
After finding his blood pressure to be dangerously low, “I stopped taking my blood pressure medicine and my blood pressure normalized for the 10 days and I felt as good as I had ever felt,” he said. “And I started thinking, I’ve been taking blood pressure medicine for almost a decade and I was thinking, Do I have high blood pressure or was I eating myself into high blood pressure?”
At that point, the Collateral Beauty star said he had an overall nutrition and health epiphany. “I know how to eat to make my body look muscular. But I actually don’t know how to eat to feel good, I don’t know how to eat to be healthy,” he noted. “I couldn’t believe that I got to 50 years old without knowing you literally are what you eat.”
Smith continued joking with his family, who typically don’t share his love of food. “I eat food like an addict,” he said. “I love food! I realized my relationship with food was I eat for fun, I eat for joy … I get bored and I start to eat. I realize I’m a grazer.”
Even though the Grammy winner admitted “I don’t want to be a pudge muffin to my family,” he knew his wife and daughter meant well and were looking out for his health. “I think that’s what family is for,” he said.
In the same episode, Pinkett Smith revealed that she and her husband had staged “a bit of an intervention” with Jaden after he adopted a vegan and lost a drastic amount of weight. “He was wasting away. He just looked drained. He was just depleted. He wasn’t getting the nutrients,” she said.
Since then, the “Icon” rapper has changed his approach. “I also just wanna say that I’m vegetarian. I’ve tried to be vegan,” he said. “I’ll go vegan for a week or so, but for the past year, I’ve been vegetarian.”
