Kevin Smith survived a serious cardiac episode last month. Fortunately he sought medical help in time and is recovering well. Several years ago, Kevin lost 85 pounds after being ejected from a Southwest flight due to seat restrictions. However, after his recent heart attack, his doctor told him he had to lose 50 more pounds. The near-death experience scared Kevin enough to follow his doctor’s advice strictly and, just two weeks later, hw has already lost 17 pounds. Apparently, Kevin turned to Penn Jillette and his plant-based diet to lose the weight.
Kevin Smith is on the mend, with a little help from Penn Jillette.
Returning to his podcast, “Hollywood Babble-On,” Saturday, the first time since suffering a near-fatal heart attack last month, the 47-year-old filmmaker revealed he was told by doctors to shed 50 pounds after going into cardiac arrest. Smith said he is following the plant-based diet detailed by Jillette, 63, in his book, “Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear,” which suggests eating potatoes for the first two weeks before incorporating different greens.
“It’s a pretty intense program, but it’s been interesting. And of course necessary for my health and stuff. But once I get to a decent place, then I can think about eating again,” Smith said.
Smith shared that he lost 17 pounds in nine days.
“I’ll never eat the way I used to,” he said. “The way I used to eat wasn’t f–king horrible. It was in my childhood, that’s what my doctor said.”
“No more animal-related products. My kid is thrilled because she’s a vegan. She’s like, ‘Welcome home, brother,’” Smith said of daughter Harley Quinn, 18.
“This doesn’t come from a personal philosophy, this comes from an ‘I have to.’ I don’t know if I call myself a vegan, maybe a non-animal eater. The program is so far manageable,” he added.
I’m glad he’s taking his doctor’s advice seriously. I just hope he ran this diet by his nutritionist first, though. I was in the room when the nutritionist gave my father his diet following open-heart surgery. Granted, my father doesn’t need to lose weight and still visits the gym a few times a week at the age of 80, but they were pretty serious. With Kevin’s diet, I have a hard time with the “potatoes only for the first two weeks” aspect. However, Kevin sounds determined to stay healthy, so I won’t question him further. Like he said, he has no other choice but to lose the weight and I’m sure there is a contingency plan if he puts the weight back on, which can happen with extreme diets. Harley being supportive of her dad’s “non-animal eater” lifestyle will help him immensely.
Of course, Kevin had a new hockey jersey made to commemorate this point in his life – and it’s marvelous. Keep pumping, Kevin.
Photo credit: WENN Photos and Instagram
Good on him. I like the fact that his daughter is in the vegan lifestyle too, because it’s not so hard when you have company to do this with you, tbh.
I agree. So happy for him. I personally don’t eat animal by products (eggs, milk, etc.) But I do eat meat in small amounts. I’ll make a pasta and add a palm sized amount of beef to my veggie sauce. I had to go on this diet because my oldest has food allergies to dairy, eggs and nuts. Basically made me start reading ingredients in everything we ate and I realized how much crap is in everything processed. From your soaps to random things like tomato soups. I’m so happy to know what’s going in my body. And I lost about 30 pounds. I have heart desease in my fam and I want to be around to see my kids grow!
no
he didn’t lose 17 pounds in two weeks on a plant based diet, he lost 17 pounds in two weeks by only eating potatoes. BIG difference!!!
This. There’s nothing to celebrate here.
Mono-diets are at the best of circumstances still a big mistake. No doctor worth his salt would recommend to a man recovering from heart surgery but who knows with these Hollywood doctors. They are not exactly known for having the ethics to refute their patients worst ideas $
Potatoes are not plants?
The first two weeks are potatoes, after that you add more plants. It’s a plant-based died with bizarre and arbitrary restrictions.
He lost 17lbs because he lost 7lbs of fat and 10 lbs of water weight.
Good for him! Though you have to just imagine how much extra weight he had and how much he was eating? Like 17lbs in. 2 weeks means he had a lot of extra weight or ate so horribly that it was up to 2-3x what he should have been eating!
At two weeks, most of this weight loss is mostly water and lean muscle. And as I said above, it’s being achieved in the worst possible way; a mono-diet of potatoes
I assumed as much and most likely he gain some of it back. My friend is a certified nutritionist for the Army and she always tells me that any “diet” that restricts a certain type of food is not maintained and will eventually Not last. A healthy balance of foods including meat (if you are a meat eater) and constant activity and daily exercise will help with steady weight loss. But no one wants to put in the time or patience for that route especially celebrities
JA-not necessarily true. Certain medical conditions require a lifelong diet. My autoimmune diseases had gotten so bad, I finally gave up dairy, gluten, soy, sugar, caffeine and alcohol. Mostly plant based with grass fed/organically raised meats. I’ll never eat like I used to again. In one month my symptoms are probably 80% better. Diabetes, cardiac and autoimmune patients should follow specific diets for LIFE.
I avoided the huge diet change for a long time. We always ate pretty healthy, but we are Italian and foodies, so I just took my meds and scoffed at the diet until I got so bad and three doctors told me I had to do it if I wanted to feel better. It’s not a hard thing to do or stay on when you get an immediate boost in health.
What’s the saying? A healthy person has many dreams, but a sick person has but one.
it’s always easier to stick to a new lifestyle when you are supported by family! It was only once I got hubby on board that I was able to successfully transition to an ovo-vegetarian diet, and to a cruelty-free home.
Good for him making a commitment to better health.
FFS. More vegan propaganda. Animal products are not unhealthy. The Standard American Diet is unhealthy.
Dairy is very unhealthy.
Not really sure why you would say that this is ‘vegan propaganda’. Stating that you don’t want to consume animal products as a personal health choice is certainly not pushing an agenda down anyone’s throat.
A plant-based diet took me off of bp meds and reversed the early stages of type 2 diabetes. But that’s me, and I respect everyone’s choices, whatever they may be.
Unfortunately, there are some (one in particular) vegan groups who are rather psycho and ruin it for the rest of us, who are just doing our own thang.
P.S. A big ole ‘yech’ to eating only potatoes for 2 weeks.
Kevin literally said he’s not eating animal products for health reasons. That’s spreading propaganda. How many people are going to read that and think they too can cut out animal products and get healthy without doing their own research?
Cutting out animal products isn’t always the healthiest way to eat. I’m the opposite of you, eating a plant-based diet gave me high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, and my hair was falling out in handfuls. Eating low-carb saved my health. And I agree, not everyone is the same, some people do better plant-based, some do better animal-based.
And I do miss potatoes, but I still couldn’t do it for 2 weeks. Unless they were fried, maybe. LOL
Can’t stand him.
I watched Dogma again for some reason after his health crisis and wound up thinking damn Ben Affleck tattooed his dogma crisis
That is not healthy. Extreme weight loss can put stress on the heart too. He will probably gain it back. He needs to be on a healthy diet designed by a registered dietitian and be in cardiac rehab for fitness.
I did a potato only diet (plus a small 3oz piece of meat with dinner because otherwise I wanted to die) for like 3 days and I felt fine, but again it was only three days. I did it because I wanted a drastic change, a reset, almost, and sure it wasn’t the smartest thing but I am glad I did it simply because it was the first time in my 30 years on this planet that it clicked in my head that sometimes I was eating when I didn’t need to eat. I KNOW, ROCKET SCIENCE! I’d be craving fajitas and then I’d think, well, if you’re hungry, go eat more potatoes. Sometimes I was, and I would, and I’d stop craving fajitas. But sometimes I just wanted fajitas because I wanted fajitas. So now, I have a much much easier time being like, okay, am I actually hungry or just psychologically hungry?
Sorry but, he really named his daughter Harley Quinn? lmao.
That was my thought, too
I hope he’s talking to an actual doctor, not just following a celebrity diet book. And 2 weeks of nothing but potatoes does NOT sound healthy at all – especially if he has any blood sugar issues.
17 lbs in 9 days sound like too much, tbh, even for a guy. How is eating nothing but potatoes for two weeks healthy? That’s not how you vegan!
Well, he’s right in that he can’t call himself a vegan simply by eating a plant-based diet. True vegans are people who also don’t use products or wear clothes/accessories made with animal products – like Joaquin Phoenix
As with everything, there are extremists everywhere. There are radical vegans who claim that humans are not biologically built to eat meat blah blah blah. But there are also the rational, science-based vegans who eschew the latest documentaries like What the Health and acknowledge that eating some animal products (albeit much less than we as a society do) is not necessarily unhealthy. People like Ginny Messina, the Vegan RD, who acknowledge that their primary reason for choosing a vegan lifestyle is not as a health panacea but a conscious choice directly related to ethicality and factory farming, etc.
OK, science nerd here. An experiment was done back in the 19th century (and has been repeated since) which showed that potatoes are the only food which you can eat in total isolation and still get enough of all your essential vitamins and a bare minimum of protein not to eff up your health. You could eat nothing but potatoes for a year and survive. In fact, a guy in Australia did just that for weight loss reasons (under medical supervision) and was fine. So, nothing but potatoes for just 2 weeks is no big deal. But don’t try it with any other type of food!
He’s doing such a good thing for himself. And his daughter Harley is awesome. She was on the cover of vegan mag LAIKA last year: https://www.laikamagazine.com/haven-issue.
I hope he’s seeing a real nutritionist too, not some skinny Instagram model who okayed this diet because it’s from a celebrity.
Potatoes are a good source of carbs and not really that much else. They’re a vegetable, but they’re far from the most nutritious one. I sure hope he’s supplimenting his diet out the wazoo, but it’s still better to eat actual food than go on a kooky diet and take a lot of pills.
He’s a good guy. He deserves to live a long life. And he really, REALLY aught to mass produce those jerseys because I’d buy them for every heart attack survivor I know. Heck, he could donate some of the proceeds to a relevant charity!
I enjoy several of his movies and can rewatch Dogma and Clerks anytime I happen to catch them. I’ve seen several of his standup/a night with Kevin Smith shows and he’s funny and entertaining in those also.
He looks good in these pics especially for a young guy who recently had a major cardiac episode. He has enough $$ to get excellent medical advice and I hope he does take better care of himself.
I can’t believe anyone would go on a diet of only potatoes for 2 weeks, especially a recent cardiac surgery patient.
Yes, I bet eating only potatoes for 2 weeks will cause a weight loss. I went on lots of fad diets in the 80’s when I was in my 20’s including “The 9 hard boiled eggs a day” diet and “The one Apple, one 8 ounce can of tuna in water, one cup of cottage cheese a day” diet. And several others, all in a constant effort to lose weight. When after one of these diets plans, I fainted and banged my head when I hit the floor, needing 6 stitches to stop the bleeding. The ER bill was more money than I earned in a week…I finally stopped the fad dieting.
I hope Kevin makes a complete recovery!