On February 25, Kevin Smith, 48, was rushed to the hospital with a 100% blockage of his left anterior descending artery, a critical condition also known as the "widow-maker." The acclaimed filmmaker, who had always been heavyset, had already lost about 90 pounds prior to his heart attack, but his doctors told him he needed to lost more, and fast. And he listened.
On Sunday, Smith took to Instagram to celebrate his significantly slimmer new frame.
"This @weightwatchers Ambassador is thrilled to announce that I'VE LOST 51 POUNDS," he wrote. "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 #weightwatchers and get down to my birth weight of 195!" he joked.
Smith went on to thank Penn Jillette, an American magician who recently documented his own impressive weight loss in his book Presto!, and Ray Cronise, a NASA scientist turned nutrition and weight-loss specialist whom Jillette credited for much of his weight loss. Cronise encouraged him to interrupt his current relationship with food by picking just one thing to eat for two whole weeks, and Jillette chose the potato. It seems Smith tried this plan as well, as he thanked Cronise for "getting me started with his potato famine," which advocates maintaining a largely plant-based diet after the first two weeks of eating all the potatoes he wanted but nothing else (not even butter or sour cream!).
He also thanked Weight Watchers for "their app-based program that made it easy to keep track of and control my eating!"
Finally, he thanked his 19-year-old daughter, Harley Quinn, for giving him the inspiration necessary to get healthy.
"The little vegan astronaut who explored this meatless/milkless galaxy ahead of me, leading by example. 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)."
He also gave a shoutout to his fans, "for the kind and encouraging words along the way. 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!" And he's right. Studies have even shown that announcing your weight loss goals on Instagram can actually help you achieve them.
For more celebrity transformations, check out James McAvoy's Secret Muscle-Building Diet.
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