On February 25th this year, Kevin Smith was struck down by a heart attack
The cult director and podcaster suffered
a total blockage of the left anterior descending artery, after coming off stage from a stand-up appearance in Glendale, California. He thankfully recovered after being rushed to a nearby hospital for surgery, but doctors told him he needs to lose 50 lbs.
Smith has never been shy about his weight – one of his podcasts is called
Fatman on Batman - and he is often seen wearing one of his trademark baggy XXL hockey jerseys.
But on Sunday, six months after the heart attack, he shared his incredible weight loss achievements on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bm9GKkZA2am/
On
Twitter, Smith said that "The Doctor told me to lose 50 pounds, but I have a problem doing what I’m told. So I lost 51 pounds instead".
"I started at 256 and now I weigh 205. This is the lightest I’ve been since high school!"
In April, he revealed that
he'd lost 32 pounds in a US TV interview, but these new photos show just how far he has come.
Smith thanked author Ray Cronise, and magician Penn Jillette, who wrote a book about his own impressive weight loss. He also credited the Weight Watchers program, for which Smith is now a paid ambassador.
Smith also thanked his daughter Harley Quinn Smith for being an inspiration to him.
Kevin Smith came to fame in the early 1990s, when he self-financed his directorial debut
Clerks. The low-budget comedy, shot in the convenience store where he worked, captured the realities of working crap jobs in your twenties, and ended up becoming a cult hit. He then became one of the quintessential 1990s indie directors, with films like
Mallrats and
Dogma.
His recent films like
Cop Out and
Tusk have not been particularly well received, but he has since found a second career as a podcaster and media figure, with his
SModcast remaining one of the most popular podcasts around.
