Last year, Kevin James had an unexpected surge in cultural relevance when an old promo picture of him from his The King of Queens days suddenly blew up as a meme. Even though it was the first time that most people had thought of Kevin outside of reruns on CBS/Peacock, he’s actually been steadily working for two decades. Well, for some reason that I don’t really want to know about, Kevin appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast a couple of weeks ago. During the interview, he talked about his career, including some of his weight struggles. Kevin shared that while he was recently filming a horror movie, he lost about 50lbs. When the movie was over, he gained all of the weight back. After gaining it back, he found out he needed to do reshoots and had to lose the weight all over again. So, he ended up losing 60lbs by “fasting,” which entailed sustaining on some salt and water over the course of 41 days. Holy yo-yo dieting, Batman.
The King of Queens star Kevin James recently stopped by The Joe Rogan Experience for a wide-ranging interview covering everything from his career to his own body. At one point in the conversation, he explained that while filming a new movie, he underwent a dramatic weight loss, then weight gain, then an even bigger rapid loss. But the extreme method he described is far from a healthy approach to achieve his desired result. The actor explained to Rogan that he lost weight to play a priest in an unnamed upcoming horror movie, getting down to 230 pounds. After shooting had wrapped, he packed on 50 pounds and got back up to 280. When he learned he had to do reshoots later, he had to lose all the weight again.
“I can lose it really quick, I can fast and lose it,” he said of his yo-yo dieting tactics. “Seriously, I can lose it quick… I can do it in a month. Less than a month.”
He went on to explain how he fasted for multiple weeks—”41 and a half” days to be exact—to drop the weight for the reshoots quickly. But it wasn’t intermittent fasting, an approach where you restrict the number of hours per day you can eat food which has gained popularity in some health circles in recent years and has been proven in studies to be safe and effective. Instead, he claims he survived only on “water and a little salt” for approximately six weeks.
“When I lock on, I can do something,” he stated plainly. “I started fasting, I didn’t say ‘I’m going to do 40 days,’ I just said ‘I’m going to do whatever I can.'”
That doesn’t mean it was a smooth ride the whole time. “I felt pretty good for a while, and then I’d have these dips, like wow, I feel pretty miserable,” he confessed.
In the end, he dropped all the weight he initially lost for the movie and then some. “I lost, I think, like 60 pounds,” he said. “I didn’t even take vitamins… It cleansed everything out of me.” In the interview, however, James acknowledged that this wasn’t the best advice for others. “I’m not saying it’s the way to go for everybody, I don’t know,” he said.
James himself acknowledged that he didn’t go about losing weight in the healthiest way, and that he gained much of the weight back afterwards. Looking ahead, he wants to focus on his diet and establish a sustainable routine to stay in good shape for years to come.
Oh man, that sounds miserable. While different bodies respond to different types of diets and exercise, that’s not what Kevin did here. It’s absolutely worth pointing out that what he did wasn’t fasting or intermittent fasting or however he wants to present it so that it’s less jarring. He was starving himself. I would have been so hangry after about 12 hours of that method. I wish that Kevin had worked with a dietician or nutritionist to lose the weight safely. If he really did sustain on nothing but salt and water for 41 days without taking any vitamins, then that is crazy. All of that drastic weight loss and gain cannot be healthy for him. He has so many resources available to him, too. I hope he’s serious about focusing on a better diet and exercise routine to live a healthier life in the future.
Screenshots from YouTube and Instagram
All of which proves that men can have eating disorders too. But for some reason they never get stigmatized for it as women do.
Did I read that correctly… water and salt for 6 weeks? He must have had sustenance elsewhere. Could that not kill you?
I’ll bet he has done some irreversible damage to his heart and kidneys. He may really regret this later.
Not if you know what you’re doing and it’s appropriate for your body type. A friend of mine with a very serious cancer fasted under supervision for 5 months. She was extremely obese. She had proper electrolytes (ie not just salt) and some other supplements but no calories at all. Strict water fast. Her doctor couldn’t believe it in the end. Her cancer improved to the point of going into remission (something they thought impossible) and all her health markers were through the roof better.
I know it sounds nuts, I thought it was nuts.. She could do it because of the fat she carried. Refeeding was done very carefully with certain foods. No one should do this on their own but it saved her life.
@charter, thank you for sharing that anecdote. I’ll share one from the flip perspective.
A couple of people close to me had cancer and each chose to go down the wellness rabbit hole of ‘food as medicine’ and ‘fasting as medicine’.
It did not go well.
One decided to forgo available medical treatment due to the ‘medicine is toxic’ mentality in the wellness world, believing it would cause more harm than good, and that a strict diet of certain foods with periods of fasting and liquid diets, plus meditation and mindfulness was all that was needed to cure their cancer, shrink tumours, and reverse organ, cell and tissue damage.
The other person had no medical treatment available for their rare cancer, but was medically advised to get an amputation as it would create the best outcome and they could otherwise live a normal life. Plus, the potential for the cancer spread would be cut out with the limb. This person refused the amputation and also went down the restrictive diet, fasting and wellness route.
When both their cancers grew and spread to other parts of their body, they continued their dedication to wellness. Until they got so sick, frail and malnourished that death was at their door.
At this point, they finally gave in and requested treatment – what was originally proposed to them from their doctors. They each underwent their procedures but it was too late, in their frail state, their bodies couldn’t handle the treatment.
At the very end, they both had regrets about not accepting treatment sooner and self-inflicting organ damage due to the wellness lifestyle.
As a loved one, the whole thing was incredibly hard to watch. But also very easy to understand how when faced with trauma and death, you are desperate and willing to clutch at straws.
I used to be interested in a healthy lifestyle but now see how toxic and anti-science it is, plus it regularly encourages eating disorders.
I also came upon a quote recently about how the smartest people can be easy to con, because they are curious and have agile brains that want to connect information and find answers. So they have the remarkable ability to make the oddest shaped pieces fit in with the puzzle. Essentially, they can come up with a million sound arguments to make a something work.
Sometimes, more simpleminded folk see something strange and won’t try to make sense of it, so they walk away.
The bottom line is, not everything that’s ‘wellness’ is good for you. And yes, very smart people can find ways of justifying an eating disorder, and refuse to see it’s just another manifestation of their need to find order and control.
Olivia, I 100% agree with you. I’m not advocating anything, especially for cancer treatment! I’m just pointing out long-term fasting doesn’t necessarily give people organ damage or health problems. It’s all about supervision and context. I’m sure this person the post is about didn’t do it on his own. People who carry a lot of body fat can fast longer for obvious reasons.
My friend had already lost her sight in one eye, she was on the path to nowhere with a brain tumour so her recovery was a genuine miracle. She’d had all the conventional treatment.
Just another celebrity using “fasting” as a euphemism for anorexia.
Wow. He likely damaged everything in his body by doing that.
Men: I’ve invented this cool new thing that solves all your problems. Not only is it perfectly healthy, but it cures all health issues and ages you backwards. I’m obsessed with it. I call it fasting.
Women: tomayto, tomahto, disordered eating, organ damage, neuropathy, electrolyte imbalance, malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, kidney stones, hormone dysfunction, infertility, gut dysbiosis, immune dysregulation, endothelial damage, joint inflammation, hair and teeth loss, mental health lapse, cognitive decline, etc.
This comment is excellent.
A study just came out showing a correlation between certain types of fasting and cardiovascular mortality. It has weaknesses and needs to be studied much more in depth, but this kind of extreme “dieting” cannot be ok for your body
I was following everything I could on that study yesterday. Because if you have a predisposition to cardiovascular disease or cancer, the results were startling. Anecdotally, I had been IF for months, successfully losing 30 pounds, before I got my cancer diagnosis. You are correct in pointing out that the study has some problems, but it can’t be dismissed completely out of hand.
That is an ideal way to trigger cardiac issues and other serious medical situations. And he announced this on Joe Rogan, you say?
Wow! That Joe Rogan, so cutting edge with the medical and other man stuff!
/s
So you actually can fast long term like this and have it be a healthy/positive thing, but I highly doubt someone like Kevin James is cleared to do that. Here’s a really good article on it:
https://www.rupahealth.com/post/the-healing-potential-and-safe-practices-of-extended-fasting-a-comprehensive-guide
Very on brand for Rogan to give a platform to someone spouting dangerous, extreme, possibly life-threatening BS with no scientific basis.
absolutely agree. I did watch his recent stand up on Netflix (my cousin recommended it because of some comments I made about my nephew). I was left with the impression that he holds physicians and science in low regard, & thinks he knows better so announcing this on Rogan is super on brand
That’s quite dangerous and likely really damaged his whole metabolic system. Hope he works with a good doctor.