Kevin Smith is singing the praises of his vegan "total lifestyle change" for helping him lose a grand total of 51 pounds in the last six months.

Smith, 48, a Red Bank native, shared a weight loss update on Instagram Sunday. In a photo, the director appears noticeably slimmer, wearing a T-shirt that says "Fat Man" (for his "Fat Man on Batman" podcast) and his usual long jean shorts ("jorts," as he prefers to call them).

The writer and director also included a comparison of his weight, blood pressure and heart rate numbers from now and March 8. The numbers showed Smith's fat mass has decreased by 42 pounds.

The director, who grew up in Highlands, suffered a massive "Widowmaker" heart attack during a break between two of his California shows on Feb. 26 and had to have a complete blockage of his left anterior descending artery cleared. A doctor told him 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," Smith posted, besting the doctor's ask by one pound. "This is the lightest I've been since high school!" (Smith is an alumnus of Henry Hudson Regional High School in Highlands.)

Smith's May Showtime special, "Silent But Deadly" was filmed at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California immediately before he had the heart attack (yes, it had been named beforehand).

"This is the room where I almost died," said the director, standing in a backstage room for a segment appended to the end of the special.

The New Jersey-bred director, who hosted his Vulgarthon event in Red Bank earlier this month, first rose to fame in 1994 with the success of his film "Clerks." He went on to make a series of films in his Jersey-set "View Askewniverse." In addition to working as a writer and director in film and TV, he brings his good-natured storytelling abilities to stage shows and functions as a kind of professional fanboy through podcasts and Comic-Con appearances.

Smith attributed a large part of his weight loss success to rethinking the way he eats, with help from family. He became a vegetarian directly after the heart attack and in his Instagram post called his daughter, actress Harley Quinn Smith, 19, "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," he said. "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)."

But when a follower questioned eliminating dairy from his diet, Smith said he didn't miss dairy or meat. His perspective has changed markedly since March.

"But I can't guarantee that I'm going to become, like, a vegetable eater," he said at the time.

Smith had already lost 80 pounds several years before he suffered the heart attack by cutting sugar. His first foray into further weight loss this year involved an all-potato diet -- what he called a "potato famine" -- one "mono diet" stage of a program from plant-based diet proponent Ray Cronise that Smith found after reading a book from Penn Jillette on how he lost 100 pounds. The strategy helped Smith lose an initial 20 pounds.

Smith thanked Jillette and Cronise for their help, but said that as of late, Weight Watchers has helped him to track what he's eating by way of the company's app. In April, as the director began to lose a sizable amount of weight, he became a Weight Watchers ambassador. His recent status update doubled as an ad for the program. He hopes to drop a few more pounds.

"My hope now is I can slowly lose another 10 with #weightwatchers and get down to my birth weight of 195!" Smith mused. "But for now, I'm ecstatic to have reached this chunky milestone!"

Smith also thanked fans for their encouragement.

"Never underestimate the power of positive feedback: you folks telling me I looked better or healthier helped me stick with it," he said. "An encouraging word can really make a difference in someone's life and your compliments kept me going! And just look where I went."

Smith recently sought support for his "Hollyweed" TV pilot on the crowdfunding platform Rivit TV. While the show missed its fundraising target, Rivit and other partners are going to produce the next three episodes of the show's first season, which will be available for purchase on Rivit. Smith and Donnell Rawlings star in the show as owners of a Los Angeles marijuana dispensary. Jason Mewes, who plays Jay to Smith's Silent Bob, also appears in the show. Smith described the premise as "'Clerks' in a weed store."

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.