Anyone who spends time traveling to make and promote art for a living — from actors to comic book artists to musicians — can usually speak to the unhealthy nature of eating and drinking on the road. So it often goes when time to seek out better options is limited. For country star Nate Smith, however, avoiding that impulse-driven lifestyle became more of a need than a desire in 2024, and he’s worked hard to turn his bad habits into better ones, resulting in the loss of more than 70 lbs. to date.
With Stagecoach 2026 in his rearview, Smith spoke with People tied to a Nashville concert appearance, and said that his weight loss victories so far have helped him be a better entertainer. As he put it:
Keeping the energy on stage and making sure I do that, because I think that takes care of the fans. I just feel better. . . .It’s nice to be able to wear clothes that I like. This [shirt] is a large. I’ve been double X for the last five or six years, so I’m feeling really good.
It'd be one thing if Nate Smith was just an album-recording musician without any interest in putting on live shows. But that's not his style, and he's certainly not one to stay planted in one place while on stage. Just look at the video below, in which he takes his "Whiskey On You" performance out into the crowd:
Jogging around and off the stage and entering the rabid audience would be enough to cause a lot of people to start breathing heavier and harder, and it's the kind of fan-pleasing extra that's presumably a lot easier for Nate Smith to put into practice now.
Smith suffered a severe upper respiratory infection in November 2024 that inspired him to get smarter about not overeating and drinking to excess. It sounds like it's made his life quite better in various ways, as he confessed he would get out of breath just bending down to tie his shoes, and can now jump around without that being an issue.
One particularly "amazing" thing that he brings up is that he no longer sweats. (My kingdom for a point in life where my forehead doesn't leak like a sieve.) And even though he's proud and happy to have lost all the pounds that he has, he's not done yet. In his words:
I think I want to get under 200 lbs. So I was like 275 lbs., somewhere in that world. But I want to get down to like 185 lbs. again.
Getting down to 185 lbs. would put Nate Smith close to a total of 100 lbs. lost, but it's often the final few pounds that are the hardest to get rid of. Something tells me playing a lot of outdoor shows amidst the summer heat could do the trick, albeit not in the healthiest way.
For his own sake, here’s hoping Food Network doesn’t go after Smith to host a new grub-centric travel show, or the temptations to revert back to former eating habits may be too strong. (Though Guy Fieri’s guidelines for not packing on weight while hosting are still solid.)
