How Home And Away star James Stewart’s booze ban led to body transformation

After busting through the 100kg threshold during Covid, Home And Away’s James Stewart lost 12kg by giving up some of his less-healthy foods and drink habits. HERE’S HOW HE DID IT.

Home And Away’s James Stewart admits he ate his way through Covid – but when he could no longer keep up with 11-year-old daughter Scout, he knew he had to do something about it.

He was 101kg at his heaviest – mostly due to “basically being a bakery and eating pasta and bread non-stop” – but has since dropped 12kg.

And for anyone asking how – he warns you may not like the answer.

“No one wants to hear it, but most of the work is done in the kitchen and at the bar,” he tells Insider, saying it has to start with two months booze-free.

“Because everyone doesn’t mind doing a little bit of exercise – it doesn’t matter what it is.

“The hard part is the food.

“Every Sunday I’ll spend a few hours filling the fridge – my kid is getting used to helping around the kitchen … so if she was going to put something in the microwave, I just wanted it to be healthy.

Home And Away star James Stewart has lost 12kg by cutting out booze. Picture: Justin Lloyd

James Stewart and daughter Scout in 2020. Picture: Supplied

“And there has to be a period of no grog at all – and that’s the hardest period – so you just have to go ‘bar’s closed’.

“Honestly. Because there’s this thing in the liver, so when you drink, the liver cleans the alcohol, but then the liver doesn’t clean the rest of the food that you’re eating.

James Stewart says grog has to go for you burn off the love handles. Picture: Justin Lloyd

“So what you’re trying to do is get your gut to go, where’s all the sugar coming from? Let me go find the sugar, burn that off.

“So if grog is going in, your body only cleans the grog, it doesn’t clean the food.

“So for two months, if there’s no grog, the body gets used to cleaning the food – and then the love handles go, and that’s where the benefits start.”

He loves the positive effect his body and lifestyle transformation is having on Scout, his daughter with ex-partner Jessica Marais.

The bubbly 11-year-old loves surfing and is at NIDA to potentially follow in her parents’ footsteps.

“Although she thinks she’s funnier than dad,” he laughs.

And if he ever needed advice on eating well, he didn’t have to go further than Seven castmates Ethane Brown, Matt Evans or Ada Nicodemou.

“There’s a culture here at Home And Away, and it’s fit and it’s healthy,” he says.

“I’ve got a dressing room with Ethan and I work with Matt all the time, and these guys know food, they know clean eating, they know exercise – they’re real guns, they really know what they’re doing.

“Even Ada – if you’re talking food, Ada knows food – so I’m very lucky to be surrounded by like-minded people.”

James Stewart and Ada Nicodemou on the set of Home And Away.

He says simple steps like swapping the pasta in a spaghetti bolognese for zucchini makes all the difference.

“Then if you get to the weekend and want to have a few beers at the footy or a champagne with the missus, that’s fine, you just do a little bit more exercise the next day to maintain it and keep it in control.

“I want to sit on 90kg.

“I think 90 is healthy – then I can show my kid I may not have an eight pack – but having a six pack is fine,” he laughs.

“It makes your smiles a little bit bigger on your face.

“The smile on my wife or my kid’s face – it becomes your positivity just generates positivity.

“I know there’s a bunch of guys and girls who are on the couch right now that are like me when I was 100 kilos, and they’re all going ‘just shut up Jimmy. Just shut up with all your positive bullshit’.

“And I’m like, yeah, OK, I’ll shut up – but it’s the truth.”