Vinny from ‘Jersey Shore’ lost 50 pounds on his ‘Keto Guido’ diet

Gym, tan, ketosis?

“Jersey Shore” star Vinny Guadagnino, 31, is loving his meatballs in “The Keto Guido Cookbook: Delicious Recipes To Get Healthy and Look Great” (Rockridge Press).

“I made my meatballs last night with a little twist, adding beef and pork together,” Guadagnino tells The Post. “It was the best meatball I’ve ever had in my life. My mom would kill me if she heard me say that, though.”

The reality star, who lost 50 pounds after changing his lifestyle with the keto diet — and by adding more G into his GTL lifestyle — wrote the book with help from mom Paola Guadagnino and health coach Karissa Long.

“I was yo-yo dieting,” Guadagnino says. “Dropping weight before filming then gaining it all back. But as I got older, it became harder and harder to lose. In the later seasons, you can see I’m not in good shape.”

Although he had seen his mom attempt another carb-shunning diet, Atkins, in the ’90s, it wasn’t until he was listening to Adam Carolla’s podcast in 2015 when he decided to make a change.

“He had a fitness expert on as a guest, Vinnie Tortorich, who started talking about this diet where you could get healthy and lose weight without giving up delicious things like bacon and butter,” he writes.

That other Vinnie set Guadagnino on a road to becoming a “keto evangelist.”

The popular keto diet — a favorite of celebs such as Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Jameson and Halle Berry — is a way of eating that essentially cuts down on carbohydrates and prioritizes fat and protein. Done right, proponents say, this forces your body to run off — and burn — fat. For Guadagnino, that means carefully keeping track of his macronutrient intake. He aims to eat about 75 percent fat, 20 percent protein and 5 percent carbs every day.

It’s strict, but it helps that Guadagnino figured out how to do it Italian-American style. He spends much of his book stripping old-school Italian family recipes of bread and pasta. Noodles get swapped for ribbons of zucchini. Chicken cutlets get coated in crushed almonds instead of breadcrumbs.

Obviously, figuring out an edible keto pizza recipe was a priority.

“I now use almond flour to make Vinny’s pizza,” his mom Paola writes in the book’s introduction. (You can spot Guadagnino shoving slices in his mouth on “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation.”)

Guadagnino says the cast makes fun of him often because of his diet. (“Jenny is more of a biohacker than she leads on,” he says. “Her pantry is all almond and buckwheat flour!”) He reflects on when he famously — and drunkenly — ate just the cheese and oil off his late-night pizza on the show.

“That scene put me on the map for keto, 100 percent,” says Guadagnino, who says he drinks “as little as possible” these days unless they’re filming.

“I started the Instagram page [@ketoguido], and it just took off. I was hesitant to call my self the ‘keto guido’ because I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. But I hustled and shopped the book idea and that’s how it all came to be.”

Although the diet has been shown to promote weight loss, it has also been reported to have some unpleasant side effects — namely “keto crotch” and bad breath. But Guadagnino says the only side effects he experiences is when he returns to eating simple carbs: His skin gets blotchy, his stomach “feels inflamed” and his body doesn’t react well.

“My farts smell really bad when I’m thrown off of my regime,” Guadagnino says. “If I’m keto during the week, and then I go film and start eating carbs, all it takes is one spoonful of dessert and my cast members will be feeling the wrath.”

And ladies — if anyone’s still interested after that last bit — being keto is not a dating requirement.

“When I find a girl that’s into fitness and health, my brain lights up,” Guadagnino says. “But it’s not a necessity that they are also keto. If a date eats other foods, I’ll just live vicariously through her.”

Vinny’s zucchini roll manicotti

Ingredients:
4 zucchini
2 tbsp. olive oil, plus a little more to grease pan
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, minced
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 cup goat cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
2 cups low-carb marinara sauce, divided
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Sea salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease 9-by-13-inch baking dish with olive oil.
Cut zucchini lengthwise into 1/8-inch-thick slices. Set aside.

Warm olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add bell pepper, onion and garlic; sauté to soften, 4 minutes. Transfer vegetables to a medium bowl; add goat cheese, mozzarella and oregano, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pour 1 cup marinara sauce into baking dish. On a cutting board, lay a zucchini slice flat and place a few tablespoons of filling at one end. Roll and place in the baking dish, seam-side down. Repeat with remaining zucchini.

Spoon remaining sauce over the rolls. Top with Parmesan.

Bake rolls until cheese is golden, about 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Recipe reprinted from “The Keto Guido Cookbook: Delicious Recipes To Get Healthy and Look Great” with permission from Callisto Media.

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