The YouTuber Nikocado Avocado shocked fans with a dramatic transformation through extreme weight loss in his video titled “Two Steps Ahead” on Sept. 7. 

Nikocado Avocado, whose real name is Nicholas Perry, is known for his mukbangs on YouTube, where he frequently uploaded videos of himself eating large amounts of food. This content earned him more than 4 million subscribers on one of his channels. 

Although he first started YouTube in 2014 as a vegan YouTuber and shared his healthy daily lifestyle, he later claimed that this lifestyle brought an unbalanced, hostile, and mentally unstable environment for him, and turned to heavy amounts of junk food and instant ramen. 

In his video, he announced that he has been on a weight loss journey for the past two years, and lost 113 kg. He told his viewers that he hid this process by strategically pre-recording his videos, including the latest mukbang video which he had uploaded seven months earlier. 

“The principle of weight loss is fairly simple: consume fewer calories than the body uses,” Robin Ibbotson, anatomy and physiology teacher, said. “In this case as he is well known for his mukbangs, his calorie intake would have been very high. Two years is a reasonably long time when it comes to weight loss and so it could be assumed there are no side effects for him, or at least fewer than the effects associated with obesity. Losing a significant amount of weight in a short space of time, however, can lead to issues such as eating disorders and difficulty sustaining the weight lost in the first place.” 

Since he started his mukbang career, Perry’s weight has abruptly increased, even reaching 186 kg. He also exhibited signs of mental instability, including emotional turbulence, through his videos. Perry has spoken about his history of mental illness and eating disorders previously. However, some speculated that this was just a way of gaining more attention. 

The clips of his emotional turbulence became a popular meme on the internet, leading to a significant amount of online hate and mockery. He addressed this issue in the video and indirectly criticized his haters while claiming that this was all a social experiment. 

“I have known him through memes on social media,” Adelyn Yim (11), social media user, said. “I was very shocked when I heard the news. But at the same time, I was impressed because he lost so much weight within a short period of time. The theory that he pre-recorded his videos and spent the time losing weight is very interesting and I am somewhat convinced.”

While his transformation was quite notable, his supposedly pre-recorded videos raised questions about his past content and his future direction as he plans to upload more videos to elaborate on this issue.