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Nutrition program medical director reacts to Nikocado Avocados weight loss

Dr. Anthony Lim, the medical director of the McDougall program, has responded to the dramatic weight loss from Nikocado Avocado.

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The YouTuber – real name Nicholas Perry – made headlines around the world this week when he announced that he had lost 250 pounds, much to the surprise of his fans and followers. Over the course of around eight years, Perry had become known for his “mukbang” videos, in which he consumes large amounts of food at once while talking to the camera.

Dr. Lim, who specializes in lifestyle medicine and nutrition, said he “congratulates” Perry on his weight loss. Speaking to Plant-based news (PBN), he added that if he were to speak to Perry, he would “ask him a lot about how he turns his life around” and “maintains a healthy weight” through lifestyle changes.

Weight loss through Nikocado Avocado

In a video posted to his 3.9 million subscribers over the weekend, the YouTuber revealed a drastic change in his appearance to his millions of subscribers. The video, titled “Two Steps Ahead,” has 38 million views at the time of writing.

“I'm always two steps ahead,” he explained at the beginning of the video, while wearing a large panda mask to hide his face (he later confirmed that this was meant to symbolize that social media “is not as black and white as it seems”). Perry added, “This has been the biggest social experiment of my life.”

After removing the mask, he said, “Today I woke up from a very long dream and I also woke up having lost 250 pounds of body weight. And just yesterday people were calling me fat and sick and boring and irrelevant. Humans are the craziest creatures on the entire planet and yet I managed to always be two steps ahead of everyone. The joke is on you.”

Read more: Stanford professor: “Doctors do not receive nutrition training”

How did Nikocado Avocado lose weight?

The video attracted a lot of attention and sparked a lot of speculation, partly because the weight loss appeared to have occurred within a very short period of time (videos from just a few months earlier showed him in a much larger state).

Perry responded to the speculation by confirming that it took him two years to lose weight and revealed that he went to great lengths to hide it from the public, including uploading pre-recorded content during that time.

“I have been posting strategically recorded videos for two years, both on YouTube and TikTok,” he said NBC News“I edited the videos to look current so I could focus on healing my body behind the scenes.” He added that he shaved his head so people wouldn't recognize him in public. He also got help from other YouTubers to hide his plan.

Speaking about the reasoning behind his social experiment, Perry said: “While everyone was pointing fingers and laughing at me for overeating, I was in complete control the whole time. In reality, people are completely fascinated by internet personalities and compulsively watch their content. There is a deeper level of overconsumption in this – and that's the parallel I wanted to draw.”

Nikocado Avocado and plant-based nutrition

It may come as a surprise to some that Perry used to be plant-based. He famously added animal products to his diet in 2016 and has since posted countless videos of himself eating large amounts of meat and dairy.

PBN Founder Klaus Mitchell has expressed hope that he will return to a more sustainable, animal-free diet. “I met Nikocado Avocado in 2015 when he was thriving on a plant-based lifestyle,” he said. “Let's hope this recent transformation returns him to being the positive and happy person I remember, and I sincerely hope he considers adopting a vegan lifestyle again.”

Read more: Dr. Peter Attia: “You don’t have to eat animal protein”