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Leah Shutkever- Biography, Wiki

Leah Shutkever is a popular professional competitive speed eater and YouTuber.

She has 465K subscribers on her eponymous YouTube channel.

Leah holds multiple Guinness World Records relating to fast eating and is Europe’s No.1 female competitive eater.

Introduction-

Leah Shutkever was born on 11 May 1990.

She hails from Redditch, near Birmingham, England, United Kingdom.

Her mother Esther was a chef.

Leah has an elder brother, Uri Shutkever.

Her mother hails from Guatemala and has Latina, Swiss Italian, Egyptian and Native American ancestry and her father has English, Irish and Russian ancestry.

Born  Leah Shutkever; 11 May 1990. Hails from Redditch, England, United Kingdom
Zodiac sign  Taurus
EducationBachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.)
Occupation  Professional competitive speed eater and YouTuber
YouTube channel  ‘Leah Shutkever’
Years active on YouTube  2017-present
Genre  Speed eating
Subscribers  465K
Net worthUndisclosed
World Records 27 Guinness World Records
Leah Shutkever information

Education-

Leah studied from Solihull College.

In 2011, she joined Birmingham City University in Birmingham to study for a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) and graduated in 2014.

Career-

In 2014, Leah worked as an architectural assistant at TKA Space Studio.

Then, in between 2015 and 2018, she worked as a design manager and an interior design manager at Eos Interiors.

Then, from 2018 to 2020, Leah worked as a freelance designer at Diligent Design.

And since January 2020, she is working as a competitive eater and is self-employed.

An innate talent-

As her mother was a chef and her father and brother were big eaters, Leah too was a gourmand since a young age.

From a very young age, she was capable of eating twice as much as that of her father and brother and used to compete with her brother in eating.

Struggling with weight problems-

Thanks to her huge appetite for food, Leah became overweight at a young age and faced humiliations from other girls.

As a teenager, she tried various diets but this didn’t help her much.

Until 18, Leah was overweight.

Later, she learnt about nutrition and dieting and started bodybuilding at a gym and improved her eating habits.

Bodybuilding taught Leah structure and discipline and she started living a healthy lifestyle and thanks to all these, she got into a good shape and lost excessive weight.

For bodybuilding, she followed Flex magazine, Bodybuilding.com (here she followed the workouts and diet of Amanda Turner) and SimplyShredded.com.

Competitive eating-

In 2013, Leah’s brother participated in a food challenge at a local restaurant.

But he couldn’t win even after competing for ten weeks consecutively at the same restaurant and she called her brother out and he challenged her to participate and win in the food challenge.

During that time, Leah was dieting for a bikini competition and after she finished her bikini show, she went to the restaurant and won the food challenge and broke the record.

Thanks to this win, she realised her talent and eventually, as she became famous for her win, she started competitive eating.

In 2015 and 2017, Leah won a qualifier and competed at world championships.

Numerous Guinness World Records-

Leah holds numerous Guinness World Records related to eating.

According to her YouTube channel’s About page, she holds a total of 27 Guinness World Records and some of them are as follows-

  • Most tomatoes eaten in one minute (Leah ate a total of 8 tomatoes).
  • Most marshmallows eaten in one minute (no hands) (she ate a total of 20 marshmallows).
  • Fastest time to eat a banana (no hands) (Leah ate within 20.33 seconds).
  • Most spring rolls eaten in one minute (she ate 301 grams of spring rolls).
  • Most sausages eaten in one minute (Leah ate 10 sausages).
  • Most hot cross buns eaten in three minutes (she ate 6 hot cross buns).
  • Most people eating a fish and chip dinner simultaneously online (331 people participated in this event organised by Leah).
  • Fastest time to eat three mince pies (she ate within 52.21 seconds).
  • Fastest time to eat a cucumber (Leah ate within 27.16 seconds).
  • Fastest time to eat three pickled eggs (she ate within 7.80 seconds).
  • Most sausages swallowed whole in one minute (Leah swallowed 12 sausages).
  • Fastest time to eat a burrito (she ate within 32.35 seconds).
  • Fastest time to eat a muffin (no hands) (Leah ate within 21.95 seconds).
  • Fastest time to eat 80 g of watercress (she ate within 45.26 seconds).
  • Most jam doughnuts eaten in three minutes (Leah ate 10 jam doughnuts).
  • Most mini gherkins/pickles eaten in one minute (she ate a total of 23 mini gherkins/pickles).
  • Most chocolate truffles eaten in one minute (no hands) (Leah ate a total of 12 chocolate truffles).
  • Most chicken nuggets eaten in one minute (she ate a total of 352 g of chicken nuggets).
  • Fastest time to eat a hot dog with no hands (Leah ate within 18.15 seconds).
  • Fastest time to eat a Chocolate Orange (she ate within 57.14 seconds).
  • Most chicken nuggets eaten in three minutes (Leah ate a total of 775.1 grams of chicken nuggets).
  • Fastest time to eat 15 Ferrero Rocher (she ate within 2 min 1.7 sec).

Leah was featured in the Guinness World Records 2021 book.

Winning without preparation-

Leah doesn’t prepare for eating challenges but ensures that she has a positive mindset throughout the challenge.

And thanks to this, along with her inherited ability to eat a lot of food and concentration, she has been able to win many food challenges.

Leah mostly swallows food rather than chewing it and she has the ability to swallow huge quantities of food.

She fasts for around 12 hours prior to a food challenge so that she remains hungry and her stomach remains empty and this allows her to devour huge quantities of food.

After a challenge ends, Leah fasts for a few hours to a few days depending on the food challenge.

Staying fit despite competitive eating-

All through the week, Leah follows a healthy diet consisting of lean proteins, vegetables and good carbs and follows a healthy lifestyle and she participates in an eating challenge only once a week.

Also, in the eating challenges, she eats mindfully and consciously and according to her ability.

Leah regularly exercises almost daily and tries to restore her body to the normal state after an eating challenge.

On normal days, she doesn’t overeat.

Leah started her eponymous YouTube channel on 13 January 2014.

As of January 2024, she has 465K subscribers on her YouTube channel, 374K followers on Instagram and 1.4M followers on her Facebook page.

Leah earns through a variety of sources like advertisements, Membership and ‘Super Thanks’ on her YouTube channel, sponsorships and she also accepts donations on Patreon and PayPal.

She hasn’t revealed her net worth.

Some interesting facts about Leah Shutkever-

  • She is double-jointed and she also got featured in Game Of Talents UK and Apocalypse Wow.
  • Leah ate 5 kilograms of chicken skewers at the world championships, and this is the most food that she had ever eaten in a challenge.
  • In September 2022, she collaborated with Randy Santel for a 143oz Indian Mixed Grill Challenge.
  • Baking is her hobby.
  • Leah’s favourite foods are sushi, medium-rare ribeye steak, mac and cheese, cereal and milk.
  • Her favourite chocolates are Raffaello and white Lindt and her favourite drink is virgin mojito.
  • Leah finds it difficult to speed eat bread-based and chocolate-based foods.
  • She admires and derives inspiration from Betty White, Ruth Westheimer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Dolly Parton.
  • The Shuts is her nickname, and her zodiac sign is Taurus.
  • Leah is a polyglot as she knows English and Spanish.
  • Her favourite competitive eaters are Joey Chestnut and Adam Moran.

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