Jorge CruiseFounder & CEO, Zero Hunger Water · Founder & CEO | Zero Hunger Water — Science-backed appetite control | 13× NYT Bestselling Author

Body Fat Budget

19 May 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:55

In this segment, the speakers discuss the concept of body fat as an energy budget, using the standard 3,500 calories per pound conversion to illustrate that a 50‑pound fat reserve represents roughly 175,000 calories—enough to sustain a person for many days. Speaker A asks whether this reserve means one could safely skip eating for a day or two and references Jason’s clinical work with fasting patients, prompting a discussion about the practical limits and safety of short‑term fasting.

calories.
So if you look at that, you've got times 3,500 calories is 175,000 calories.
You're set. That's like a big budget, right? You're, you're rich. So what does that mean? Could you not eat for a day or two? And why do I know that you have a clinic where you do this with people, right, Jason?
Absolutely, because people have at least that 50 pounds, which means that you're actually set for about 100 days. If you were to fast for 100 days straight, you would still have enough energy right? Because it's about 1 pound of body fat for 2 days of energy. So people worry, oh, I didn't go like 18 hours eating. You could have gone 18 days, okay? It still would have been fine. That's why you have body fat. Now, as a fun note, there's other issues, right? But the— if you just think about calories, and then people think, I'm going to get malnourished, and they go, okay, what, what do you think you're going to get malnourished from?