Assume there is a pill on the market that has the 2,000 calories needed for daily activity and the 3,500 extra needed to gain one pound.
If I were take it in the morning and have nothing else – not even any liquid – for the rest of the day, how long would it take for my body to metabolize it and convert the excess calories into a pound of fat?
Well, you’re looking at a max of 9 calories per gram for fat. So if your pill were composed of pure fat, that would be about a four-hundred gram (14 oz.) pill. That’s not quite a pound, but these are round, rough numbers we’re looking at.
I meant to include that this is a magic pill that weighs less than an ounce as it defeats the purpose of my question to gain the pound simply from ingesting the pound or more of food it would take to get that many calories.
Well, if you’re in the realm of magic pills, you’re out of the realm of GQ, which deals with factual information. You got one good lead and dismissed it. What kind of answer would you like? Maybe that’s what you should have included in your question.
Not even pure fat is going to be perfectly metabolzed. In almost any circumstance you’re going to have to eat considerably more in weight and volume of food or liquid for the body to convert it (whatever the initial consumed weight) to 1 lb of body fat.
I think a possibly more relevant question re intake is how rapidly the body can store fat, and that’s going to vary considerably according to the individual and there are there are formulas to calculate this. I’m 6’3" with a medium large frame. On a 1000 (food) calorie per day diet I can lose approx 4 lbs per week and on a 1500 calorie/day diet I can lose approx 3 lbs per week. I don’t know if the metabolic equation for weight loss works in reverse, but if it does I would imagine it’s possible to gain 1/2 lb +/- per day if you ate (literally) like a hog and didn’t exercise.
To gain 1 lb per day you’d have to eat a lot more than just 3,500 food caliories per day extra. I’m thinking at least a 2-1 to 3-1 ratio might get you there if you’re prediposed to put on weight. So if you ate approx 7,000 - 10,000 calories per day extra you might be able to get your pound, but it’d be some work eatingwise.