Vegan bodybuilder and YouTube personality Jon Venus wanted to take on the infamous 10,000 calorie challenge, but thought it would be too easy to do it with pancakes, chips, donuts, and other caloric carpet bombs. So, he decided to do it with a far less calorically dense food type: fruit.
“I wanted to put a new spin to this challenge and make it as difficult as possible, so I thought, why not try it with fruit only?” Venus told Muscle & Fitness. “I figured it would at the least be a very entertaining video to show my audience, and it seems like people are loving it.”
Venus uploaded his fruit binge to Instagram, and it’s been viewed more than 34,000 times as of writing. He starts off by drinking a smoothie consisting of 4.5 pounds of dates, one large banana, and water—which clocks in at 2,922 calories, the amount Venus normally eats in one day.
If you’re a fan of watching people writhe in pain, you can watch him take on the challenge here:
As with anyone who takes on the challenge, Venus is struggling to continue by the end of the day. And we can’t really blame him—most fruits are low in calories, so he had to eat a lot more food than someone who may have relied on junk food to hit 10,000 calories (for example, you’d have to eat 10 small oranges to get the same amount of calories as a serving of IHOP buttermilk pancakes).
But he took it on like a champ, and said he felt just fine the day after. “I felt ready to go the next day without any discomfort, the only difference was a few extra trips to the restroom,” Venus told M&F. “I always eat fruit, not a huge amount, but I do make sure to eat it every day, in the form of smoothies, in my oatmeal or as snacks throughout the day.”
Venus, a longtime vegan, shares plenty of workout and nutrition tips on his Instagram and YouTube channel. He said the 10,000 calorie challenge, in addition to being entertaining, was a way to educate his audience on healthy foods.
“I always tell people that eating fruit is extremely healthy and that carbs and sugar in the form of real food is an amazing fuel source,” he said.
But too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and by the end of the video you can see Venus’ normally chiseled midsection extend by a good bit. Don’t try this at home, kids.
