Exactly how many calories does one need to do this? What is the cutoff? What papers are researchers are you building your claims on? How long can they work on

Exactly how many calories does one need to do this? What is the cutoff? What papers are researchers are you building your claims on? How long can they work on such tasks? Maybe, if they build slowly, then one needs almost no "caloric surplus".... There's so many holes in such a wild and absolute claim that I don't see it as much of an argument against the experts that have built on previous knowledge and have published peer reviewed papers on this topic. Hence you need evidence.