Fasting is definitely a good tool to utilize and it has its own benefits other than weight loss e.g. acting as a hormetic stressor.
But by far the most useful tool I’ve come across to precisely control body composition is the skill of counting and estimating calories and macros. Once you know your TDEE, it is super easy to control body weight with precision this way.
This should be taught in schools imo. It is surprising how wildly off the layman is when it comes to estimating calories.
This is because it's far easier to blame your lack of success on your positive moral qualities rather than your competence or luck. One way to do this is to ascribe the other party's success to their lack of ethics rather than their competence.
The fact that this phrase sounds pithy and makes sense on a literal level tricks people into accepting the underlying message without critically analyzing the meaning of it. A classic Trojan horse of sorts.
You really think that this article is trying to exaggerate the dangers of the covid vaccine? Even when the headline starts with “In rare cases”
An excerpt from the article:
Probing possible side effects presents a dilemma to researchers: They risk fomenting rejection of vaccines that are generally safe, effective, and crucial to saving lives. “You have to be very careful” before tying COVID-19 vaccines to complications, Nath cautions. “You can make the wrong conclusion. … The implications are huge.”
Even when the article explicitly qualifies it claims and actively encourages the reader to not exaggerate the claims?
I don’t think OP is “feigning confusion” but rather that people have a knee jerk reaction to anything to do with the risks of the covid vaccine.
HN thrives on the community and its discussion. And when there's little merit in the discussion threads because most have turned or started toxic it doesn't. So sometimes stuff may be flagged for the overall dynamics of a submission - maybe some sort of anti-"eternal September" reaction of the old user base. Especially certain political topics from 2016 to 2021 had this issue and Covid sometimes as well.
HN is not just a discussion board, it also serves as a place to get caught up on the latest happenings around the world. Hence hacker news. Flagging a news article for removal just because the readers have no civility is untoward.
If anything, it is the community and moderation teams responsibility to ensure toxic comments are downvoted or removed.
If you decide to never allow anything “controversial” on HN, it is an easy backdoor for bad actors to get articles they don’t like flagged. All they have to do is make comments inciting controversy or astroturf the comments from both sides.
Threads turn toxic because people treat eachother like the enemy. We constantly fail to respect the other person when he or she has a different point of view.
I think you're right and in vaccine discussions you see this the most I'd argue.
If your way of life is changed in a way you disagree with, e.g. forced vaccine or Use of Corona passport, then discussion can get heated and the respect is lost.
In this article i find it unprofessional to flag it, i would sincerely hope that Hacker News is better than that.
It should be the merit of the article and not politics that decide if something gets flagged or not.
Yes, relative to abstaining. If there's a 40% risk reduction in cardiovascular mortality in moderate drinkers, then there will be a 60% increase in risk for the moderate drinking, relative to someone who abstains.
There are certain activities that are not harmful but risky (0 harm most of the time and high level of harm rarely) e.g. driving and others that are harmful but not risky e.g. drinking or being exposed to radiation in an X-ray machine.
It is important to draw this distinction in order to not weaken the point you are trying to make.
The main point here is not that drinking is harmful but rather that the individual should decide their own tolerance for harm. The dose and length of exposure matters here since the damage is likely to be cumulative.
With an X-ray machine or flying at high altitudes, we know that the small amount of intermittent radiation that one is exposed to doesn’t outweigh the benefits.
It is up to the individual to decide if they are in a position to make that tradeoff.
With drinking, the difference between thinking low amounts are beneficial and low amounts are harmful could make a huge cumulative difference over time. It seems like a lot of commenters here are missing that essential fact.
Moving outside of your comfort zone is not inherently painful. Sure it may be uncomfortable or scary but it certainly doesn't imply trauma. I interpreted OP's comments as trauma being the causative factor for change to occur, not that change results in trauma.
"Fully accepting the costs and risks needed to get there" sounds like you're preparing for a hike to the antarctic or something. Not all changes have to be this dire.
Deciding to get fit is not really a sacrifice. Rather, it is turning certain disciplines into habits. If you have enough leverage to force you to do that, there is no pain or trauma involved.
> "Fully accepting the costs and risks needed to get there" sounds like you're preparing for a hike to the antarctic or something. Not all changes have to be this dire. Deciding to get fit is not really a sacrifice. Rather, it is turning certain disciplines into habits.
I think you're downplaying what it's like for many people to start making fitness a larger part of their life. It might as well be a hike to the antarctic. In the beginning, the costs can seem very, very high, even if they get easier with time. What makes those costs bearable is a genuine acceptance of them, and what oftentimes triggers that genuine acceptance is a health scare that shows people what the alternative is.
Unless you have legitimate health issues that make exercise painful, the anticipated cost is a greater than the actual cost.
It is still unrealistic to say that they are “very very high” though. The main barriers imo are not the perceived cost of exercise but the lack of perceived benefits. Certainly a health scare can make exercise seem more appealing.
The benefits of exercise are only seen over time. In the short term, the benefits may not outweigh the efforts so those seeking instant gratification will find it difficult to justify expending the effort. I don’t think it’s the costs being “very very high” that prevent most people from exercising.
Very often, the desire to change arises from experiencing major pain (of which trauma is one kind).
But this is not always the case. The impetus for change spans the spectrum of human emotions including dissatisfaction, pleasure seeking, existentialist realizations and envy/peer influence.
Trauma is definitely not a pre-requisite for change. It may be the most observable external cause to the effect, but that doesn't mean it is more useful than the rest.
The people I know who reinvent themselves the most are those driven by joie de vivre and a sense of self-expression.
The public health benefits are unparalleled.