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Comment by fasteddie31003 | Hacker News Reader

I'm all for curing cancer. I think the most effective use of resources would be to fight obesity. Obesity leads to so many other problems including cancer. My personal way of not getting obese is to just fast for a couple of days whenever I get over 185 lbs. I probably need to fast every 2 months or so. I encourage other people to use the same strategy but I somehow come off as a jerk whenever I suggest fasting.

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> whenever I get over 185 lbs.

I feel like this should have a height or bmi attached to be more general.

Overall people get very weird or think you have an eating disorder if you fast for any length of time. Luckily that is changing, but is still an issue for my partner who is in a much more traditional field and often skips meals.

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.

> I think the most effective use of resources would be to fight obesity

Is there any empirically successful way for governments to use resources to fight obesity?

All I can think of is "The Maduro Diet" in Venezuela, where the average venezuelan has lost over 10kg due to food shortages...

https://borgenproject.org/facts-about-hunger-in-venezuela/

I've considered integrating fasting with my weight loss program, but if I don't eat for 5-6+ hours I'll occasionally get light headed with vision artifacts. This doesn't always happen and while I'll recover I'm usually starving after.

My mother says this is related to "blood sugar" but I'm unsure if there's any deeper meaning to it.

I am baffled at how easy it is to fast for three days. I do drink electrolytes ("snake juice") and water, but don't eat. What I find concerning is how it affects my muscle mass. I haven't gotten weaker so far. A caveat is that I need to take 2-3 hour walks on fasting days to actually see any fat loss.

You shouldn't be baffled. Your ancestors routinely fasted for a few days at a time because they simply had no food (especially in the winter).

Cancer is a leading cause of death (and other problems). Maybe we could invest in both? Even if we had to raise the capital gains tax rate a little? A friendly reminder: The US is the richest country in the history of the world.

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