When hunger meets danish pastry

There is no food in the house, I've cycled 12 miles and I've been to the gym. 

I'm currently sat merrily copying and pasting and generally doing all those things that will be the first thing I outsource when I'm in that position again. 

I say there is no food in the house, actually there is a pile of Danish pastries my mother in law bought over. 

There was a time in fact, for most of my life, if I hadn't eaten by now I'd have been dizzy, starving hungry and I'd have eaten every single one. 

Today I can just let them sit there and not desire one or even feel I need one. 

On the face of that that's pretty cool to be able to do and to look at it from the outside it appears to be willpower. 

But it's not.

I'm not saying I don't have any, I'm just saying that in this particular circumstance I would once have required will power to resist. 

But there is no resistance because there is no emotion to resist against. 

The skill of not having 'the thing' isn't willpower. 

It's a massive dieting myth. 

It's Not willpower 

Or any other power and it's certainly not something I was born able to do. 

It actually just arrived as a consequence of something else. Fasting. 

I started fasting 5 days a week for a completely different reason I'm sure I will tell you about another time. 

In doing so I trained my brain, 

I train it to turn down the volume on hunger, I train it that I decide when I eat. 

And I did it all completely by accident and by practising discomfort in a controlled environment rather than doing battle with a nemesis. 

That sugar craving is trigger by the brain to motivate action because of perceived NEED.

The use of willpower is an attempt to fight the brain. 

That's a battle we can win in the long term. 

But practising discomfort trains the brain and expands its zone of comfort. 

Pastries will be consumed but when I choose

Ed Ley