Why I stopped using willpower on my cut
I’ve lost 12 pounds without arguing with my hunger once. The Stoics figured this out 2,000 years ago.
I’m on a cut. Twelve pounds down over the last two months. Nothing fancy — a calorie deficit and regular training.
But you know how cuts go. The first week feels noble. By week three your brain starts negotiating. You’re fine as you are. Why are you even doing this? One meal won’t matter.
For years I tried to win that argument. I’d white-knuckle my way through the hunger, tell the voice to be quiet, summon more discipline. It worked until it didn’t. Because here’s the problem nobody tells you about willpower: it’s a finite resource, and your brain never stops arguing.
This time I did something different. I stopped trying to win the argument. I started asking a different question instead.
The question came from Epictetus. The Stoics believed the only true good was excellence of character, and the only true bad was its corruption. Everything else — hunger, comfort, pleasure, pain — was indifferent. Not unimportant. Just not intrinsically good or bad on its own terms.
So when hunger shows up mid-afternoon, I don’t fight it. I ask: is sitting with this helping my character or harming it?
The answer is almost always obvious. The discomfort doesn’t disappear, but it stops being pointless. It becomes material. The sparring partner Epictetus talks about in the Enchiridion — the thing that trains you into the person you want to be.
The new video breaks the whole framework down, including how to apply the same question to hard conversations, to building anything that takes years, and to physical training when you want to stop.
If this is the kind of thinking you want in your life more often, The Stoic Vault is where I do this work with a small group of people every week. We take one Stoic idea, apply it to the actual week we’re in, and check in on how it’s landing. No theory for its own sake. Just practice.
Go well,
Jon