Interesting. So the willpower seems to be in the mind. Who would have guessed that? :D
How can we exploit this information to get more willpower? The first idea is to give youself rewards for using the willpower successfully. Imagine that you keep a notebook with you, and every time you have to resist a temptation, you give yourself a "victory point". For ten victory points, you buy and eat a chocolate (or whatever would be your favorite reward). Perhaps for succumbing to a temptation, you might lose a point or two.
Perhaps this could rewire the brain, so it goes from "I keep resisting and resisting, but there is no reward, so I guess I better give up" to "I keep resisting and I already won for myself a second chocolate; let's do some more resisting".
But how to deal with long-term temptation. Like, I give myself a point at the morning for not going to reddit, but now it's two hours later, I still have to resist the temptation, but I will not get another point for that, so my brain expects no more rewards. Should I perhaps get a new point every hour or two?
Also, it could have the perverse effect of noticing more possible temptations. Because, you know, you only reward yourself a point for the temptation you notice and resist.
I think that's cheating. Willpower is the ability to unpleasant activities in exchange for positive future consequences. The chocolate / victory point is shifting the reward into the present, eliminating the need for willpower by providing immediate gratification.
(No one said cheating was a bad thing, of course)
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.