“When we say, ‘Okay, which scone looks better today, this one or that one?’ we’re totally activating the reward circuitry of the brain and turning off the brake, which is when we decide to eat that scone,” he says. “But if instead we think about how that scone is going to clog up our arteries and increase our odds of a stroke or just make us look shitty in a bikini, it turns down the reward circuitry and turns up the brake.”
