Ep #153: Competing Desires: The Mental Game of Food Decisions

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #153. If you want to eat the cake, but you also want to look a certain way, you are not alone. Let’s talk about what seems like competing desires and what you can do about it.

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. 

Hey, how are you? What’s new? What’s good? So, what’s good here? We are talking about another common theme that comes up all the time. I have had this conversation with clients so often that I decided it was time to give it its own episode.

And here it is. This is what I commonly see. You want to eat the cake. And you also want to lose weight. Those seem like competing desires, and despite this, you still want both. So, what does that mean? What’s going on here? So, you want to eat the thing. And you also want to fit into your clothes, feel better in your body, and look a certain way in the mirror. You want both, even though they seem to be in direct conflict with each other. And I want to start this by saying right off the bat, that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. Wanting both things doesn’t make you broken. It makes you a human being, okay?

But here is where I see so many of you get tripped up, is that you start making one of those desires wrong. You tell yourself, I shouldn’t even want the cake. Or maybe you make yourself wrong for wanting to lose weight. It can go both ways. I’ve seen women feel ashamed for wanting the treat. I’ve seen other women feel ashamed for caring about their body and thinking that they shouldn’t be thinking about this at all. And then the spiral begins. You start judging yourself. Maybe you start questioning your willpower. Maybe you start to feel resentful towards the whole process of lifestyle change. And you may start to wonder why this feels so hard.

But here’s what I want you to know. Having two competing desires at once is normal. It does not mean you’re weak. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means you’re human with a human brain, and this is what our brains do. Your brain wants pleasure right now, and it also wants to see progress later. Your brain is wired for short-term comfort and long-term growth. It’s so interesting because two things are going on at once. Your brain is built to prioritize immediate safety. It’s built to go for what is easy and what’s safe. That is your primitive Neanderthal survival brain doing what it is supposed to do. That’s where your cravings and your urges live.

But at the same time, your evolved prefrontal developed brain, it wants meaning, it wants progress, and it wants transformation. So as a result, you’ve got a natural biological tug of war between two different parts of your brain. So, one part of your brain says, just eat the cake and hurry up and feel better already. While another part of your brain says, hang on a second and remember your bigger goal. And part of the problem is that the part of your brain that says, “Hurry up and eat the cake already,” it is loud and it’s often stronger than the part that says, “Hold up.” And this conflict is normal. That is the push-pull of your human brain at work.

And while it may be frustrating to have this internal back and forth inside your own brain, learning how to navigate and be comfortable with this is how you take control over it. You learn how to notice that tension between two seemingly contradictory desires, but without making it a problem.

Because really, that back and forth is not a problem. It’s normal and it’s expected. So today, we’re going to stop making either desire wrong. We’re going to walk through what it actually means to have competing wants, to want the cake and want to look a certain way. How to hold space for both and how to make an intentional decision without guilt, shame, or resentment. All right? So let’s go.

So first, let’s talk about that conflict. You can want the thing and you can want to lose weight. So, back to my original situation I presented at the beginning of the episode. You want a giant piece of chocolate cake because it’s right in front of you, but you also want to look and feel a certain way. So what do you do? Well, you do not have to pick apart your brain and find which desire is more valid because they’re both valid. They are both true. And when you find yourself in that place, when you find yourself with that internal struggle, and both desires are showing up, what I want you to do is slow down.

And when I say that, when I say slow down, what I mean is pause. Take a breath. Put your fork down. Literally step away from the pantry or close the refrigerator. And again, you’re not making a big show of this. No one on the outside will know what’s going on. That’s the best part about mindset tools. They’re inside. So you can use them without it being a big deal. And all you’re doing when you’re slowing down is creating space.

So, I know I say that term a lot. So let me explain what I mean by that because it’s essential for awareness. When you slow down and give yourself space between your urge and your action, you give yourself the opportunity to think differently and act differently than what you’ve always done.

So really, all you’re doing is slowing yourself down enough to make a decision with intention instead of on autopilot. You’re creating space for you to think. And it’s in that space where your power and your agency lives. So, slowing down your brain and giving yourself space can be as simple as asking yourself the question, what am I doing? Or why am I doing this? And it’s in that tiny pause that takes you out of autopilot and into awareness. And that’s exactly what we’re aiming for. Because that awareness is what makes it possible for you to choose differently.

And know that your brain will probably want to rush the decision. That’s okay. Remember, that is your primitive, unevolved brain doing its job to keep you safe and comfortable. So when you feel that rush, remind yourself, okay, we are not in a hurry here. So you let the feeling of wanting, you let it be there because it’s going to be there anyway. And I don’t want you to fight it. And as you’re allowing that feeling of wanting the cake to be there with you, you also give yourself a moment to decide what you truly want most. Not just in the next 30 seconds, but in the next few hours. So, name it. Name what you’re thinking. Like literally say it out loud in your brain. I want this cake. And I also want to feel good. I want to be proud of myself.

And then, after you’ve slowed down, you’ve taken a breath and you’ve named your wants, you choose intentionally. And this is instead of doing what you’ve always done without thinking about it because you’re on autopilot. And I know, as I’m describing this, it sounds pretty basic, right? You slow down. You take a breath. You name what’s going on. You make a choice. No big deal, right?

And if you’re thinking that, I get it. But even though this may sound like nothing, I promise you, it’s something. And in fact, it can be a bit of a challenge. If you’re not used to thinking about your food, if you’re not used to thinking about your thinking, if you’re not used to slowing down to make an intentional, thoughtful choice, then you may very well find this challenging. Because changing what you’ve always done, it takes work.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. This is challenging. This is one of the most powerful skills I help my clients build. Because in the moment, everything feels like chaos. It feels like your brain is playing a game of ping pong with you. It may feel like your brain is going back and forth between do I or don’t I eat the cake. And it feels like it’s going 100 miles an hour. But when you slow down the ping pong long enough to see the two competing wants and you choose with intention, that’s when you come off autopilot. And that is when things start to change.

All right, so now, let’s talk about another important issue that comes up commonly in relation to this. When we’re talking about wanting the cake, but also wanting to look and feel a certain way, sometimes resentment sets in. So you might feel resentment towards the whole situation, and that can make you angry and make you feel like rebelling against yourself and eating out of spite. It’s so interesting. So let’s talk about this resentment. So I’m going to offer this to you, and I want you to really think about this. Most of the time, resentment does not come from not eating the food. So instead, the resentment comes from how you think about not eating the food. Okay?

So really think about this for a minute. When your inner dialogue sounds like, I can’t have this. I shouldn’t eat this. This is off limits. That is restriction talking. That is diet culture talking. That is good food versus bad food. And how does it feel to think that way? How does it feel to tell yourself you can’t or you shouldn’t have something? Not very good, right? And not only does it not feel good, thinking that way is also going to create serious resentment. Because now you feel deprived.

When you tell yourself this is off limits, or I shouldn’t eat this. Now, you feel like someone else is in control. And that someone is usually the mean voice in your head who thinks you’re only successful if you’re perfect. That if you can’t be flawless with your eating, then you might as well give it up.

That voice is what tells you that one bite of cake is a failure, and failure becomes your reason to spiral. And then the resentment sets in. And over time, you stop trusting yourself. And it’s not because you’re broken. You stop trusting yourself because you’re listening to a version of success that was never fair or helpful to begin with.

So, letting go of that voice and taking ownership of your choices, that is where resentment ends and real freedom begins. The resentment ends when you realize the choice is yours, and you make it from a place of empowerment instead of from a place of can’t, shouldn’t, or must.

So, what if you dropped all of that and truly made the decision yours? What if you said, I can eat the cake. I’m just choosing not to right now because it doesn’t line up with what I want most. Do you feel the difference here? The difference is agency, self trust, control. When you make the decision yours instead of going by can’t and shouldn’t or what’s off limits, then you’re not just following someone else’s rules, you’re making your own. And when you make your own intentional, thoughtful decision, even if it’s hard, it feels different. It feels cleaner and quieter and less noisy in your brain.

And that is the key difference between restriction and empowered choice. Restriction feels like a rule that you’ve got to follow or else. It feels rigid, like something is being taken away from you. And that often leads to resentment and rebellion, even if you’re rebelling against yourself. But empowered choice is different. It feels like ownership. It feels like authority. Empowered choice happens when you remind yourself that you are the adult in this situation, including in your relationship with food, and you act on it.

So I can think of two different examples from clients that I’ve worked with who’ve experienced exactly this. One client recalled to me about how she was standing in front of her fridge with a forkful of spaghetti that she had twirled from the Tupperware ready to go. And instead of eating it, as she normally would have, she just stopped herself. She took a second, and she told herself out loud in her kitchen, I don’t need this. And she put her fork down and walked away.

So I had another client who was also working very hard on slowing down and staying present with herself and food. She was about to eat a brownie because it was three o’clock and the after-school chaos was about to start, and that’s what she always did. But instead, she paused. She checked in with herself and ultimately put the brownie away. And when she told me about it later, she said, “I stayed with myself.” Those were her exact words. She stayed with herself and she didn’t eat the brownie.

And so in both examples, those were clean choices. They were not forced. They weren’t dramatic. They were grounded, intentional, and powerful. And even though we’re just talking about a forkful of spaghetti and a Cosmic Brownie here, there is so much more to it than that. Both of these choices came from a place of presence. These women were checking in instead of checking out.

And while it seems small, these are massive wins. Because every time you pause and choose intentionally, you reinforce your control. You prove to yourself that you do not have to operate at the mercy of a craving or a habit. And over time, those small moments add up to give you supporting evidence of your new identity. Someone who is making thoughtful choices instead of excuses.

So, how do you do that? How do you get to that place of feeling in choice and feeling in control? Well, so it’s like almost every skill that we talk about here on the podcast. You practice. If you like strength training, that means you put in your reps, okay? So that means you practice sitting with a craving. So, let me slow down here for a minute and pull this apart. Because even in my own life, when I was introduced to the concept of sitting with something, I did not really understand what that meant. It just sounded like words to me. And I want to make this tangible.

So, when you are sitting with a craving, you’re not fighting it. You’re not running from it. You’re not arm wrestling with it. You’re just letting it be there. You’re noticing it, naming it, calling it out. You are giving it space. You’re letting it be with you instead of trying to get rid of it. So, to help this make sense, remember what we’ve talked about before, there’s something called the observation effect. And this applies here.

In both science and psychology, we know that the act of naming and observing something can change it. So when you name your desire for the cake, instead of unconsciously reacting to it, you change your relationship to it. The craving and the desire become less automatic, less urgent, and less powerful. You create space between yourself and the urge. And that’s essential because it’s in that space that you can actually slow down and decide what happens next instead of just doing what you always do on autopilot.

So, you’re naming it, sitting with it, giving it space in your brain. And then you decide what to do with it. So, this is not about winning or overpowering or battling a craving. Instead, it’s about allowing the desire and the craving to exist without letting it run the show. So you give yourself enough space to observe what’s happening instead of reacting to it blindly. So, this might mean you take a few deep breaths. You put both feet on the floor. You blink your eyes a few times instead of zoning out. You get into your body and into your head.

And then, from a place of groundedness, you ask yourself, do I really want to eat this cake right now? And maybe your answer will be yes. Maybe your answer will be no. But either way, no matter what you decide, the answer is intentional instead of automatic. It’s a decision that you make with awareness instead of urgency. And that is huge. That is the game changer.

And now here is another place where people get stuck. This question has come up for me, and it’s come up for my clients. And that question is, how do you choose your long-term goal when the short-term urge is louder and stronger? Or how do you choose feeling good in your body over the short-term fix of eating the cake? How do you choose long-term health and fitness when the short-term comfort of your warm fuzzy bed is immediate and right in front of you? And to that, I say, you remember who you want to be.

And yes, that can be tough. I have clients who tell me all the time, I’m doing this work so I can be strong later. So I can climb mountains and chase my grandkids when I’m 80. So I can be proud of myself in the future. And that is awesome. There’s nothing wrong with that. But here’s the catch. Your brain does not care about the future when it’s locked into a cookie right now. Your brain wants the cookie immediately, and it does not care what you feel like when you’re 80.

So, how do you reconcile that? You find a short-term win that aligns with your long-term vision. You anchor into something that gives you a hit of satisfaction now, but still moves you forward towards who you want to become.

So that might be the pride that you feel from walking away. It might be the self-respect you get from following through on what you said you’re going to do. It might be knowing that you stayed with yourself instead of checking out and going offline. Those are all immediate wins that you don’t have to wait until you’re 80 to realize.

So, when you can link today’s hard decision with a reward you can feel today, then you give your brain what it craves without selling out your future. And you’re doing two things here. You’re giving your brain the short-term fix it wants while remembering who you want to be in the future. And when you do that, when you make that kind of choice, something important happens.

You remind yourself that your future is not separate from today. It’s actually shaped by it. That cake is not just a treat, it’s a fork in the road. One road gives you instant gratification and temporary comfort, and the other gives you progress. And that’s when you zoom out. That’s when you ask, what would the future version of me, who’s reached her goal, who’s lost the weight, who’s already feeling good, what would she do?

You look for the short-term reward of sticking to your goal. The pride, the groundedness, the clarity. You imagine how it will feel going to bed knowing that you made a decision that lines up with who you want to be. You tap into that version of you who feels calm, in control, and proud. Not because she white knuckled her way through the day, but because she acted with intention.

Because when you choose from that place, even when it’s hard, you’re showing up for your future self. You’re building a version of you that doesn’t just talk about change, she actually lives it. And that matters a lot. All right. So now, let me bring up something else. What if after all this, you eat the cake or the cookie anyway? Then what? Well, okay, so here’s the truth. Sometimes you will. Of course you will. This is part of being human. You are not going to get it perfect 100% of the time. And that’s not the goal anyway. The goal is not perfection, and the goal is not to forego cake forever. The goal is awareness. The goal is growth. The goal is persistence.

Sometimes you’re going to make the intentional decision to eat the cake. And other times, you’re going to eat it reactively. You may act on impulse or stress or boredom or out of habit. And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re human.

What matters is not that you ate the cake, okay? What matters is what you do next. So, if you make the choice to eat the cake or have the cookie or drink the wine, that choice is an opportunity to use curiosity instead of criticism in order to learn from it. So, that means asking questions instead of making declarations like, I blew it, or this is impossible. Remember, you did not blow anything. You ate a cookie.

So, one choice does not define your progress. One choice also does not define your identity. What does define your progress and your identity is your willingness to keep going, even when it’s messy. And either way, your work is the same. Notice it, own it, learn from it, and move forward. I’ve talked about it before, but it is my very, very simple three-step approach to missteps. So first, you own it. That means you take responsibility for it. Say it out loud if you have to. I made that choice. And all you’re doing is claiming it.

And this is not about blaming or shaming. Really, owning your choice takes you out of shame and puts you back in the driver’s seat. And owning it is not the same as beating yourself up about your choice. No. You are not beating yourself up. You are not helpless. You made a decision. So you own it, and now you get to make the next one.

And then second, after you own it, you get curious and ask yourself some questions. So, if you ate the cake, were you hungry? Were you bored? Were you numbing something? Were you just following a pattern? And the idea here is to see what you can learn from your decision. And then next, ask yourself what you would do differently next time. Do you need to eat a more filling lunch? Do you need to take a pause before you reach into the pantry? Do you need to check in with yourself at three p.m. instead of zoning out and going on autopilot? Do you need to practice allowing your emotions and actually sitting with them instead of eating them?

So, these two questions, what did I learn and what would I do differently? They are at the core of honest self-reflection. These two questions are about getting curious instead of judgmental. One helps you understand what happened, and the other helps you plan for next time. And that is how you turn disappointment and missteps into growth. Okay? You ask questions from a place of self kindness. Getting curious about your choice opens the door to change.

And then third, eyes forward. Move on. And this is instead of all-or-nothing thinking that can totally trip you up. So often, if you have the cake when you intended not to, you tell yourself, well, shoot, I already messed up. I might as well go all in. And that’s when the cake leads to a whole pizza. Or when one glass of wine turns into the whole bottle.

But in contrast, when you turn your eyes forward, you keep going and you make the next choice. And you let that choice stand alone. The piece of cake does not have to mean anything more than it was. It does not negate the decisions that you made before you had the cake, and it doesn’t impact the choices you make after you eat the cake.

So remember that every decision is a fresh opportunity independent of the one you made before it. That really is the antidote to all or nothing thinking. You can make a new choice anytime. You don’t have to wait for next week or after the holiday or after your work trip. You make a new choice right now. You are not here to be perfect. You are here to be present and make progress. And you do that by staying in the moment, looking forward, and not letting any one decision wreck you.

All right. Now, let’s talk about something else related to this that comes up all the time. And that is the issue of fairness. And this is a hard one. So, I’m talking about the voice that says, why can she eat this and I can’t? This comes up often, and I want to first normalize this and tell you that it’s common. It’s really easy to look around and see your friend eating a piece of cake as big as her face and wonder to yourself why your friend seems to have it so easy and can eat whatever she wants while you struggle. But here is the truth. Comparison like this creates serious resentment.

And beyond resentment, we don’t know your friend or your coworker or your sister’s whole story. We don’t know if that piece of cake is the one treat she planned for that day. We don’t know what else she’s eating outside of that piece of cake. We don’t know what her relationship with food or what her relationship with her body is like. We just see her eating a piece of cake, and then all the story starts.

And we often create all kinds of stories when we see people eating indulgent food, and we make it mean something about ourselves. Like when you think, it’s not fair that she eats the cake and nothing happens to her, but I eat it and I put on 5 pounds. But your friend eating the cake has nothing to do with you. And it does not matter if she’s eating one piece of cake or 5. Her story is not your story.

And deciding that it’s not fair that your friend can have the cake and you can’t, one, that’s not true because you can have the cake. Remember, you always have a choice. And two, it’s just not helpful. And this often leads to another roadblock. And that is when you get stuck thinking, it’s not fair that I have to work this hard. So this one comes up a lot. I hear this often, especially from women who feel like they’re doing everything right, and feel that they still have to fight tooth and nail for every pound lost or every ounce of progress. It’s frustrating, it’s exhausting, and sometimes it really does feel unfair.

But here’s what I want you to consider. Fairness is not the goal. Peace is. And if you measure your journey by how fair it feels compared to someone else, you will always come up short, always. You’ll always find someone who seems to have it easier, who eats differently, who doesn’t struggle the same way you do. But remember, you don’t know the full story. And more importantly, you don’t need to. Your friend’s story does not matter when it comes to your own story.

And I know this is hard to hear, but no one is entitled to results without effort. And that’s not punishment, it’s simply how this works. It might feel unfair that you have to work harder than someone else, but that does not mean it’s not worth it. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. And when you stop wasting your energy on how things should be and start focusing on what is, you gain a level of power and peace that comparison could never offer you. And I’m not saying any of this to be mean. I’m saying it to be real. And once you stop fighting reality, you can start living intentionally, and that is when your peace begins.

So, if you’re hearing all of this and wondering, well, so how do I become someone who doesn’t need the cake to feel good? Well, remind yourself one key truth. You can have the cake if you really want it. I will say this until forever because I firmly believe it, but nothing is off limits. But because nothing is off limits, you have the responsibility that comes with choice. You have the freedom and the authority to choose what, how, when, and why you eat.

And with that freedom, you have the responsibility to no one else but yourself to do it in a way that makes sense for you and gets you closer to your goals. That is the beauty and the struggle of ownership. Your choices are yours, and they are also yours to own, whether they help you or hurt you.

But then with that authority, you practice. You practice making choices that align with who you want to be. And you do this not just once, not for a week, not for a month, but consistently. You practice in the small moments that don’t seem to matter because no one is watching, and no one will care if you ate the cake, but you will know, and that matters a lot. You practice saying no to the cake and yes to yourself, even when you’re tired or stressed or bored.

And in that process, you start to build the muscle of self-trust. And you show yourself that every time you make a grounded, intentional choice, you reinforce the belief that you can, in fact, do hard things. You put in your reps and you practice choosing, and you build up that muscle and you stack the little wins.

You prove to yourself that you can say no and still be okay. That you can feel a craving and not cave to it. That you can let the cake sit there and not make it mean anything about your worth or your strength. And you remind yourself, no food is off limits, but not every food needs to be chosen every time. Meaning, just because the food is there and it looks good, it doesn’t mean you have to eat it. There is so much power in being able to say yes or no and know that either option is yours to make. They are both in your capacity.

And you learn how to soothe yourself with something other than food. You learn that discomfort is not an emergency, that you can feel anxious, overwhelmed, restless, and not eat in response to it. You get better at sitting with boredom, with loneliness, with frustration, and you show yourself that food does not have to be your default when you feel those emotions.

And in doing that, you build a life where food is just food instead of a coping mechanism. And the end result is that you become someone who doesn’t use food to fix things it cannot fix. You become someone who sees food as a choice instead of a crutch. And that shift, that slow, steady, practiced shift, that is how you become the kind of person who no longer needs the cake to feel okay.

So, to make this super clear and bring it full circle, you are allowed to want two things at once. This is not a failure of your willpower. It’s part of being human. There will be times when both desires feel equally important. One is comfort now, the other is confidence later. One is familiar, the other is growth. And it’s not about picking the right desire. It’s about recognizing that you get to choose where your energy goes. You are allowed to want the cake, and you’re allowed to want to feel confident in your clothes. Both desires are valid, but only one moves you closer to the version of yourself that you’re trying to become.

And let me be clear here. This does not mean that you should never have the cake. Sometimes having the cake is part of a full, helpful, joyful approach to food. So you need to make space for celebration and indulgences that are chosen with intention. Keyword intention. That is part of living well.

But when the cake becomes the default, when indulgence becomes routine, and when those choices pile up day after day, that’s when it will take you farther from your goals. So it is not about never having the cake, not at all. Instead, it’s being honest with yourself about how often, why, and whether it’s truly aligned with the kind of lifestyle you want to create.

And that doesn’t mean you’ll always get it perfect. You won’t. No one does. But when you slow down, check in, and choose with intention, you’ll start to notice something powerful. That you don’t need to be perfect in order to be successful. You just need to keep choosing on purpose. So, remember, you are in charge. You are not stuck. And every time you pause and choose intentionally, you’re reinforcing a new way of being, one that is grounded in awareness, agency, and self-respect. And that is the work that changes everything.

And if you want help with this, let’s go. When you coach with me, you’ll practice making decisions with intention so that you feel in control of your life and your habits. Check out my website, send me a message at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact. And let’s talk about how coaching will change your approach to decisions and put you in charge. All right? Thank you again for hanging out with me, and I’ll catch you again next week.

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Hey if you want to build muscle but don’t know where to start, I’ve got you covered. Head over to CarrieHollandMD.com/buildstrength and download my free guide to help you maximize your strength training. Inside, you’ll find the essential exercises for building muscle, plus simple one, two, and three-day workout plans you can follow with just dumbbells and a bench.

You’ll also find strength training tips to help you train smarter and see real results. My goal is to help you get strong and this strength-training guide will help you do it. Go to CarrieHollandMD.com/build strength and check it out.

Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.