Ep #159: Stop White-Knuckling: Choose Peace Over Willpower

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #159. If your typical response to food urges and cravings is to white-knuckle your way through them, let’s talk about an alternative approach that will feel better.

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? Today, we are digging into a term I hear from clients all the time: white-knuckling. It’s how many of you describe what you do in order to resist food urges. And I get it. You’re doing your best not to give in. You’re trying to stay in control, trying to just hang on until the feeling passes. And you might even be thinking to yourself, if I can just make it through the next five minutes, I’ll be okay. And sometimes, you are okay, but it’s exhausting.

The amount of mental energy white-knuckling requires of you can be totally draining. And here is what I want to offer. White-knuckling is not the goal. It’s also not a badge of honor either. Instead, white-knuckling is really a sign to you that something is off. It’s a clue that you’re relying on effort instead of skill and that you’re surviving instead of thriving. It tells me that you’re in a reactive state, using every ounce of willpower just to get through the moment, and that is not sustainable. And it’s definitely not how you build confidence or long-term change.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself white-knuckling through an urge to avoid the pantry, to pass on the bread basket, or to skip the dessert, let’s talk about this. I want you to understand what exactly white-knuckling is, why it fails, what the real problem is that leads you to white-knuckling in the first place, and what you can do instead. So this is a big episode. We’re diving into a key concept that keeps so many of you stuck, and I hope by the end of this, you’ve got some ideas that will help make handling your food urges less of a fight. All right? So let’s go.

So first, let’s talk about what exactly white-knuckling is. So white-knuckling is when you are gripping super tightly to your plan or goal, resisting the urge to eat something that you didn’t plan for. So essentially, you’re trying to muscle your way through it. And in your head, it feels like a war zone. Your thoughts are loud, repetitive, maybe even a little frantic. You might be fixating on the food, running in circles in your brain about whether or not to eat it, bargaining with yourself, or mentally justifying why you should or shouldn’t eat the cookie. And you are expending a ton of mental energy.

And what’s going on in your body? Well, you’re usually tense. Your jaw might be tight, and your shoulders might be creeping up towards your ears. You might feel like you’re holding your breath, waiting for a storm to pass. You’re distracted. So, all of this might be happening all at once. It might feel a little bit like chaos happening both in your brain and in your body, and this could all be brought on by coming face to face with a cookie you weren’t planning to have. It is that powerful. And all of that physical and mental strain adds up.

When you’re white-knuckling your way through urges, you’re not just distracted, you’re drained. Your energy is being absorbed by your own internal tug of war because this takes a ton of mental energy. And while you might get through it after all is said and done, you might feel exhausted afterwards.

So that, that is white-knuckling. It’s basically trying to outlast your urge through sheer willpower. And while willpower and white-knuckling are related, they’re not exactly the same. Willpower is the mental resolve or decision to stick to a plan, and that’s something we all use from time to time. Willpower, it’s the part of you that says, I made this plan and I’m going to honor it even when it’s not easy. But willpower on its own is limited. It can be depleted, especially when you’re tired, stressed, or overwhelmed. And that’s why relying solely on willpower can feel like trying to run uphill with a two-ton boulder on your back. You might be able to hold on briefly, but eventually, you give out.

And that’s where white-knuckling kicks in. When you’re trying to compensate for the lack of tools or support with sheer effort. But white-knuckling takes your willpower and pushes it to the extreme. It’s what happens when you try to manage an urge by force alone, without any skill, strategy, or self-awareness to back it up. It’s like you’re holding your breath and hoping you make it through. And that is what makes it so exhausting.

So, now that you’ve got an idea of what white-knuckling is, let’s talk about why it doesn’t work. So I mentioned it briefly already, but let me make it super clear. White-knuckling is energy expensive. There is an incredibly high mental and sometimes even physical energy demand on your part when you’re trying to muster your way through urges, and your brain and body aren’t always able to muster. And that’s because it is mentally and emotionally draining to be fighting with yourself. It often takes so much of your bandwidth to resist, and when you’re already stressed or tired or you’ve hit the point of decision fatigue, you may find that you’ve got little reserve left to pull from.

And this leads to the second reason that white-knuckling doesn’t work, which is that it often leads to backlash in the form of rebound eating, guilt, and the feeling of failure when you inevitably can’t keep gripping so tightly. So white-knuckling creates an emotional buildup and a sense of deprivation that gets stronger over time. And when that tension finally becomes too much, you rebound, whether that’s with a binge, emotional eating, or even mindless snacking. And then that leaves you feeling frustrated. So even if the white-knuckling works in the moment, it’s really setting you up to break later. And that’s because you haven’t built a new skill. Instead, you’ve just delayed the inevitable backlash when you run out of gas.

So, another reason that white-knuckling doesn’t work is that it reinforces the idea that food urges are dangerous or that there’s something to be feared or fought. And when you constantly treat an urge like a threat, you strengthen the belief that something has gone wrong when it shows up. You send a message to your brain that this is an emergency, that immediate action or suppression is the only option. And that keeps you stuck in a cycle of fear and urgency. So instead of approaching the urge with calm and curiosity, you’re bracing yourself for battle whenever it appears. And this approach creates more anxiety and tension around food instead of less.

And last, probably the most important reason white-knuckling doesn’t work is that it doesn’t teach you how to respond to an urge. It only teaches you how to resist. And resisting is not the same as learning. Resisting does not help you understand the urge or build any long-term skills. And I hear it come out in the words my clients use. They will say things like, I fought through that urge. I battled the craving. I powered through. I was so proud of myself because I didn’t give in.

So do you hear that? It’s subtle, but every one of those statements suggests willpower and white-knuckling. And that might work for a short while until it doesn’t. And let me be clear here. There is nothing wrong with being proud of yourself for sticking to your plan. I don’t want to take that away from you.

But if the way you’re sticking to your plan is through a full-on internal battle that leaves you feeling mentally exhausted, we’re missing an opportunity to actually grow. When all of your energy is going towards resisting and holding back, there is no mental space left to learn or observe anything. When you’re white-knuckling, you’re not building trust with yourself. You’re not building resilience. You’re not understanding what triggered the urge in the first place. You’re just holding on with all your might and hoping the urge ends. That is not growth. That is survival mode.

So the real growth happens when you pause, you notice, and you choose with intention. Not when you grip your way through the discomfort with clenched fist and a clenched jaw. And the other thing to note here is that white-knuckling does not teach you how to handle your urge the next time it happens. It just teaches you how to suffer through it. And that is not what we’re aiming for. So the point here is not to fight the urge. The point is to learn from it. And that means getting curious and paying attention to it, thinking about where the urge came from, what triggered it, and what you’re feeling underneath it.

So, let’s take an example. Imagine you’re at work and someone brings in a box of donuts. And you see the chocolate glazed one, the one you always go for, and you immediately feel the pull. So understanding your urge sounds like this. “All right, I didn’t plan to eat this. I’m not really hungry. I just ate breakfast an hour ago, but I’m feeling bored with work and maybe a little stressed about my meeting this afternoon. And that donut is just a quick distraction and a hit of dopamine.” So, instead of reacting and grabbing the donut, you take a second to slow down and acknowledge your desire and where it’s coming from. You name it, and you slow down. So that, that is understanding.

Understanding is really about separating yourself from the automatic default response and creating a gap between your urge and your action. It’s learning to see your craving as a message, but it is not an emergency. It is so important to understand that and to see that your brain is trying to make you think that having the donut is an emergency, and if you don’t hurry up and eat it, you’ll spontaneously combust. But that’s not true. And when you give yourself the opportunity to really think about it, you can start to make that distinction between a message and an emergency. And then you practice sitting with it.

So sitting with your urge means letting it exist within you, within both your brain and your body, without trying to shove it away or suppress it. It’s sitting with the discomfort instead of pushing it down. Let me slow down right here because I want you to really hear this. So this is not what most people want to hear because discomfort feels uncomfortable. It’s squirmy. It’s agitating, and everything in your brain will scream at you to make it stop. And this is where many people do stop because they don’t want to feel it. Most of us have been taught to escape discomfort, not explore it.

So here is your invitation. What if you don’t have to love the feeling of discomfort, but you show yourself you can tolerate it? What if sitting with it even for a few minutes is the very thing you need to do in order to build emotional strength and trust in yourself? Because it’s in those moments where you stay with yourself instead of flee or freak out that real change happens. And yes, you might feel restless, tense, a little agitated, but when you do feel it, you can remind yourself, this is a feeling. I can feel this and I can still make a choice. It means saying to yourself, this is uncomfortable and I can handle uncomfortable. It is not passive, okay? You’re not being passive here. This is active tolerance.

So what does that mean? Active tolerance means you’re doing something powerful, even if no one would know it by looking at you. You’re choosing to sit with the discomfort, to feel that tension in your brain and your body, to acknowledge that craving in your mind, and stay present with it. It’s an engaged, conscious decision to stay with yourself and let your urge rise and fall without reacting. So that is where your strength lies, not in pushing the feeling away, but in proving to yourself that you can coexist with it and still make an intentional choice. And the more you practice that, the more power you give yourself.

So the point is to sit with the urge, to understand it, and respond to it without reacting to it. And here’s what I really want you to hear. There is nothing to fight. Remember, your urge is not dangerous. It is not an emergency, and you are not fighting yourself. Your urge is not a problem unless you decide it is. When you believe your urge is something that must be conquered, you automatically go into defense mode. But the urge isn’t your opponent. You are not your opponent. Remember that urge is just a signal. It’s a message. It’s a combination of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that your brain has learned to associate with relief or reward.

So when I hear you say, I fought through it, I get it. That language makes total sense when it feels like you’re under attack. But what if you didn’t have to fight? What if this didn’t have to be a battle at all? Because here’s what’s really going on when you white-knuckle. You’re resisting the urge, but you’re not exploring it. You’re surviving the moment, but you’re not building any skills. You’re staying in reaction mode instead of shifting into response mode. And all of that reinforces the belief that urges are a threat, that they must be shut down immediately or else.

But that is just not true. Urges are temporary. They rise, they peak, they pass, and when you let them exist without trying to crush them, you strip the urge of its power. So, instead of engaging with a power struggle, with yourself no less, when you stop white-knuckling, you’re creating space and you will feel better. You will feel lighter, and you’ll feel less drained.

So, if white-knuckling is not the goal, what is? Because avoiding urges and cravings is not realistic. If you are a human and if you eat food, you are going to be faced with urges. So, when those urges do come up, what do you want to do with them instead of white-knuckling your way through them? Well, let me offer you this.

We talked about how white-knuckling your way through urges uses a lot of energy, mentally, physically, and emotionally. We’ve talked about how often it becomes an internal battle or a fight. It’s like you against the urge or you against the donut. But what if instead of the goal being to fight through an urge, what if instead the goal is neutrality? What if now the goal is peace? What if the goal is to be non-reactive?

Imagine what that would feel like instead of expending so much of your energy trying to fight through something. It will feel lighter and it will feel less daunting, and you don’t have to avoid anything. So the goal is learning to be in the presence of an urge without needing to fight it, fix it, or feed it. So let me say that again because it is just that important. You can be in the presence of a food urge without needing to fight it, fix it, or feed it. So how exactly do you do that? Well, let’s talk through it.

First, you practice awareness. You knew it was coming, so here it is. Change does not happen without awareness. So that means you name the urge. You say it to yourself. You notice it and you pay attention to what is happening both in your brain and your body. So, it could go something like, “This is what a craving feels like. I want to eat that. I notice my mouth watering and I feel the pull.” It’s almost like you’re narrating yourself. And all you’re doing is taking something that normally happens without you really noticing it and now you’re naming and describing it.

And in this process, you become the observer and not the participant. That alone changes everything because when you observe an urge instead of becoming entangled in it, you create space and distance between yourself and your autopilot reaction. You are no longer swimming in your urge. You are no longer swept up by it. You’re watching it, naming it, and choosing how to respond to it.

And that shift gives you access to your higher thinking. It quiets that urgency that happens in your brain when you’re confronted with a breadstick. It gives you pause, and that is where all your power is in the pause. That is where you get to reclaim your role, not as someone who’s being attacked by an evil urge, but as someone who is fully capable of making a conscious choice.

All right, next is allowance. And all that means is that you give the urge permission to exist. And I know, this sounds backwards, right? We’re used to thinking that wanting something we shouldn’t want means we’ve already failed. But remember, urges are human and wanting something doesn’t mean you have to act on it. It just means that your brain is doing what it wants to do, seek comfort, relief, and pleasure. But when you stop resisting the urge, it loses its grip over you. You can practice saying to yourself, it’s okay to want that. I’m allowed to want that. It’s totally normal and I don’t have to react.

And this right here is where the shift starts. You aren’t pushing it away or trying to shove it in a pocket, and you’re not trying to smother it either. You’re letting it take up space in your brain and your body. You’re letting it be there and you’re choosing not to let it control you. And yes, this is most definitely a skill. It takes repetition, patience, and practice. But honestly, this is the real work. It’s not just about drinking water instead of eating. It’s not just about eating a piece of gum and banning yourself from the kitchen after dinner. It’s not about brushing your teeth to have a minty taste in your mouth to keep you from eating. That is missing the point. The real change happens when you stop fighting your urges and start allowing them without responding.

And third, is recognizing the non-urgency of your situation. Okay, so this is a big one. This is where you remind yourself, I don’t have to decide right now. Because here’s what happens for so many of my clients. When an urge rises, it feels like everything speeds up. Thoughts start racing, the intensity builds, there’s a sense of urgency, like you have to make a decision immediately or something bad will happen. Your brain tries to convince you that if you don’t eat the thing, if you don’t satisfy the craving, something bad will happen. But here’s the truth. Nothing bad happens when you don’t eat the cupcake. You don’t explode. You’re not in danger. Nothing happens. You’re just feeling a feeling. That’s it, and you can handle that.

So the key here is creating space between your urge and your action. That is what allows you to slow down. That space between the urge and the action is where your mind, your body, and your brain, that you’re not in a crisis. And once you give yourself that pause, that little area of breathing room, you’re no longer reacting from urgency. You’re no longer reacting from FOMO. Instead, you’re responding from choice. And that is very different. You might still choose to eat the donut, but now you’re doing it on purpose, not because you got swept away. And that is huge because the goal is to make your choice purposefully.

And last is alignment. If you want to be present with an urge without feeling like you have to react to it, check in with yourself. So that means you check in with your values, your goals, and your future self. So you ask, what would a healthy person do? What choice would support the kind of person I want to be? And again, there is no right or wrong here. But when you ask the question, you give yourself the power to choose consciously.

And here is why this matters. So often, we act out of habit from a default identity we don’t even realize we’re carrying. Something like, I’m someone who always needs something sweet after lunch, or I can’t say no to the bread basket. And those beliefs shape your actions on a subconscious level. But when you pause and check in with your alignment, you are no longer acting from who you were. Do you see that? You are choosing to act from who you are becoming. You are stepping into a new identity on purpose, and the more you do that, the more solidified that identity becomes. Not because you forced it, but because you practice living into it one choice at a time.

So, that is the opposite of white-knuckling. This is what you do instead. And so let me make this very clear. This is not about being perfect. This is not about never wanting certain foods again. This is also not about being a robot. Remember that urges are normal. Wanting food, especially the fun stuff like donuts or cookies or pizza or bread sticks, that is part of being human. This is not about eliminating those urges. Instead, it’s about changing how you relate to them. So just because an urge shows up doesn’t mean you have to act on it. And just because it feels intense, doesn’t mean something is wrong.

White-knuckling might be a common response, but it doesn’t have to be your default response. You have other options. This is about learning how to feel the urge and not let it run your life. And here’s the thing. When you practice this, awareness, allowance, non-urgency, and alignment over and over and over again, something happens. Those urges lose their charge. They lose their intensity. They lose their urgency, and they become background noise, but they’re not emergencies. They’re just there and you move on.

But when you fight and resist and grip so tight, you’re reinforcing the idea that you’re under attack. You’re telling your nervous system, this is a threat, and your body reacts accordingly. So your heart races, your breath shortens, and your thinking narrows. But remember the truth. You are not under attack, okay? It’s a cookie or a donut or a breadstick. Nothing bad is happening. You’re having an urge, a completely normal human experience. This is not a battle. It does not require armor. It requires awareness.

So you do not need more willpower. What you really need is a new way to respond, one that’s grounded in awareness, patience, and practice. This is not about muscling through. It’s about understanding what’s happening and learning to meet it with intention and focus. This is not about being tougher, it’s about being more engaged, more curious, and more compassionate. Because you are not broken. You are not lacking discipline. You just haven’t been taught another way until now. So, if you’ve been relying on white-knuckling to get through your cravings, here’s what I want to offer. Maybe there’s a better way.

Consider what if the most powerful thing you could do is pause, take a deep breath, feel the urge, and let it be there without reacting. Because the goal is not to fight harder, but to stop fighting all together. The goal is to choose a calmer, more intentional response, one that feels less like a battle and more like peace. All right?

And if you want help with this, let’s go. If you’re ready to stop fighting and start practicing new skills, let’s talk. When you coach with me, you’ll learn how to respond calmly to food urges, how to trust yourself, and how to build habits that actually feel good to live with. Check out www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact and let’s talk about how coaching can help you make peace with food and with yourself. All right?

Thank you again for hanging out with me and I’ll catch you again next week.

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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.