Habits and routines are places in our lives where we have made decisions, and we can use those past decisions to save time and to make smarter choices. Make a habit to get exercise at a certain time of day, and it starts to feel like the natural thing to do at that time. Go to sleep and wake up at predictable times, and your life starts to take shape around that schedule.
Today, I experienced a habit pushing me to make better food choices than I was tempted to do. After working out, I was thinking about pad thai. Not a bad thing to have, but something to keep in manageable quantities if I'm trying to work towards a goal changing how much fat I have on me. I decided to go into the grocery store and get some fruit and vegetables, and maybe a quick snack, as I frequently do after a workout, and then see how I felt. By the time I was done in the store, I just wanted to get home and have some veggies and meat at home. The motivations of time and money won out over the easy take-out choice.
Now, I seem to still have the habit of getting something small and sugary at the grocery store after a workout. It's something to work on. But it also can be a strategy to take the edge off if it's going to be a while before I can eat something after working out. And immediately after exercise is one of the best times for sugar intake, so I justify this to myself as well because one small treat addresses the emotional attachment of delicious sugary food, without going fully off the rails.
I still believe "Everything in moderation, including moderation" is a reasonable approach to life, but life cannot be one long train of exceptions and indulgences. Habits and routines are mental strategies to fall back to a familiar pattern of decisions that can steer you past the exceptions and indulgences.
