One Marshmallow or Two?

There was a study of children, age 4, who were told that they could have one marshmallow now or two marshmallows later. They were left in a room with one marshmallow. What would you have done when you were a child? What would you do today?  It really does tell us a lot about ourselves. I would have had a tough time with the term 'later'. When exactly is later? Ten minutes, an hour, a day, a year? That answer would help me decide my answer. Ten minutes or even an hour. I could do that - I would wait. A day? Hmmm. A year? Not a chance. This way of thinking has helped me pass up the candy bar in the checkout line at the grocery store. Knowing that I would scarf it down on my way home and throw away the wrapper before walking in the door and not really enjoying it or (not and) I can wait until there is something that I would really like and enjoy. This past weekend we went to visit the kids and before the basketball game we had a soup/chili dinner at school. I had one bowl of chili and there were 3 big tables of desserts (and they had a lot of really good ones.) I looked them over. Ruled out the ones that looked like all sugar and carbs and settled on handmade cheesecake. I asked the nice lady behind the table if she could cut 1/3 of a larger piece for me and she obliged. Good choice on my part. Tom had the coconut cream pie and I mooched a half teaspoon (twice) of the rich filling. Yummy!
So how does this relate to other choices that we make? I know that when shopping with cash I give much more thought into my purchases than when I use the ever convenient credit card. I don't see those purchase consequences for a month. When trying to make good food choices, some times are a little easier than other times. If I know I am going out to dinner or perhaps a party of sorts, I will probably choose good things during the day so that I can have a bite or two of cake and a couple of hors d'ourves. I am becoming more thoughtful about my food choices. Because I am eating less I want to be happy with my choices. If I take a bite of something and it isn't good, I stop eating it. Why eat something I am not enjoying whereas before I would just finish it without thinking. Yeah for my team!
By the way: The children who did not eat the marshmallow when left alone scored (on average) 210 more points on the SAT college tests. There was no data on if they were overweight for eating two marshmallows later. If you would like to read more about this study I will provide the link. If you are not sure where the link is, go back a sentence and you will see it. Still need help. Go two sentences back and look for the underlined word that says 'link'. There you go. Good for you. Perseverance is a good thing.

+45 day    
- 12 weight