Even though I’m a vegetarian and would never eat it, I know it when I see it. I’m talking about that ultra-processed poison, that most damnable deli meat.

I’m talking about bologna.

A college prankster once sneaked tiny torn pieces of it into my soup. With the first spoonful, however, I knew and spat out the unsavory stuff.

Recently, I thought another joker had attempted a similar gag. But he wasn’t an undergrad, and his bologna contained no beef, pork, or meat byproducts.

But after unconsciously chewing on this bologna, I found it quite tasty and willingly swallowed.

In the diet book Mini Habits for Weight Loss, author Stephen Guise writes that before Dec. 28, 2012, he had never been able to exercise consistently. He was “lethargic, unmotivated, and out of shape ... The idea of exercise actually repulsed [him] and no motivational tactic helped.”

On that day, though, his life “changed forever” because he gave up his goal of consistently doing 30-minute workouts at home. Now, as a way of mocking his lack of motivation, he gave himself such a ridiculously easy new one that it seemed to be no goal at all.

To complete a single, solitary push-up.

“While in push-up position,” Guise explains, he had a change in perspective. “[I]t seemed silly to do a single [one], so I did a few more.”

It felt really good to surpass his goal and even better when, after standing up and taking a break, he did even a few more push-ups.

He repeated this pattern until he did 50.

New-found motivation caused him to create a second similar ridiculously easy goal: to perform a single pull up. Again, accomplishing his goal made him want to do more, and, again, he interspersed breaks in between pull-ups until he did 50.

Guise checked the clock and saw he was only 10 minutes away from his old seemingly insurmountable goal. So he created ridiculously simple goal number three: to get out the exercise mat.

This led to 10 minutes of abs exercises and succeeding where he had failed so many times before. “My brain,” he wrote, “nearly exploded out of surprise and delight.”

Mine reacted differently: ablaze with anger, its own searing skepticism the incendiary device. I mean, who in his right mind would believe such crock of bull ... bologna?

My answer came a page later: hundreds of thousands of people.

Guise had already written “a worldwide bestseller, selling more than 125,000 copies in its first two years in over a dozen languages and ... the #1 bestseller self-help book in three countries.” Both that book and this one shared the same premise: healthy habits result from setting ridiculously simple goals.

At that point, I put the book down. I knew that reading more would not lead to a column.

Besides, it was no longer time to write but ride. It was raining hard with no let up in sight, so the ride would have to be on the bike affixed to the wind trainer - for the third day in a row.

The thought was as appealing to me as a bologna sandwich on buttered white bread with a side of potato chips and a mug of root beer.

Moreover, I needed to work on producing more power from the hands-on-the-drops position - my greatest weakness. That meant doing short maximal efforts, recovering, and repeating the pattern again and again.

After 60 minutes of an extended warmup, the dead feeling in my legs that usually dissipates in about half that time remained. Sticking to the original goal of workout, I told myself, would be counterproductive, but I was guilt-ridden over changing it.

To ease my mind and to confirm that riding easily that day was right, I decided to do one semi-hard effort.

When I did so, my legs didn’t feel as bad as before. So I decided to do another slightly harder, slightly longer effort, and that one felt even better.

So with the idea that as soon as the seated, short maximal efforts didn’t feel right I’d abandon the original workout, I continued.

Before I knew it, I had done 30 efforts - five more than the 25 I had planned - and had ridden as long as I had hoped to ride outside.

Ironically, such a productive ride was a byproduct of the “bologna” I had consumed by reading Guise’s book. At the pivotal point in the ride when the original goal seemed overwhelming, I had unconsciously done what he suggests struggling dieters to do: create a ridiculously easy goal.

The concept that created criticism and skepticism while I was reading created made else when I was riding.

Success.

If you’ve been having trouble sticking to your diet or consistently working out, you may find a slice or two of what Guise serves up not only whets your appetite but also makes you hunger for more.