I like cake. I eat it all the time.
I create opportunities to eat it.
I eat so much I feel unhealthy.

My clothes don’t fit.
I tell myself I shouldn’t eat so much cake.
Then I wake up hungry.

I try to resist. When I think of it. Sometimes.
I’m overweight and unhealthy.
I decide to not eat cake.

I hate my decision and obsess over cake.
I set a goal. A week with no cake! Two weeks! A month!
Thankfully, there are loopholes. A birthday! A holiday! A special occasion!
The day after a special occasion!
The whole week after a special occasion!
Pretty much all the time.

I hate my weight. I feel unhealthy.
I watch guys my age running marathons and hiking the Appalachian Trail.
I decide to begin exercising. Next Monday.
I eat cake Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

But Monday morning I exercise.
Forty eternal minutes. I hate it. I dread Tuesday morning.
I exercise Tuesday morning. I dread Wednesday.
I exercise Wednesday morning. I dread Thursday.
I exercise Thursday morning. I hate it, but not as much.

Friday brings a party. There’s cake.
I don’t eat any. I’m not wasting all this wretched exercise on a piece of cake!

Monday morning I exercise. I hate it.
But I do it again Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
And all the next week. And the next.

One day it hits me. My pants fit.
I play some racquetball.
I like exercise. Not the actual exercise, but the discipline.
And the comfortable pants.
I don’t think about cake. Much. And I certainly don’t eat any.

One day, someone lands a slab of German Chocolate Cake on my desk. It weighs five pounds and I can smell it from the lobby.
I give it away.
Was it hard to do? Not really.

Except for the months of cultivating a new love.