My job is to sit on my butt and make up engaging and publishable stories, a job of which I’m lucky and privileged to have for the past 35 years. Exercise was not at the top of my activity list: exercise doesn’t pay as much as writing.

I am a private pilot, so every 2 years I get a required exam from an aviation medical examiner (AME). At my last exam in 2018 I was warned (again) by my AME that my health was awful: overweight, high blood pressure, high blood sugar. I was told that if I lost 20 pounds, most of these problems will be fixed.

I’m not sure exactly why, but I decided to stop getting lectured to by my AME and fix the problem. But how to do it?

The first step: stop eating stuff I don’t care about.

I’m a steak and potatoes guy, but I found I lost my taste for thick rich steaks–I can maybe finish a petite filet, but the idea of finishing a huge cowboy sirloin steak is a non-starter. I can barely finish a 4-oz. hamburger patty. I like baked potatoes, but I can’t finish them anymore. I like mashed potatoes, but one or two forkfuls are more than enough.

But the main factor in all this: exercise. My AME said to do “regular” exercise. No: I realized I needed to do daily exercise, and I think you do too. And you can’t count housework or taking the kids to school as exercise–you need to dedicate a certain amount of time every day for nothing else but exercise. I have a descent treadmill, so I started with that, 30 minutes walking 3 mph.

The key to daily exercise: keep a log. As a former Air Force navigator I’m trained and accustomed to keeping logs. But there is nothing more motivating than to read your logs over a couple weeks and see your progress. Do it.

Like a Chinese water drill, soon 30 minutes was not enough–it quickly expanded. I soon went up to 60 minutes until I finally figured out that I didn’t want to spend that much time on a treadmill, so now I do 45 minutes and about 2.5 miles.

After about a year doing this routine I realized I hit a plateau–my weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar went to great levels, but now my weight had leveled off–still a good level, best in 30 years, but still not improving. What’s the fix?

I’ve always loved weight training. My favorite is the Nautilus family of weight machines, which varies the resistance depending on the position of the press–less resistance at the top of the press, more at the bottom.

But these days I use a Bowflex machine. It is not a “weight” training machine–“weight” is substituted by resistance by a variety of thickness of composite rods transmitted through a series of cables and pullies through the machine. The plus: it is infinitely easier to change weights and routines than a normal weight machine. The negative: it’s not “weight.” It’s simulated weight: it’s resistance, not weight.

But it works.

Doesn’t matter. Changing the exercise routine changed my outcome. My weight dropped after sticking in a 3 day-per-week weight training exercise along with the treadmill routine. I work out 3 days a week with the Bowflex, 3 days a week with the treadmill, and 1 day optional–treadmill, Bowflex, or nothing.

Bottom line: exercise every day. Take 45 minutes a day to do nothing else but exercise, and do nothing else in that time but exercise. If not 45 minutes, do 30 minutes. If not 30, do 20. Just do it.