I am a 60-something baby boomer, getting extra fat and out-of-way. I have health issues, high cholesterol, type-two diabetes among them. It wasn't always this method. I used to be an athlete. In high school, I lettered in football plus baseball, also played intramural basketball. After high school I played softball, some occasional pickup games of baseball, tennis, also golf. I know what it means to be active as well as fit.

But I have never completed fitness and health a priority. Until now.

I am working harder all the time at eating right and exercising. I don't perform this in anticipation of delaying the inevitable (that's death, in case you were wondering) but of making my daily life better. Tomorrow, so I've heard, is not promised to any of us. So, various weeks ago, I started yet another exercise program. Yep. That means I have done this before.

A number of years ago, my wife as well as I joined our local YMCA, as well as for a while, I was a semi-regular attendee. Then, in an effort to save money -- and because we were not as regular as we had been -- we dropped that membership as well as joined a storefront fitness middle. Which one single it was is not important. What is important is that I was never able to make going there a habit.

In the summer of 2009, I joined a diet program. You know, the 1 where you count tips. That was working for a while, but then about eight months, I stopped attending those meetings about eight months ago. In November, 2009, I stopped watching what I was eating also stopped exercising. Guess what happened: I gained fat. What a shock. As well as my bad numbers -- high cholesterol, high blood sugar, high blood pressure -- got worse.

So, are you starting to get the picture? I am not a fitness fanatic.

But then, at the start of the summer of 2010, I started to get serious about my health again. I had been promising myself I would, but the turning place, for me, was a blog identified as Zen Habits. The post I found was 1 also known as "13 Things to Avoid When Changing Habits." Among the 13 things, these were the ones that resonated most with me:

one. Taking on two or more habits at once.
2. Not committing a plan to paper.
3. Not having support.
4. Not realizing the obstacles.
5. Not logging your progress.
6. Having no accountability.

Here's what I did:

one. I committed to changing 1 habit: train.
2. I wrote a prepare for the next six months.
3. I enlisted my brother, who lives in Lexington, to provide both support and accountability. We talk on the telephone whichever Sunday at 6 p.m.
4. I am logging my progress in the same document that holds my prepare.

I am 10 weeks into it, plus it seems to be working. So, here's a tip. Keep it straightforward. (Right. Like you've never heard that 1 before.) Still that's it. For me, I can say I have always been a fan of simplicity. But that's it: a fan. Not someone who really embraced simplicity. I think that's changed. I think I am really moving toward accepting the effortless life. You can sort of tell these things.