It's been about six months since the doctor ordered me to join a gym.

So, how's it going?

You sometimes read about people like West Seattle's Peter Beeson.

Six years ago, he weighed about 350 pounds and wore a size XXX-Large+2. Now he weighs 170 pounds and fits into a medium.

Exercising led him into cycling, big time.

According to the West Seattle Herald, earlier this month Beeson traveled to San Diego for the Elite Transcontinental Tour. That's a race from California to Georgia where riders are on their bicycles 12 to 14 hours a day, logging 150 to 200 miles for 17 consecutive days.

Well, I'm not Peter Beeson.

But when the gal behind the grill at the Burien Ivar's asked if I had been working out, I replied, "Not really. But pretty much five days a week, I do put on one of my old tee-shirts advertising a tavern I can't go to anymore and a pair of baggy sweatpants and exercise for 45 minutes.

"I've lost about 25 pounds the last six months and a total of 60 pounds over four years. Hey, I guess that does qualify as 'working out.'"

With a health club full of young women thin enough not to need a gym, nobody is staring at my flabby self.

The young ladies tie back their hair before earnestly attacking the elliptical machines. Why, the gym has more blonde ponytails than a Palomino horse ranch.

There are also young, burly, muscled guys there, too, but I keep out of their way.

I suppose if I were more like Beeson, I would enlist the help of a personal trainer and accelerate my progress.

But Marian Shoemaker of Des Moines warned me about trainers. (Marian and I shared a house in West Seattle, but not at the same time.)

Marian's perhaps slightly embellished cautionary tale was about a guy who received a week of private lessons with a perky trainer named Tawny as a Christmas gift.

By Wednesday, the only way he could brush his teeth was by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving his mouth back and forth over it.

Tawny put him on a treadmill, but it flung him off.

So what have I learned that might be helpful?

1. Support is vital.

Neither Marge nor I could have kept going to the gym or continued to eat healthy if we weren't both doing it.

Unfortunately, people can't always enlist family members so look to a friend, colleague, or-shudder-a trainer to provide support.

2. Pick a food lifestyle you can pretty much stick to.

Since the first three letters in diet spell die, you're not going to stay on it forever. But you need a post-diet food plan that won't pack the pounds right back on.

For those of you like me who are blessed with few taste buds, let me suggest fake foods like sugar-free candy bars as an occasional treat.

Or turn the dining room lights down very low, serve spaghetti squash and call it "pasta."

3. Pick an exercise activity you can keep doing.

Let's face it. If I attempted to work out an hour and a half a day, seven days a week, I would have quit a long time ago.

I was puzzled why Saturday and Sunday afternoons are among the slowest times at the health club.

But I figured out that it is because those young men and women working out so strenuously during the week had actually been training for their weekend fun sport.

You don't have to cycle across America like Peter Beeson, but find some physical activity you enjoy.

Eric Mathison can be reached at hteditor@robinsonnews.com or 206-388-1855.