You can't get rid of it with exercise alone. You can do the most vigorous exercise and only burn up 300 calories in an hour. If you've got fat on your body, the exercise firms and tones the muscles. But when you use that tape measure, what makes it bigger? It's the fat!
It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.
The interaction of the variation in our genes is what's responsible for lots of our attributes and vigor.