So don't spend two hours. Exercise isn't an all or nothing game. There's a TED talk out there somewhere (google it) which explains that you get exponentially more out of exercise from about the 15 minute mark, and it hits a peak around half an hour. The study showed that the single best thing you can do for your health (the closest thing there is to a silver bullet, if you will); and this applied to both average sized people and the obese, smokers and non-smokers, etc, was to get 30 mins daily exercise. But even if you can't get that much, 15 minutes isn't wasting your time.
Furthermore, exercise doesn't take up your time, it actually increases it. Not just in the years in your life and how much less time you spend in those years being sick; that's obvious. But every single day.
Tim Ferriss tells this story about how Richard Branson was once asked the single biggest thing most people could do to increase productivity. Due to the fact that he's one of the busiest men on the planet, every single person in the audience leaned forward with bated breath. His answer? Exercise daily. It improves the quality of your sleep, so you need less. It makes you more emotionally stable, so you're more motivated. And most importantly, it increases mental clarity, so you're more focused through-out the day. Branson said that it gives him multiple hours more productivity every day. It's bull to say you don't have enough time every day to exercise; if you're that busy then in fact you don't have enough time to NOT exercise.
Finally, just thought it was worth mentioning that half hour of exercise doesn't even have to be strenuous. In the study I mentioned before they recommended walking, because it's the best overall for your body (too many people run on concrete these days). Swimming is also very good. Neither of these have to be exhausting. Hence why I take the 30-35 minute walk to work every day. My other exercise is a bonus.
I'm not arguing that 30 minutes of exercise isn't healthy - the parent post to which my comment responded was two hours a day. I'd be dead in a week if I tried that because my spouse would kill me.
So much exercise advice is disingenuous:
30 minutes exercise != 30 minutes out of one's day
Change cloths, warm up, exercise, cool down, shower, change clothes: there's significant overhead even if one doesn't have to travel to the gym.
Furthermore, exercise doesn't take up your time, it actually increases it. Not just in the years in your life and how much less time you spend in those years being sick; that's obvious. But every single day.
Tim Ferriss tells this story about how Richard Branson was once asked the single biggest thing most people could do to increase productivity. Due to the fact that he's one of the busiest men on the planet, every single person in the audience leaned forward with bated breath. His answer? Exercise daily. It improves the quality of your sleep, so you need less. It makes you more emotionally stable, so you're more motivated. And most importantly, it increases mental clarity, so you're more focused through-out the day. Branson said that it gives him multiple hours more productivity every day. It's bull to say you don't have enough time every day to exercise; if you're that busy then in fact you don't have enough time to NOT exercise.
Finally, just thought it was worth mentioning that half hour of exercise doesn't even have to be strenuous. In the study I mentioned before they recommended walking, because it's the best overall for your body (too many people run on concrete these days). Swimming is also very good. Neither of these have to be exhausting. Hence why I take the 30-35 minute walk to work every day. My other exercise is a bonus.