For the general population not trying to optimize performance in a specific sport, the nuts-and-bolts business of "what exercise should I do?" is fraught with bargeloads of pseudoscience, tribal lore, magical thinking, fad-chasing, and actively-amplified marketing nonsense.
And then if, despite the atmosphere of uncertainty, you convince yourself to try something and it doesn't work for you, that method's dedicated acolytes will waste no time in telling you that you must be doing it wrong, must by lying about something, are just looking for excuses to be lazy, and so on.
It's not really an environment that's shaped for success.
Therein lies the solution. Pick a sport you enjoy, do it as many times a week as your schedule permits, but bend your schedule so it's at least twice.
Voila, 2+ hours of strenuous exercise per week.
Really that's what P.E. is for, they were supposed to have exposed you to many sports so that you could find one you like.
I found boxing because I watched a few boxing movies. Then I decided to try and I liked it. Now here we are 6 odd years later and I'm training four times a week. Still no fights though, probably getting into that next year.
Surely you have some gut feeling about what you might enjoy? How do you find movies or tv shows that you enjoy watching? Or websites you enjoy visiting? How many tries did it take? How many tries did it take to find friends you enjoy hanging out with?
These aren't some deep dark secrets of life. It's just normal everyday stuff. Don't overthink it.
Anyway, the reason I'm harping on this is that vague, noncommittal advice like "find a sport you enjoy" is exactly the sort of thing that a true exercise prescription ought to be able to avoid. Doctors don't pull out the Rx pad and write down "find an anticonvulsant that works for you".
If you want to minimize the commitment: weightlifting is pretty efficient time-wise and effective.
Why is that obvious? Because you think there's a link between being overweight and exercise?
Exercise does not promote weight loss. (You can do a quick google search if you don't believe it.)
The most important thing to influence weight loss is the nutrition.
On a related note, I find it borderline sadistic that we make fat people believe they are fat because they are lazy and don't exercise enough.
Fat people are generally fat because of excess caloric intake. The amount of physical (aerobic) exercise needed to even burn off a can of Coke is incredible.
PS: A coke is also 8 to 24 oz which is a fairly wide range.
Hardly "incredible".
Research has shown that diet is more critical than activity in the occurrence of obesity, but that doesn't been that activity doesn't matter at all.
I'm at something of a loss to explain how, without changing my diet, but with adding 30-50 miles of cycling (plus a little jogging) a week, I've been losing around 5 pounds a month for the last six months.
Honest question time: if it isn't the exercise, what is it?
I looked at the article that OP referred to. It's main critique is using exercise instead of diet as a weight loss tactic. The point was that you don't need exercise to maintain a healthy weight as long as the energy balance is there.
On one end of the spectrum, athletes in certain sports can maintain a lean physique while eating insane quantities of calories. On the other end, maintaining a healthy bodyfat is possible in the absence of exercise by nutrition alone.
Exercise comes with its own set of benefits independent of bodyfat, and it sounds like you have chosen to meet your energy balance by increasing calories burned instead of decreasing caloric intake, but it's not the only strategy that can have success.
Sources:
"Can't outrun a bad diet" http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/15/967
It's very difficult to overeat good exercise with good food.
If your idea of exercise is to sit around at the gym for an hour and do a couple of lifts, that's not gonna help. I've seen a lot of that. People go there for two hours, but only get like 15 minutes of real exercise done.
But if your idea of exercise is to go on a 10k run, or doing a boxing class for an hour ... well those are going to burn around 700 calories. That's a lot of calories for someone who's supposed to eat 2000 a day.
Eating 2700 calories (your normal 2000, plus the 700 you burned) is hard if you're not eating cake and stuff. I personally struggle every day to keep my weight from plummeting because the amounts of food I have to eat are astounding. Especially on the days when I do a 30km run (that burns 2500 calories).
Honestly, it's taken me over a year of sustained effort to train my metabolism to digest these sorts of quantities of food.
And yes, I am an edge case. My point is that you can outrun a bad diet. It will take a lot of running though.
PS: the biggest mistake people make is thinking that weight == health. You can be skinny and still super unhealthy.
Ding ding ding. That's the nutrition part. I could easily eat that 700 extra calories by eating pizzas. Hell, I'd probably eat 900 extra calories after a big exercise. (But I would absolutely not run 30 km...)
The problem is that the people eating this stuff are continually being told that they need to exercise more. Then they get hungrier and eat the stuff that you can always eat more. They kill themselves on the treadmill and see absolutely no difference.
Is nutrition really that hard for people? It doesn't take much, just avoid the obviously bad stuff like candy, pastries, and anything non-dry that can stay fresh for over two weeks without freezing.
You don't even have to eschew sweet stuff, just opt for the artificial sweetener. They don't add hidden calories and [probably] won't give you cancer despite what the FUD says.
And in my experience, people who do eat the bad stuff, start craving more real foods when they exercise well. The body needs nutrients and it will ask for them. You just have to listen.
But I'm probably out of touch with how hard this is. It's been years since I started fixing my diet.
Cardio takes a long time, an hour each day for 5 days is 5 hours. Can burn more at the weights. Unless you do sports that need endurance (MMA, boxing, rugby, …) you don’t need cardio. Strength training will increase your cardiovascular fitness above average.
If you aren't sweating, you aren't getting a workout.
Coincidentally cardio will make you better at lifting. When I recent got back to lifting for a few months I could power through 20 sets of compound lifts in an hour. By the time I change weight, I'm ready to go because my regenerative capacity is so quick (boxing will do that to you). Back when I was just lifting, 20 sets took over teo hours and the gains were very comparable.
I'd lift more, but it makes me slow.
I would definitely join a gym if it was deductible or even paid for or had state run facilities. But I guess that's a little too much to ask.