find an activity that you legitimately enjoy. that's it

I do it for my dogs. They drag me out and make me walk.

By doing physical activity that's intrinsically rewarding.

If you enjoy bike riding, go ride your bike, and don't even bother thinking about it as exercise. Enjoy, and get into it.

The fitness part is just a side effect.

Embrace the Suck.

I like exercise that is also something else and isn't purely exercise for its own sake. Things like hiking, where I get to see scenery and animals, or biking, which serves as a mode of transportation. Currently, I do renaissance fencing, which is fun and social in its own right, and I get to master a skill.

I started lifting for self improvement and quickly got hooked on progression and getting stronger. It didn't take long to become a habit and now it's the thing I most look forward to after a long day of work. With no more than three hours per week you can completely transform yourself..

I enjoy the social aspect of running. Parkruns, Strava, meeting friends and getting coffee after etc.

I noticed that I feel better emotionally and physically when I exercise regularly and feel like shit when I don't, so it's kind of a self-preservation thing.

Cycling/Spinning

It's usually low impact on the knees & backs of perrenial beginners like me. If I'm stationary cycling, I can sneak in my favorite entertainment to make the time fly by.

Just fuck my body up until I’m exhausted to a limit I haven’t been before. I like that

Last time I enjoyed myself doing exercise, I probably played table tennis with a tennis ball and hands as paddles. The hard part is finding people who have time when you do, and who are on a similar skill+fitness level as you (picking silly games like the one I described helps).

So yeah, I'm not getting much exercise, either.

I lost 30lbs and doubled my muscle mass by doing a gentle calisthenics routine to failure every night while watching the whole series for King of the Hill. I found it kept me busy enough to not notice how much I hated exercise but it wasn't distracting enough to need to stop and watch.

I like to watch shows/videos while I workout. Made a rule that I can only watch certain things while I'm exercising. I look forward to watching those things and 'tricked' myself into being excited about the exercise, too! Also I feel much better after I've exercised, so I really look forward to that post-exercise feeling.

I discovered I like hitting things a while back so I go boxing regularly. These days I read some Trump news and then go take it out on a heavy bag for an hour.

I've never enjoyed gyms or traditional workouts, but yoga clicks with me.

I use a stationary bike in front of a TV. My brain is off anyway, so I might as well put my body to work.

Another alternative is to find a sport that you enjoy, or a social group that makes the activity enjoyable.

If you're looking for a "life hack" to make any exercise instantly enjoyable, then that's really not going to happen.

But you sound like you're motivated to start exercising so that's great. You can add this in layers to make this genuinely enjoyable:

1. find something you like (for me: weight lifting and squash are fun. Running and swimming are hell)

2. Decide on a fixed time (for me: 10pm every day is designated for exercise)

3. Make it as simple as possible and remove as many barriers as possible (for me: I don't sit to watch TV or play video games close to exercise time, otherwise I know I'm not going to get up again. I put on exercise clothes when I get home from work so I'm already ready when the time comes).

4. Add something else that's really enjoyable (For me: I have a TV series that I only watch when I'm in the gym. So if I want to find out what happens next, I'll have to go to the gym tomorrow.)

5. Make this routine (once you're habituated to doing this regularly, then it stops taking will power to force yourself and is just embedded in your routine)

6. Forgive yourself for missing sessions (any time you miss a session, it doesn't matter, you'll start making progress again any time you start exercising again)

7. Make it social (some people love this and you can do exercise with someone. I personally hate that and I love the meditative solitude of exercise time)

Soccer

Search apartments.com or whatever for places 1-2 hour bike rides from work. Move there.

…not joking, I’m fortunate enough in that that’s what I’ve been doing. Biking/walking to work is the only way I get any exercise (even though I can work from home). In winter months/if it’s too cold or snowy I’ll use the stationary bikes our work building put in to entice people back from COVID.

I have to have a purpose to exercise (other than health I guess?) otherwise I won’t do it.

Audiobooks.

Music is fine, but I actually find I will make more time to exercise if I'm listening to a good book.

Walking the dog while listening to podcasts or audio books.

Boxing. Constant movement, hell of a work out, and you get to punch shit

I try not to think about it as a punishment for what I ate, and more a celebration of what my body can do.

I got a kid but not a car. Just walking to the kindergarten and back twice a day is movement. We spend a lot of time outdoors at playgrounds or parks and I have to do all the grocery shopping by bike or walking. I don't do other physical exercise admittedly, but this kid is a fitness machine. We be running, playing, I need to lift her, carry her, carry her stuff, clean up, wrestle - for real having a kid made me the most physically fit and active I've ever been.

When I was younger I liked to dance. Trying to lose weight I'd just put headphones on in my room and dance for hours. A friend of mine actually lost a crapton of weight this way, think obese to normal weight.

Also, making a kid (and training for it and reenacting it) is great exercise.

Dance

Dance

REVOLUTION!!

(That rhythm game with the arrows on the screen and ground that you stomp on)

Knowing I won't feel like shit for the rest of the day.

I like to walk, I pick nice places with good/interesting scenery. It's good mentally too, helps me unwind and work out problems and come up with new ideas.

Not sure if this answers the question; but, as soon as I learned about BDNF and how muscle building can increase the levels of it, I became a gym rat. I want my brain to keep working past 90 and be able to program well into my 90s (I wanna be yelling at everyone about my struggles with Rust).In all seriousness if you don't wanna have dementia a little too early in life. Lift. Weights. Don't ignore cardio though. But BUILD so you can reap the benefits of your lean mass into your elder years . Training also helps me improve my MTB performance, which I find really fun.

Sorry for the wall of text :D

I just do it until I physically cant