Walking or running, because you only need to open the door and walk or run. Walking is easier with a dog or a friend. If you have no friends, offer to walk people’s dogs for free. You’ll soon make friends.
PS I suffer from vertigo too but I love walking in the mountains despite this!

Running at a steady pace is about the worst exercise you can do. It will burn some calories and increase your cardio vascular health a bit but it is time consuming and does nothing for strength. It is also very tough on your joints. Walking is a fantastic activity and valuable for everyone to do, but unless you have one foot in the grave it’s really not exercise in that it isn’t stressful enough to cause changes in muscle, bone or heart health.

HIIT style training on an exercise bike is tops for burning calories and cardio vascular health. Lifting weights or traditional body weight exercises like push ups burpees and pull ups are the only way to spare and grow muscle. These are time efficient and vastly superior to any other form of exercise.

Oh I agree 100% that everyone needs to walk as often as possible but I strongly disagree that it is all that is necessary for fitness. If you are a total couch potato there is no better way to get started. My dog guarantees that I get around five walks a day. Perhaps my idea of fitness is a little different than most 66 year olds but being able to walk up and down hills with little effort is just a normal daily movement activity not counted as exercise for me.

As for running, HIIT style sprinting is awesome. But way beyond the capabilities of the average unfit person. Using a bike is so much easier than learning to sprint properly and gradually increasing intensity.

The steady state running / jogging that most people do is just not a great exercise strategy. Time consuming and very incomplete for fitness. Some studies have even shown that runners die before their non running contemporaries. If you like to run for sport, more power to you. If you want to get fit, there are a lot of better choices

The best exercise I’ve tried for weight loss has been walking. Long walks of at least 80 minutes and up to 2 hours or even more. Even better if I hit the gym first for 30 to 60 minutes and then go for a long walk.

More intense exercise is great for building muscle and improving general fitness, but doesn’t budge the scale much for me. I’m sure others have different experiences on this, as we all tick a little differently.

Fitting those long walks into a busy family-oriented lifestyle is the tricky part.