Better than exercise is a better normal lifestyle. Trying to compensate in an hour what went wrong most of the day or week, and with your diet, is far from optimal.
From a personal experience, so it's just a guess, a contributor may be fluid movement in the body. Fluid in blood vessels are pumped directly, but must fluid is not in blood vessels. The heart has a diminishing effect outside the vessels (capillaries have small holes to let water and small molecules through into extracellular space, and then to collect it back, rest goes through the lymphatic system which also drains back into the bloodstream). Muscle and body movement helps. From what I experienced and experimented, just walking did a lot more than running. I focus on this specifically due to personal health experiences that I don't want to go into that let me feel a clear difference, where intensive running did hardly anything but then just walking did, an experiment I performed during a period of my life when "getting stuff out from all over my body" mattered.
Personally, I choose to run only when my brain/body tell me to, when I feel like it. Definitely not when I would have to fight myself to get going. (If your body/brain tells you the opposite then it is what it is, personal feel over generic advice)
Exercise is a better normal lifestyle. Standing isn’t of sitting isn’t going to fix much, given the key finding in most relevant studies is that frequent movement is necessary (albeit it’s easier and more natural when already standing).
One of many, looking at just one detail (sitting): https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/sitting-may-i...
From a personal experience, so it's just a guess, a contributor may be fluid movement in the body. Fluid in blood vessels are pumped directly, but must fluid is not in blood vessels. The heart has a diminishing effect outside the vessels (capillaries have small holes to let water and small molecules through into extracellular space, and then to collect it back, rest goes through the lymphatic system which also drains back into the bloodstream). Muscle and body movement helps. From what I experienced and experimented, just walking did a lot more than running. I focus on this specifically due to personal health experiences that I don't want to go into that let me feel a clear difference, where intensive running did hardly anything but then just walking did, an experiment I performed during a period of my life when "getting stuff out from all over my body" mattered.
Personally, I choose to run only when my brain/body tell me to, when I feel like it. Definitely not when I would have to fight myself to get going. (If your body/brain tells you the opposite then it is what it is, personal feel over generic advice)