Trish asked

"But to bring it back to my question: do you suppose paleo people were
intensely active everyday?  My thought was that they were "intensely" active
while hunting and processing food stuffs, and all other times were less
active so as to conserve energy."

There's a certain fallacy in looking to Paleo activity level as a guide to
'exercise' - first, Paleo culture didn't involve exercise or Spandex to do
it in. Nor did it include central heating, A/C units, swimming  pools, etc -
those folks lived right in the midst of the seasons, and in varying
temperate zones through out the world. Hunter/scavengers were also among the
hunted by other animals. No doubt from birth the kids imitated adults in
play, partly to learn skills. There isn't a culture on this planet that
doesn't include play and fun activities, and play is as much a stressor to
metabolism as is hunting.

In the 20th century, labor saving devices grew and grew and grew, then
entertainment devices from radio to tv, to internet and cells, now iPads
just kept alienating us from our human nature, perhaps dehumanizing us.

Those vehicles of mass communication taught us the remedy to anything can be
found in food, pills, and powders. Now out of shape dehumanized folks think
changing their diet can alter everything. One reason people become type II
diabetic is they've lost significant strength muscle, altering and
degenerating their metabolism - and as a slow erosion, not a sudden onset.

If you want a Paleo type answer, it's simple: regain what you had as a
teenager in conditioning. If you didn't have it as a teenager, then you've
got even more serious work to do.