Awesome.

I don't get to say this too often, but I honestly feel kinda proud of myself today.

Around this time last year, I pulled the lawnmower out of the shed to cut the grass and I got roughly a third of the way through before I had to quit. I found pushing the lawnmower so strenuous after half an hour pushing it, my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest and I was breathing like I'd just come up for air after spending five minutes underwater.

Well, today I took my usual three mile walk (which has gradually changed into a half-walk/half-run over the past few weeks) and I was enjoying my audiobook so much that when I got back, I decided I didn't want to go back inside the house just yet…so I decided to cut the grass.

I should also point out here that this isn't an average front lawn I'm mowing. I'm mowing at least a couple of acres of fairly hilly ground with a push mower. In fact, as an experiment today, I left my Nike+ app running and decided to see just how far I actually walk when I cut all my grass.

I turns out I walk about 3 miles to cut the whole lot. The actual app said I'd done 2.9 miles, but I'd paused it halfway through to talk to Sunny and I'd been back cutting grass for ten minutes before I remembered to start it up again.

You may be wondering why this made me proud of myself.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, last year I cut maybe a third of my grass, or just over a mile's worth, and I was literally physically incapable of going any further.

Today, I did a three mile walk (and I ran about a mile of that), then I went another three miles pushing the lawnmower…and when I was finished I was a little out of breath, but the kind of out of breath where you can still hold a normal conversation.

Basically, today proved that I'm in dramatically better shape than I was a year ago. Last year, pushing a lawnmower for a mile in the sun was enough to literally lay me out. Today I did over six miles and barely broke a sweat.

I think if everyone who feels they need to lose weight of get in shape could feel the way I do right now, they'd instantly stop making excuses and get on the treadmill.