I promised you pictures …

and I deliver! I swear it took as long to edit these pictures as it did to clean the closet. Heh.

On the left, the before view of a very messy closet that gets all kinds of stuff
dumped in it. When I don't know where to store something, I put it in the hall
closet. On the right, everything's tidy. And I've already moved some things
around since I took the after photo. Can't. Leave. Well. Enough. Alone. Heh.

The tippy top shelf didn't have much on it, because I'm
too short to reach it. So I didn't take pictures of it. This is
the third shelf, the before view is above the after one.
Those boxes stacked on the left are empty, do any of you
have trouble throwing away perfectly good empty boxes?

Second shelf, the in-your-face-when-you-open-the-door
one. Yes, I have foot mannequins, I'm a sock designer!
(Although I haven't created a new design in, hmmm,
how long? TOO LONG TO REMEMBER!)

Lowest shelf, and the most important one. All the
instruction books for all the appliances, heat pump, etc.,
plus office supplies, bank statements.
Above: Chaos!
Below: Order!

The floor. In the before view (above) I sometimes had to
wiggle things around to get the door closed.
Not a problem now.

On the left, things to donate (not much, unfortunately).
On the right, the trash. I'm a little embarrassed to show you how many
paper towel rolls I had stashed away for some kind of craft project!

I feel NO NEED to buy fancy canvas containers to make the inside of a closet look good. Priority Mail boxes and other shipping containers are free. Those, a box cutter and packing tape are all I needed for storage solutions.

It took a good three hours to finish this job, which really isn't much considering the amount of crap I had stuffed in there. To reward myself at the end of it, I worked out. At my new gym!

Time for a progress report. I've been feeling really, really down this week, because I check my weight daily and I haven't seen any losses. Yesterday was the end of the two-week South Beach Phase 1 regimen, and I'd hoped to see some results. Until this morning, I felt unrewarded for all my hard work. (I can honestly say I've followed the plan pretty well. No sugar, no grains, if I've gotten off track at all it's in not eating enough vegetables with each meal.)

Today's weigh-in showed a two-pound loss. I was so surprised! How does that happen, to go all week long staying the same and then suddenly drop two overnight. I guess if I knew the answer to that I'd already have written a book, right?

I think I reported incorrectly last week that I'd lost six pounds since the first of the year, when it was really five. Now it's seven since January 1 and five since January 10, when I started South Beach.

Looks like it's working. No reason to stop now, especially when I've added the element of regular weight-training to the plan.

I didn't join the gym for cardio, I'm happy to walk on my mountain for that. I joined for the Nautilus and Cybex machines and, eventually, the free weights. My previous (albeit 20 years ago) experience is that muscle-building = weight loss. That's also what science says, at least current science. So we'll see. I'm my own guinea pig!