Primal With A Side Of FABULOUS page 80

[Gay Panda]

UPDATE: (in case anyone was wondering)

I don't know if someone stopped him, or if he just didn't want to speak at this one, but Grandpa Simpson did not give the eulogy. Praise Valhalla! Instead he drove off the driveway and down a little hill, decimating three bushes and stopping mere inches from the pillar holding up the porch.

[Gay Panda]

Dear Primal Coach Kitty,

If you sneak into the pantry and hide yourself behind the jug of olive oil, you have absolutely NO RIGHT to complain after I rescue you from becoming trapped in Narnia. Dammit, Kitty, I checked for you before closing the doors! This isn't my fault, so call off the Twilight Barking and tell the New York ASPCA to stand down!

Sincerely,
Gay Panda

[Gay Panda]

PART ONE: Gay Panda is stylin’.

The Giant Jammie Pants were surrendered to Goodwill after stranding me in the kitchen recently. If you have been reading Primal With A Side Of FABULOUS all along, then you will remember when I said that they were too big at 217 pounds. They’re even more ridiculous at whatever weight I am currently, the exact number of which is a mystery because I am afraid to stand on my scale after Potato Time*. My ignorance will be brought to a close on Tuesday, but I have one more day to indulge in the fantasy that perhaps I lost weight, or at least maintained.

But on the last day of the Giant Jammie Pants, if you were looking through my window, you got far more of an eyeful than you expected. Of course you hoped, you dreamed of such a thing happening, but that really only occurs in the movies, doesn’t it? You never thought it would ever happen before you. But there I was in all my glory, and you were left to think that there is no sultrier a sight in this world than a pudgy pants-less panda pan-frying pork products. Perhaps you drooled. I understand.

Luckily I had no houseguests, since I had to shuffle from the stove to the sink to wash my hands before I could reclaim them. If you were watching, you got to enjoy every angle that I sport. But since Gay Panda has an inconvenient modest streak, and does not wish to make a habit of parading about my house dressed only in my own hotness and the cumulative steam with which your frustrated libidos exude, I bought new Jammie Pants. If you thought I looked fine before, I will blow you away now.

I don’t know why it never occurs to me to purchase pajama sets. This would be the logical course of action. Instead I hiked over to the Jockey website and perused only pants, never mind that I need something on top. I found two pairs, men’s indigo plaid with cheery yellow stripes to brighten them, and a ghastly women’s Microfleece Lounge Pant in the color lipstick. Gay Panda does not wear or own cosmetics, but had always believed that lipstick came in different colors. Gay Panda was wrong. The default of lipstick is red, and sweet Valhalla, these are the most frighteningly red pants ever.

[Gay Panda]

PART TWO: They just arrived. The Lipstick Jammie Pants are even more deliciously appalling in person than they were on the website, so I climbed into my men’s indigo plaid and bubbled about happily in those until I decided to clean my gutters in them. So now they are in the wash. I type this in my new Lipstick Jammie Pants, sky blue bedsocks, and a sweatshirt I ‘borrowed’ from Lady Friend**. Half of it is blue, half of it is white, and the emblem on the front proclaims Aztecs – Ancient World. Nothing matches, everything clashes, and I am the ultimate fashion faux pas on my recliner.

If you were out there on the day I lost my Giant Jammie Pants to gravity, then you must console yourself in the memories because both my new men’s pair and my new women’s pair are staying firmly at my hips. I do not have to pin them under my elbow or hold the waistband to keep them up. I can jump about with impunity. I can go into my front yard to sign for a package without giving the mailman a show for which he did not pay. I could frolic in a tornado and not fret.

What was nice as I chose my pants*** was to compare my measurements with the size charts, and see that there is no need for 2X, X, or even large. I was a medium in the women’s sizes and a small in the men’s. There are still at least twenty extra pounds of panda, but I am not giant any longer. My eyes still need to adjust, because I lifted the new jammie pants from the box in despair and thought that they were way too tiny for the panda form. But they fit fabulously.

So you have a new image to insert onto that half-shell, and I hope that it sates you. As much as an image can when the reality remains so far away in a magical bamboo forest, in which the notes of Toxic are overridden by the barking of Shelob, Sauron, Professor Chaos, and Captain Suicide. Gay Panda needs a vacation not from work but from the neighbors’ dogs. Next month I will be going to San Diego for a week of bark-free nights, and it is sad that this element of the trip is the one I look forward to most. The second most enjoyable element will be the looks on my friends’ faces as I prance about their home in my new Microfleece Lounge Pant in lipstick, Aztec sweatshirt, and fuzzy blue bedsocks.

Did you hear that? It was the sizzle of pure sexy.

[Gay Panda]

UPDATE: (in explanation of *, **, and ***)

* In the spirit of honesty: multiple Potato Times. There was also a Cookie Time.

** Borrowed = stole. She retaliated by stealing my Xena: Warrior Princess T-shirt and Neapolitan bed socks. Thank you, Lady Friend! Now I get to buy more bed socks! Mission: Accomplished.

*** And socks. Gay Panda loathes 99% of clothes shopping, yet loves the 1% that covers buying socks. Do I need socks? No. When this order came, I had to dump out my packed drawer of socks and go through them to make room for more. One pair of socks I have had since eighth grade when my class went on a field trip to Sacramento. Why do I remember the socks that I wore on that long-ago trip? Who knows? I kept them. But I am finally, FINALLY parting with the wool socks that I wore as a panda cub. They were my sliding socks. The panda siblings and I would put them on for the sole purpose of running at top speed down the hallway and then sliding across the linoleum in the kitchen until we stopped, fell, or crashed into the door.

Oh, Olympic sports. You’ve got nothing on the Kitchen Slip. Team Panda!

[SleepyRoots]

Dear Gay Panda,

I have just come back from a family gathering (I hesitate to say vacation when introvert me is thrown into a small room with 13 people, even though I was away two weeks), and to such sad news. My heartfelt condolences.

I am glad to hear that you managed to escape Grandpa Simpson eulogy. I find funerals in general to be a quite trying collection of people talking gravely for hours on end. I much prefer to tune out and have my own memories. They are after all usually much more meaningful to me.


So the Giant Jammie Pants have gone. Are there before and after pictures? IMO old clothes pictures are some of the most effective ones. Congrats on the small and medium sizes.

I am afraid socks to me have always been an annoying chore and therefore in a sad state. I have however recently found out why. The standard sock heel seems to be the wrong shape, and the sock will forever be slipping forward and need pulling up again. I have now found a sock shape that stays where it ought to. I do however have to knit them myself. I don't mind the time investment, but a sufficient stash of socks will take a while to build up.

[Gay Panda]

I have just come back from a family gathering (I hesitate to say vacation when introvert me is thrown into a small room with 13 people, even though I was away two weeks), and to such sad news. My heartfelt condolences.

So the Giant Jammie Pants have gone. Are there before and after pictures?

A small room with 13 people?! NIGHTMARE. How did you survive? I would have staked out a corner for my sanity.

No, I didn't take pictures. I'm so horrified at how I look when I'm heavier that I refuse to create photographic evidence of it. I really wish I had taken measurements when I was 231, but I only have records from mid-May when I was about 205ish. Oh well. If I remember correctly, my pants at 231 were for a 38-40" waist, and the Giant Jammie Pants would have fit nicely then. But now I am 29", so that is why they were falling off. What a lovely problem to have!

[Sigi]

Hurrah Panda!

Don't forget, what the scale says is comparatively unimportant – after all, your weight isn't branded on your forehead for all to see (thank Valhalla!). Muscle/fat/skeleton of adamantium … your body's specific makeup at any point in time can skew perceived weight loss (or fat loss) results. Far more important is the fact that you're rockin' some hot, new, non-Giant Jammie Pants on your slinky, new non-giant hips.

Oooh, I can hear the sizzling from here …

(BTW, in my fluffy little mind the default colour of lipstick was always a lurid, retro, coral kind of pink. Apparently I too was wrong.)

[Gay Panda]

It is time.

The last month has naturally been stressful, and I just did my best to minimize the damage of what I ate. On the days I went to Grandmother Friend’s, I often packed my own primal snacks so as not to give in too regularly to let’s-just-call-in-a-pizza or Grandpa-Simpson-made-challah. Grief most often expresses itself in carbohydrates. It’s what people bring over; it’s what can be easily picked up at the store or delivered. I wasn’t worried about halting my weight loss but making myself feel worse than I already did by eating foods that cause headaches, Ping-Pong blood sugar, and a general feeling of malaise.

I’m not beating myself up for the non-primal foods that I ate, since sometimes there just weren’t any other options. One night at Grandmother Friend’s house I attacked a bag of Ruffles, even though I’m not a potato chip person. But I refused the soda. I had wonton soup and a fortune cookie but declined the challah. I never had the ice cream offered repeatedly, but indulged in mashed potatoes. I knew that the sugar blast of soda and ice cream would cause the circling of major sad faces on my feelings charts, as well as total OCD meltdown, as evidenced in October by Binge Day. So I said no.

Overall, I don’t feel that I did too badly. But I am a Very Sensitive Flower at the most minute of offenses, and once I get up the courage to step on the scale today, I will see just how badly I threw myself out of whack. They are just numbers. I did not return to 231 in one month. My clothes still fit fine. But I need to know that number because it hurts, and that keeps me on track. Not knowing the number gave me room the other day to buy a tub of mashed potatoes and a bag of dried mangoes.

This may not sound egregious, but once I’ve justified those things, I will find a way to justify more. Knowing thyself is good, and it’s just how this panda operates. The slap in the face of that number every morning keeps me from playing games with myself. The reason I haven’t bought mashed potatoes and dried mangoes all along is because I knew that number. I would see them in the store but think no, you were 217 this morning. You were 208. You were 199. You were 193 or 188 or 184.4. You can’t have these things right now.

Other people don’t need the number, or react to it with defiance and culinary abandon. But for me, that number on the scale is a beautiful behavioral control. I don’t like that number. I don’t want to stay that number. I want to continue on a downward trend. My belly is still doughy and there is extra padding on the backside, but somehow that number is what resolves me.

When this all started with Grandmother Friend, I was 184.4. I don’t know how much I’ve gained back, but I’m off to check right now. 188 maybe. 192 possibly. 200 would be stretching it. So in a few minutes I will know, and then I can eat the last of the Potato Tub in my fridge for breakfast and go back to how I was eating before.

Cross your fingers for me.

[SweetPickles]

Fingers crossed. The numbers really can be a slap in the face. Forgive yourself for everything and feed yourself well!