I’ve been inspired to make some changes in the house by a fitness challenge for animals and their people (joanranquet.com/challenge ). My son has mentioned a few times that Roxy, my 8 ½ year old cat, is overweight but I usually dismiss it. With this challenge though I thought I’d look to see if indeed she is, and guess what? Yes, she could lose a little fat!
There is no one rule for what a cat should weigh, but there is a pretty good visual guide here http://www.assisianimalhealth.com/files/8714/1157/8864/fat-animals.jpeg . Looking at Roxy, I can see she’s above her ideal weight.
no defined waste
So where to start?
Current feeding schedule: self feeding dry food. Wont eat canned food. Cries for tuna constantly.
Doing some research I find that self-feeding is potentially quite detrimental to their health for several reasons.
One is that the stomach never fully empties before taking more bites. This keeps the cat in a constant digestive stage instead of moving out of digestive and into rest and healing. Cats that self feed have higher diabetes and heart disease rates.
Another is that food should follow the hunt, or in our case play, so the digestive system readies for food intake by releasing digestive enzymes.
And yet another is when they are actually hungry at mealtime- they aren’t as picky!
Plan: I will take Roxy off self-feeding and feed twice a day with a mix of wet and dry.
I will also play before mealtime to activate digestion.
This is a 6 week challenge, so check back and see how she’s doing!
This is Roxy EVERYTIME I go in the kitchen…
