Posts tagged "weight loss"

You think you're the only one who has holiday weight gain to work off? No way, homey. Just like you, this pigeon has a New Year's resolution to lose a few extra pounds. Unfortunately, there aren't any avian-catering Gold's Gyms or Bally Total Fitnesses. Good thing this bird can improvise.

As Americans struggle to keep our waistlines in check, it's no real surprise that our unhealthy lifestyles have been weighing down our pets as well. In fact, a new study has found that American dogs and cats are facing an obesity epidemic much like our own!

According to a study conducted by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, more than half of U.S. pets are now considered overweight or worse. A full 20 percent of dogs and 20 percent of cats are now considered obese, meaning they're 30 percent above their normal weights, the Wall Street Journal reports. But veterinarians and owners are tackling this problem with new diets, pet weight management software and more.

Underworked and Overfed
It's a sad fact, but our pets are logging more hours on the couch and getting less exercise than ever before. And with the country suffering from bad weather this winter, pets had even less opportunity to exercise.

But one of the major issues, according to the Wall Street Journal, has to do with owners who routinely overfeed their pets -- and not just table scraps. As many pet owners have discovered, it's not always easy to determine how much to feed their pets each day.

That's in part due to the fact that most pet food manufacturers don't list caloric information on their packaging. "Just 10 extra kibbles of a typical dry cat food could add up to one pound of weight gain annually," APOP founder Dr. Ernie Ward tells the Wall Street Journal.

We want to be the best pet owners we can be, and there's no better time to reflect on how to be a better pet owner than right now, at the beginning of a new year. Have you made resolutions for 2011 regarding your pet? Are you following any of the tips that Victoria Stilwell shared with Paw Nation last week?

Lots of our Facebook fans offered up their resolutions, which gave us a good start on our list. The most popular goals mentioned:

-- Take better care of my pet's teeth.

-- Pay more attention to my pets -- turn off the computer, ignore the BlackBerry and give my pet some love.

-- Get active with my pet, either by committing to more walks or just working toward a doggie or kitty weight-loss goal.

-- Be better about grooming pets regularly.

-- Do more obedience training, either at home or through a class like the Canine Good Citizen program.

Tell us Paw Nation, what are your goals for being a better pet parent in 2011? Share your plans in the comments below.

When "The Biggest Loser" host and "Days of Our Lives" star Alison Sweeney's 5-year-old Boston terrier, Winky, started to slow down, she knew is wasn't just her pet's age catching up to her.

"Winky has a huge personality and is a ton of fun to be with," Sweeney says. "She started slowing down and wasn't as high energy as she used to be. We knew something was up."

A Trip to the Vet
That something was Winky's weight. After visiting the vet, Sweeney and her son, Ben, learned that Winky needed to lose several pounds to return to her energetic self. Knowledgeable about what it takes to lose weight from her time hosting "The Biggest Loser," Sweeney and her husband, Dave Sanov, immediately got Winky on a weight-loss plan.

"We really looked at it as 'The Biggest Loser,' " she says. "We started pushing her and going farther and faster. Now the whole family goes on hikes together."

The family also makes sure Winky gets plenty of walks and regular exercise with interactive games, playing fetch and running around the family's backyard.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight. Catch up on past posts here.

Yes, yes, it's been a while since you last heard from the fat cats. They've been busy. As you can see, they've relocated to Las Vegas. One cross-country drive and some unpacking later, they are settling into their new routine.

Both cats have now lost three pounds each. I chalk it up to having more room in their Vegas apartment to play, plus marble floors that make toys extra hard to pin down. The commute from the bed to the food bowl is much farther here, so they naturally burn more calories. There's even talk of them soon having their own yard in which to play. (I, on the other hand, have found all six of those missing pounds since moving here, but that's a story for a different blog.)

A vet we saw in Topeka was actually worried that Tino had lost too much weight too quickly, so she upped his daily dose of insulin. A follow-up in Vegas revealed that he's maintaining nicely.

DeeDee and Tino have pretty much stuck to their two-cans-of-food-per-day regimen, but lately I've been giving in and serving them dry food when they wake me up for it in the middle of the night. To combat the extra calories, their dinner can has been downsized to one of the three-ouncers split between them.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight. Catch up on past posts here.

I've learned a lot since putting my cats on a diet. First off, I now know just how easy it is to get an animal to diet (provided you don't mind their 3 a.m. renewed bursts of energy). But I'm also finding out there's a lot of great info out there. Between my own searches and e-mails from friends who've been following the saga, I've got a whole little library going.

A coworker forwarded this article about how to gauge proper portions for your pet. Since many pet food bags recommend a ratio based on the animal's current weight, your pets can get too much food. It's better to feed them the correct amount for their ideal weight.

My friend Laurie and her cat Mr. Scrubby sent me an article about National Pet Obesity Awareness Day (it was last month, but you can still send me an e-card if you find one appropriate). This article has tips on easy ways to help your big babies burn more calories.

One of my favorite resources is still this article from Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine that shows how to tell if a cat's overweight just by its silhouette. (Tino used to be a 4, I swear.)

PetFit.com has a human-to-animal weight calculator that shows you just how un-funny animal obesity is. My cats may be "only" five pounds overweight, but that's the equivalent of an extra 53 pounds on me. I guarantee I would not find that very adorable.

So far, however, I have yet to read about a reliable way to weigh my cats. Any suggestions? I knew my bathroom scale wasn't exact since I can vary by as much as two pounds within the same minute, but today it said that DeeDee had dropped three pounds since last week. Ah well, we'll chalk it up as a win and see what happens next week.

Have you seen good info on overweight animals? Leave the URL in the comments for everyone to appreciate!

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight.

Previously on DeeDee and Tino's Weight Loss Blog, the vet informed me that I was feeding my fat cats too much. Like, way too much. I was advised to dole out two 5.5-ounce cans of wet food each day instead of just a single can plus the 16 ounces of kibble I was allowing my two to graze on all day.

Why 16 ounces of kibble? With an unpredictable schedule, I worried that if DeeDee and Tino didn't have access to food when I was out they'd grow hungry, hurt and distrustful. You've seen these two patheitc creatures -- haven't they been through enough in their lives?

But my vet assured me that the cats would be fine -- the extra protein from the canned cat food would sate them, and the weight would melt off. She even said it was possible Tino's diabetes could reverse itself. With that said, I started the diet ASAP.

The first week of the new diet, I stayed out late one night. I felt guilty and came home dreading what I would find. I pictured the cat equivalent of a Save the Children commercial, with Sally Struthers imploring me to spare 80 cents a day to help the poor emaciated pets inside. Or perhaps they'd cried so loudly that my neighbors had called the "Animal Precinct" on me, who'd be poised outside with elephant guns drawn (that's what kind of weapons animal control officers carry, right?).

Imagine my shock when I walked into my apartment and discovered... nothing. The cats were fast asleep. Not only were they not howling to be fed, they still had some wet food left from their morning feeding. It turns out that sleeping 22 hours a day isn't as metabolically taxing as I'd thought.

This week I learned that my cats don't actually require non-stop food in order to feel cared for; I was projecting my own fear of going three hours without food onto them. Who could have imagined that their diet would result in my Dr. Phil moment? And while I still don't entirely trust the numbers on my bathroom scale, they seem to have started to lose weight.

Who's the biggest loser? Who's the biggest loser? Yes you are! Yes you are!

Ahem. Sorry. Being that we all find obscenely overweight pets to be obscenely cute, it can be hard to admit that it's really not that healthy for a cat to weigh as much as a toddler. One organization, however, is taking a stand to educate people on the risks to hefty pets and what you can do to help your furry friend stay fit. Ever heard of the show "Celebrity Fit Club"? Well, imagine if all those celebrities were dogs and cats. What do you get? Pet Fit Club, of course.

Pet Fit Club is the brainchild of The People's Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA), a charity in the UK that provides free veterinary services to over 350,000 animals in need. The competition has been running for five years, Elaine Pendelbury, a Senior Veterinary Surgeon at PDSA, tells Paw Nation. "We usually take between eight to ten animals each year."

This year, the contestants are four corpulent cats and five dumpy dogs. Finding them was easy; the PDSA put out applications earlier this year, and it wasn't just restricted to PDSA members. "Anyone who had a pet that was overweight and they feel needed help could apply," Dr. Pendelbury says.