The pain of dieting

The Pain of Dieting

Our brown mackerel Tabby is a tub of love. He is a rescue cat so it actually took him several years before he got to be affectionate. Now he is really needy and wanting some attention all of time (when he is awake). He loves belly rubs and will happily lay on his back on my lap so I can rub his tummy. He is a big boy and I have been trying to put him on a diet for a long time to no avail. Mostly because it is too much work for me. Last month when he was forced to live in a boarding kennel for 3 weeks, I thought it would be a great time to start his diet and instructed the vet and kennel people that he was on a diet and to restrict his intake. This did not happen. In fact, from the look of things, I think they just kept a full bowl of food in his cage at all times. Our tub of love has turned into a tub of lard!

Puff’s (the tabby) has a health risk now. He has already had one incident of a blood clot in his leg and it was a miracle that we were able to save him and he bounced back to health. Now he is overweight by a lot and so I have no choice now but to put him on a diet and enforce it no matter what. We started last night.

The diet hasn’t worked before because I would measure the food and leave it out in the bowls. When he finished his, he would just start on Godiva’s. So now it is measure the food into the bowls, give them each their own bowl and make sure that they only eat from their bowl plus pick up the bowl when they are finished.

They have both been night eaters. Godiva is very fond of eating around 3:30 in the morning and she must have me show her where the bowl is just in case it has magically moved or disappeared since I put it there several hours before. We had it down to a science. I would push her off the bed in the direction of the bowl and she would find it. Then I could fall back asleep quickly. Puff would take note of the action and then just swing by and take a lot of bites and then back on the bed. Now I have to get up, take their bowls out of the drawer (the only place in the hotel room I could find to put them so they couldn’t jump up on the counter and help themselves), put the bowls on the floor and wait for them to eat. As I am not good at falling asleep in a short amount of time, this means by the time they have finished eating, I am wide awake. Today they had me up at 4:51 a.m. and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep.

So the pain of dieting is going to be my pain. It’s going to be the pain of losing a lot of sleep as I re-train two cats (who are 7 ½ years old) that they need to eat during the day, that they need to sleep at night and be quiet, that they will get fed in the morning after the alarm clock rings. I need to get them used to staying with their bowl and leaving the other bowl alone (they always think they other bowl has more interesting food). I think I am in for a lot of pain. First night of the diet meant I had 5 hours of sleep. Both of them are curled up and back asleep although I see Puff is staring at the drawer where the food bowls are. This is not going to be easy. This is going to be painful.