? Baco update, weight loss still a problem, need help!

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JeffJ said:
Holy smokes! Baco joins Leo in the laziness of the month club. Very cute though.

I think Baco exerted a whole 2 or 3 calories there. What an effort! Ruby - you are probably getting more exercise than Baco. On the positive side, Baco looks incredibly fluffy and soft.
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Hahaha Funny ! Well yes, really like 2 or 3 calories ;) i will go an weigh her now see if that 'playing' yesterday helped her lose some weight again!
Baco is indeed fluffy !
 
So she gained again this morning some weight but not that much as you can see.
I do think the playing is a real good effect on her weight loss. See here her weight loss:

8/21 7.03KG 15.47LBS
8/22 6.95KG 15.29LBS
8/23 7.01KG 15.42LBS

So I think it has more effect on her, she does go up and down during the week but that’s of course because she eats, and then needs to do a #2 hihi :rolleyes:.
So I’m confident this new routine of playing 20 minutes (minimum) a day will help her lose the weight.
 
All those small losses will add up over time. Like humans, losing slowly is probably better for her. The video is very funny and she's so much like many cats - rest and relaxation is at the top of their list of things to do each day. Stick with the program!
 
JeffJ said:
I think Baco exerted a whole 2 or 3 calories there. What an effort! Ruby - you are probably getting more exercise than Baco
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When I was trying to get BOB to exercise and he did the same thing, I took advantage of the time spent and I did lunges as I threw the toy into him. I did this down in the basement so no one could see me. LOL Then I the idea of making an "Exercise With Your Feline " CD but figured there probably wasn't much of a market for it.
 
That is the funniest think Bobbie, hahaha "Exercise With Your Feline " CD! :joyful::joyful:
Well did you manage to get Bubba to exercise? We are on day 2 and nothing has changed yet in the way she wants to play.
When I will come home today I will let her go into the garden because it's beautiful weather this week here in The Netherlands. (77F)
So and after that, it's dinner time and then after dinner I will play with her again!
 
Ruby&Baco said:
That is the funniest think Bobbie, hahaha "Exercise With Your Feline " CD! :joyful::joyful:
Well did you manage to get Bubba to exercise? We are on day 2 and nothing has changed yet in the way she wants to play.
When I will come home today I will let her go into the garden because it's beautiful weather this week here in The Netherlands. (77F)
So and after that, it's dinner time and then after dinner I will play with her again!
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The only exercise BOB got when he was house bound was leaping up the stairs to eat, true story.....
 
Ok well Baco, aka miss diva decided today that she didn't want to play (so this is a new one were I don't know how I should handle this) I tried everything just now, for 20 minutes but she even hissed at me when I touched her to get up:nailbiting: sooooo after that hiss I decided that it was over.... Wtf is wrong with her todayo_O
 
Ruby&Baco said:
Ok well Baco, aka miss diva decided today that she didn't want to play (so this is a new one were I don't know how I should handle this) I tried everything just now, for 20 minutes but she even hissed at me when I touched her to get up:nailbiting: sooooo after that hiss I decided that it was over.... Wtf is wrong with her todayo_O
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Oh deary me, maybe she's cottoned onto this exercise regime! Lol I'd leave her then try again in a little bit or try a new tactic?
 
Aaaahh ... now we need to address cat psychology. She's sensing that she's not in charge of her activity level and, unlike most dogs, cats are NOT people pleasers. She needs a method whereby she thinks that moving around is her idea, not yours. Easier said than done I know. You have her very best interests at heart but all she's seeing is her !@#&*!! human forcing her to move. I agree with your idea of leaving her alone for a while and trying later. Would it help to try in a different spot - eg. on the bed instead of on the floor?
 
I just read a comment online from the owner of a fat cat. That person moves the cat's bowl from place to place during its meal so the cat has to move to finish eating. The person moves the bowl to a different room or from the floor up onto a chair, etc. If Baco is a really keen eater, this might be something to try. Is she a cat that is very territorial about her food bowl when she eats - ie., would she growl or scratch you if you tried to take it?
 
Kris & Teasel said:
I just read a comment online from the owner of a fat cat. That person moves the cat's bowl from place to place during its meal so the cat has to move to finish eating. The person moves the bowl to a different room or from the floor up onto a chair, etc. If Baco is a really keen eater, this might be something to try. Is she a cat that is very territorial about her food bowl when she eats - ie., would she growl or scratch you if you tried to take it?
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No she won't so I will try that. I do that with every bite she takes?
 
No my house is really small so the best place to play is on the floor were she has the room to play you know.
I really love how you are helping me Kris! You are so right about cat psychology, it's so true!
 
Ruby&Baco said:
No she won't so I will try that. I do that with every bite she takes?
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The comment I read didn't say. I think it would depend on the quantity of food in her bowl and how fast an eater she is. You might have to experiment. Do you feed her as set meals at set times or is she a free feeder? I think it would be easier if it was set meals because she'd be waiting for it and just thinking about her food. That's good motivation! If she's a real keen eater, she would at least walk fast to where you take her bowl. Can she jump onto a low table like a coffee table? That would give her exercise too. Once she's slimmer, maybe you could make her jump up onto a counter in your kitchen. I realize that not everyone likes the idea of cats up there.
 
She is such a wh*re for food so she does everything for it! Hhahaha! And yes she can jump en stuff like that, she doesn't want to, but I think for food she will.
She gets little meals 4 times a day, 2times are when i'm not home (work or in the middle of the night) but the other 2times is in the morning and beginning evening so I can try that then! Try it for 5 minutes or so. See if that helps.
Thank you so much Kris!
 
I'm glad I've given you an idea for a starting point, Ruby. Who knows? Maybe this will be helpful. If she goes for it, later on in her training, you could try closing her in the bathroom, say, while you put tiny (the more the better) portions of her breakfast/supper in many places around your studio when she can't see you do it. Then let her out and she has to go hunt for her meal. You might have to build up to this. This is modelled on what I used to do with mine when I made them hunt for kibble treats.
 
Thats really clever Kris, thank you so much. I love the idea of making her hunt for her food! And I for sure know for a fact that the weight she is 'carying' is also effecting her in her play routine. She needs too lose a bit so she can feel energetic again and wanting to play.
 
@Kris & Teasel omg I did a little 'run for the snack' game and she totally bought it :rolleyes::smuggrin:
I let her see the snack and I said 'come get it' then walked around the house for almost 10 minutes, jumping on chairs, sofa, tv cabinet, throwing it but then I would be there quicker to grab it before she did. But men oh men did she work out! And all that for one snack!
Hahahaha well nice to know that this works, although I already knew because she's a slave for food!;)
 
:joyful::joyful::joyful::joyful: Hurray Ruby!! Was this with freeze dried treats or little bits of her regular food? Now you have something you can work with and change to suit the food, etc. And you got your exercise too!
 
Yes it is freeze dried, she doesn't get any other than raw food and somethimes does treats!

Well I already got my exercise yesterday, did dome kickboxing so I'm reallt having muscle pains already haha so this wasn't a nice exercise for me to do with Baco, I really hated it but oh well, hopefully she loses the weight!
 
Ruby, don't despair over difficulties you're having with Baco's weight.
I think they are like us - thin and too chabby for no detectable reason.
With people calorie restriction does not really work long term as body tries to compensate and slows down metabolism. I'm not really sure how cat's metabolism works and whether we can apply the same rules as to people. And even with people we don't know why something works for one person and does not for another!
I'm struggling with Rocky's weight as well. He is 6.3 kg at the moment but I think he would be perfect on 5.7 kg. He lost some weight since July 19th due to reducing frequency and amount of food so he went from 6.68 to 6.3.
The lowest he has been in recent years was 6.2.
As you know he is on ketogenic diet at the moment, I might still just ever so slightly reduce his portions.
The problem with Rocky is he does not want to move because he is in pain from arthritis but I still try to exercise him as much as he would tolerate. He sleeps all day in the garden because it is so hot! Being occupied with other health problems I have with him I sort of put arthritis problem away for now but I'm going to start doing something about it a.s.a.p.
So, going back to Baco, do you think she might have some health problem which makes her "lazy"? I don't apply "lazy" to anybody because I think it is not fair as I think if a person or a cat does not want to do anything (does not want to enjoy life) might be due to an underlying condition either physical or mental. I'm a bit careful about it as I have a close person who is very up and going and does not understand other people's issues and labels everybody "lazy" hence my attitude to it.
So if Baco does not do much (and Rocky) it will be very difficult to slim her down. I agree with Carol that feeding different amounts on different days might be helpful since Baco is not on insulin and we have no worries about that. There is this method with people (again, I don't know if applying it to cats is the right thing to do) which suggest that to boost our metabolism you could reduce calories for few days then have a feast alternating amount of food so body has to work harder and does not think you're starving on low calories days. Actually I think it should be beneficial to cats as in the wild they would not eat the same amount of calories every day, on some days they would starve until next meal when they catch a prey.
I'm going to try that with Rocky if he stays off insulin (wish us luck:p).
Let me know what your thoughts on this are.
:)
 
Well she lost weight again today (woehoe):cat: due to my new tactic off her running for a treat.:rolleyes:
Yesterday I posted here that she didn’t want to play. Then Kris explained to me that Baco is now well aware of the fact that she is not in charge of exercise , but that I am, so that it’s psychological right now for her. So I let her be for 2 hours and then Kris came up with the ‘treat game’ so I know she’s crazy for those dry freezed treats and I grabbed on and walked around my studio with her, trying to let her jump onto the chairs and the table, sofa, stuff like that for almost 10 minutes and then gave her her treat. She did not like the fact she needed to exercise for it but she did like the treat after the exercise! Well all that for 1 treat…
So she did lose weight today and I figured that a visit to the litter box (#2) is a real heavy one I guess.. So this morning I put her on the scale and her weight was 7.06KG(15.53LBS) and I was like, you’re kidding me right? Exercising doesn’t get weight on but it should keep the weight OFF. But after her weighing moment I gave her some food but she decided to go to the litter box and after she had done her ‘business’ I thought well let me check how much this would take of her original weight from this morning. So she went onto the scale and it was 6.99KG (15.38LBS) So that ‘business’ did weigh 0.07kg (0.15LBS) WOOOOOWWWW heavy business guys haha! :p

And this morning she decided, on her own, that I had some time before leaving for work to play with her! so I of course did that because I was like "what's going on? you want to play out off the blue?" So I played with her for almost 10 minutes.
Hopefully she wants to play tonight again for like 10 or 20 minutes.
 
This is great Ruby! I hope that Baco will let you build it into her routine. It might be good to do some treat "chasing" when she's hungry for her meal so that she's extra motivated - another tool to keep in your back pocket. Doing some training when they're very receptive (hungry) should make it stick better. And if she's receptive and motivated, then chasing a treat is HER idea.
 
Yes well she is hungry before dinner time so I will do that when I come home today haha. Again some extra exercise today. How great would it be to build it up to 30 minutes a day without any fuzz from her side??
 
Ok guys, i need some help here. I just picked up anti flee medicin for Baco and Minnie. I could force Minnie to eat it directly in his mouth... Baco on the other hand (aka diva) spit it out a couple of times, then I put it trew the food Minnie gets because she goes crazy for it, but even that spoon of Minnie's food with the crushed pil in it she won't eat. Before she got diabetic I would just let her 'starve' until she ate it, and I'm wanting to do that again tonight but well because she's on a strickt diet and stuff, is this a problem? Not giving her her raw food but just watch this battle go on untill she eats it? The pil is expensive so I don't want to waste it you know? It's €10 and only works for 4 weeks.
 
Hi Ruby,
Have you ever tried a pill popper plunger (don't know the correct name)? It's like a long (about 15 cm) narrow plastic syringe cylinder with a soft rubber tube end that has a slit in it so you can fit a pill there and the sides of the rubber tube will grip the pill. You pry open the cat's jaws with one hand, put the syringe's rubber tube containing the pill near the back of the tongue using your other hand, then push the plunger on the syringe quickly to shoot the pill down her throat. I buy these at my vet's office and find them useful. Some people are very skilled at popping the pill on the back of the cat's tongue with a finger. I'm not one of them. And it depends on the cat too ...

Here's a link to show you what I mean:
https://www.amazon.com/Mikki-Pill-Gun/dp/B0002AL6U6
 
No I don't have them, the vet does indeed. but you know what it is... She is batteling me to eat the food with the pill in it soooo we see who will hold out the longest..... She ate like 1/4 but then 10 minutes later vomits everything out.. She really hates pills so it's always a real struggle but I will keep that in mind the next time I go to the vets to buy those pill poppers. The vet has done the most pills already for her because I just brought her in to the vets and then she did it for me. But she didn't have time today so I decided to do it myself,, well that was a real failure:rolleyes::banghead:
Well like I said, she isn't going to win this battle. It's for her own good you know, she needs to get the pill in because she has to be protected for flees.
 
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:/ don't fancy that! Lol hate worming tablets it's a struggle I'm thinking the all in one flea & worming drops are the way to go back of the neck and it's done. No fuss! x
 
OMG, Baco is still not eating the DIVA that she is.. But she just climed the couch and is seeking for my attention...
Trying to lie down on my laptop so I can't type, or just meowing really loud... She wants food alright..... but i'm not giving in! She needs to eat that food with the pill in it!
 
Fleas: if she doesn't have them, maybe she doesn't need the medicine. I agree with Kris, the pill popper is a good method.

Weight: sounds like progress. Now that the diva is OTJ, maybe you could make a new column in your spreadsheet and track weight. You could also graph it over time. I made some graphs for Leo on his second tab. They are easy in google sheets...well easy for tech geeks like me anyhow.
 
Well she doesn't have them but has an allergy for them, also my other cat Minnie has that. So I need to give them both those pills because if they do get bitten then they develope a real bad itch for like 3 months. So the vet wanted me to keep giving the pills to them because they both are not getting prednison anymore for that itch (because that's the main reason Baco developed diabetes) so in this case I need to be pro active about the flees..
Update, Baco ate everything FINALLY! Haha
@JeffJ I keep track of her weightloss, check tab 3 or 4 (don't know if you work with KG or LBS) but I will make some graphs. I'm one of those 'geeks' haha I have to work with excel at work all the time making analyses and stuff like that so I will make it for Baco as wel. Thanks for the tip!
 
Oh, that's good. You already have the raw data for the graphs.

Google sheets is odd. When you edit the sheet, the tabs are on the bottom. When you share the sheet, the tabs are on the top. I update Leo's graphs every couple of days. I don't know how to make the graphs auto include new rows of data.
 
yes I know,google sheets works different indeed, I already noticed that but haven't found the time yet to dig deeper into 'how it works' and get graphs and stuff like that... So I will maybe this weekend or next week look into that.
I think you should be able to auto include new data into the graphs (that is how it does work in excel, just add data and the graphs should update by itself) But I will have a look at it and if I find it I will let you know how it works!
 
@JeffJ I was curious to check it out and I did make some graphs now. Check it out (the tab is calles graphs) but I only made it for now in KG instead of LBS.
I figured out how to add data and that the graphs update it automatically.
You just need to select the data you want, but instead of selecting the rows, select the whole column. So everytime you add something it will automatically update. (it works the same in excel)
 
Thanks for the tip on how to auto-update the graphs. I'll fix mine.

Your graphs look real good Ruby. In fact they are all lined up, and neat looking. I didn't know I had competition. I'm going to have to line mine up too now. :D
 
You're welcome @JeffJ . :):bighug:
haha I guess you definitely have some competition?! Well we don’t see it that way, or do we?
I can help you out with those things if you need me too. I’ve got a lot of excel knowledge because I’ve been working with it for over 6 years and like I said need to make a lot of analyses for my job. I work as a supply chain coordinator so I need to make a lot of forecast models and analyses with a lot of data.. Well then you will learn quickly and the ‘hard’ way to use all the tools you get in Excel. And you know what? You will ‘think’ you know everything about Excel, but I don’t even know 50% of what is possible with Excel haha. I learn everyday new things about it.
 
It's a friendly competition. I'll figure it out. I'm a computer guy, and work in security audits and data center security. I see the charts as a good tool to track trends. Easier than looking at the daily data in a spreadsheet.
 
Hi Ruby,
How is Baco's weight loss going? Is she still keen to run after a treat for you? I was telling a friend about your funny cat and she said maybe you could try putting a freeze dried treat into something that lets its smell through (a piece of thin fabric?) and tie that to one of Baco's "fishing rod" toys, Then you could get her to run after it or even jump for it without wearing yourself out. Just an idea....
 
Hi Ruby I have see you are struggling with Baco's weight. My kitty Fritz is also struggling big time with his weight..... He was 28lbs at DX lost 3 pounds when we first started Prozinc. He eats 234 to 250 calories a day raw Rabbit, Venison or Quail all lean meats. It is so frustrating and I have lost so much sleep and stress over his weight. This has been going on what seems like forever.
I just read about weight gain on insulin. I am leaning towards believing this as I have been doing everything I can to get his weight to budge.:banghead::banghead::banghead:
Fritz has gotten so bad it is major effort just to move around. I have tried to play with him with every toy under the sun, leash walks, free walks out doors he walks a few steps and lays down. I even put freeze dried chicken treats in a food ball for him to roll around the RV.
I do weight him weekly :blackeye: up a tiny bit down even a tiny bit less.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
Hi Ruby,
How is Baco's weight loss going? Is she still keen to run after a treat for you? I was telling a friend about your funny cat and she said maybe you could try putting a freeze dried treat into something that lets its smell through (a piece of thin fabric?) and tie that to one of Baco's "fishing rod" toys, Then you could get her to run after it or even jump for it without wearing yourself out. Just an idea....
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Hi Kris, thanks for asking! She is doing fabulous! She's at 6.92KG (15.22lbs) today! Sooooo great because if you check her weight loss in the SS you can see she has been under the 7KG mostely! soooo great, the decrease in calories really did the trick and also playing with her is the key to her weightloss!
OMG Kris that is the best idea ever! so funny you told your friend about Baco's diva behaviour, haha:rolleyes::smuggrin:
I'm going to try is, need to figure out how to tie it to the fishing rod toy...
 
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