Dr. Poon's diet for cats?

Five pounds of fat GONE.  Just like that.  I saw Dr. Stephen for my weigh-in this afternoon, and am happy to report that my weight keeps going down, down, down.  My weight-loss isn't as quick as some people who are on the same diet, but I'm okay with that.  I think an average of 10 pounds of weight-loss per month is still really good, and I don't think I should be losing more than that in a month.  So this now brings my total pounds lost to 36.

I'm looking at my very fat cat (Smitty) and wondering why, if she is on a high protein, low carb diet like myself, she isn't thin.  Then I take the time to read the label of her kitty kibble and discover that the first ingredient is chicken and the next three ingredients are ground yellow corn, wheat flour and ground wheat.  So actually, Smitty's cat food is very high carb and would not be Dr. Poon approved.  Poor Smitten, she has no chance of losing weight now. She in fact has several barriers to losing weight.

1. Smitty has no access to a supportive weight-loss community (ie: Weight Watchers geared towards cats).
2. Smitty is advanced in years and at 9 years old, is considered a senior cat. It's always harder for the elderly to lose weight due to lack of mobility.
3. Smitty has no other food options other than her kibble and the occasional treat.  She's a very finicky eater and refuses to deviate from her regular eating routine.
4. Smitty has the added pressure of the younger cat "Baby" in the house.  Baby can eat whatever she wants and stay as slim as a supermodel.  The constant pressure Smitty feels in Baby's  shadow, causes her to binge eat when she's feeling depressed.  If Smitty had her way, she would put Baby in the corner. Permanently!
5. Smitty's biggest barrier to losing weight is that she's an emotional eater and she's also a VERY nervous cat.  Everything, and I mean everything makes her anxious, scared, angry, sad, happy, mean, mean, mean.

Well, regardless of Smitty's weight, her meanness, and her peculiarities, we still love her.  But we don't love her enough to fork out more money for a higher quality cat food.  Let's face it. All she does is eat and sleep.  She barely even catches mice anymore because the mice are way faster than her and, quite frankly, can be quite cruel in the way they tease her.  So poor Smitty will have to remain our "Fatty Arbuckle" until she has passed onto kitty Heaven.  Just to give you an idea what I'm talking about, here's a photo of Smitty and a neighbourhood slug.  Measures have been taken to protect their identities.  The slug is pretty fat and could stand to lose a few grams as well.

Alright, so back to me.  This week has been an interesting one, food wise.  For some unfathomable reason, I felt an unnatural urge to make banana bread, knowing I could not eat any.  I left a loaf for my husband and brother-in-law to eat, and gave another loaf to my co-worker.  Now this reeks a little of sadomasochism again.  I'm not sure why I did it, but even worse, enjoyed doing it.

At work we had a cultural potluck lunch.  One would think that someone who is making a strict lifestyle change should stay away from such events.  Not only did I attend for a bit, but I even contributed a dish I could not eat.  Perogy Casserole http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/easy-pierogi-casserole-126267.aspx . Be warned, it is extremely delicious, and very bad for you.  It was a hit and I had to leave the event to go and buy a Poon approved lunch of grilled chicken and vegetables.  It was yummy too though.

As I sat around with my co-workers and watched them eat all the foods I previously loved like pastas, curry chicken with roti, patties, samosa's, butter chicken etc., I thought about a time in my life where it really would have bothered me to be around so much food that I shouldn't eat and not be tempted.  Funny thing is, I wasn't bothered in the least.  I just kept my goal in mind and thought about the reasons why I'm doing this.  First and foremost, for my son.

Those of you that are parents know what is is to love your children more than you love yourself.  We all say we would die for our kids and although that may be true, I want to live for my son.  I want to be around to see everything that happens in his life.  I want to see him graduate from high school, graduate from university, fall in love, get married and hopefully one day give me grand kids.  Not only do I want to be a fit mom, but I want to be a happening grandma too.  I know enough about obesity now to know that if I continued to live the way I was, I could die at a young age of a heart attack, stroke, or worse.  The odds are stacked against me and I am determined to not be another statistic.