Thursday, July 20, 2017

Cheat day

I slept OK last night and got up at 5 AM.  I took a shower and fed the cats. 

However, I did not feed the dry food.  Normally I feed dry + wet but today I only fed the wet.  I will only feed the dry at night, 1/3 cup, as a special treat along with their wet food. 

Biscuit is just huge, I have to do something to get his weight down.  I don't want him getting diabetic or sick.  I don't want him so fat he can't clean his butt, that is just a nasty look.  Especially since he has mostly white fur. 

He wasn't happy with it but he's the only one complaining, so I think I'm doing the right thing.  I will be feeding him dinner in about 45 minutes. 

Well, 37 now. 

So, we went to work.  Ron understands he will have to do the heavy lifting for a while and he is OK with that.  He briefly got a little ugly with me but not about that. 

I stocked everything.  I think I hurt my shoulder with an overuse injury.  Pulling out the vending machine trays really sucked.  It was like I was getting stabbed in the shoulder.  No fun at all.  Lifting my arm to fill the coils wasn't a lot of fun either.  But I got it done. 

I did not take a painkiller before work, I wanted to remind myself to take it easy. 

That worked OK.  We got everything stocked.  We took the money out of the machines and I counted it (happily that did not hurt my shoulder).  I put it into $100 packs and put it in the backpack.  We had to pay sales tax today (I did that first thing when we got to work) so we had to have some ca$h for that. 

After work, we went to the bank.  We deposited what we needed for sales tax.  Ron got a little confused during the transaction and lost his temper, but we got through it.  Finally done. 

Paratransit was going to leave us there for another hour. 

Now, paratransit allows you 5 late cancellations, or same day changes (a combination) a month.  More than that, you get penalties and can lose your service for a while.  Ron called to see how many "bad marks" he had.  One. 

He called Lou the cab driver, who was right around the corner.  We cancelled our pickup from the bank and went with Lou instead.  We went to Starbucks. 

Actually, they have a burger place, a Kolache factory, a Subway, and a Starbucks all in one strip mall.  Everyone's happy going there. 

I was pretty hungry and decided to get a burger, no fries.  Yes, I ate the bun.  I decided to call today one of my (no more than once a week) cheat days.  Then we went to Subway and got Ron is beloved "Meatball".  He likes to have onions on it before it goes in the toaster.  I always remind them. 

Then Ron went to Starbucks.  I got a hot chocolate, but no pastry.  See, I am trying to behave on my cheat day. 

I went to the pet store and saw Buddy was still up for adoption, along with some really cute black cats.  I love black cats.  Give me a nice, fat, old black cat to sleep by my head at night (for some reason, Torbie didn't want to sleep with me after I took her to the vet [grin]). 

I looked around a little and got Ron some cat treats.  When I walked past the adoption cats, one of them saw the treats in my hand and started begging.  Sadly, they are locked up behind Plexiglas so I couldn't have given her any.  I thought it was cute she knew treats.  I felt bad for her, her owner died.  One cat whose owner died is 7 years old.  He is going to have a hard time getting adopted.  Poor thing.  At least he is tabby and white, and not black. 

I like black cats but many don't, and many won't adopt a black cat due to stupid superstition.  I remember reading once that black cats were considered lucky in France.  I have a lot of French readers.  Maybe one of you could confirm that for me. 

I went back to Ron.  He wanted to go to the Kolache factory.  So we did.  He got one.  He really liked it.  It was very buttery and flavorful.  I got a soda. 

The manager was "cool" with us waiting.  He understands we are dependent on public transit. 

Ron got a bizarre, unintelligible, phone call about his wheelchair from paratransit dispatch.  He called them back.  The driver who was going to pick us up had a no-room situation.  Could they send someone else, early?  Ron said sure. 

Anthony showed up a little later.  He is very nice, I like him a lot.  We chatted all the way home. 

I took Ron in the house.  I had a little toilet issue after I got home, a good purge, we'll say.  I don't know what caused that but I am eating a lot more vegetables than usual.  It finally finished. 

I let Ron use it and then I went to bed.  I took a couple aspirin and took a pretty good nap.  I woke up and my leg nerve was a little numb from sleeping on my back, but otherwise fine.  It went away when I got up. 

My shoulder feels better when I get up in bed.  When this all first started, when I put my weight on my elbow/shoulder it felt like I was being stabbed.  The pain was literally at a 7 or an 8 on a 1-10 scale.  Now it doesn't hurt unless I reach over to the side while I am leaning on my elbow. 

Ron called our doctor's practice.  Doc is out of town for a couple of weeks.  I hope he has fun. 

In the meantime, my shoulder is pretty bad and Ron needs more Neurontin.  Since our doc never prescribed the Neurontin, they don't want to "refill" something they never administered in the first place.  Understandable, but that means Ron has to go in and see a doctor to prescribe the Neurontin, so he is not in excruciating pain like he was a couple weeks ago.  Ron said he has about 15 left, so he is OK for now. 

However, he does need to get more pronto.  So Ron set it up that we will see the same doctor, one after the other, on Tuesday.  It will be interesting to see how that one works. 

I got up and checked the internet.  I basically let out my shoulder problem to Facebook and one message board.  I can use prayer on this. 

For dinner, I have a couple of kolaches (I told you today was my cheat day).  I can eat those with my medication, I've done that before.  It works. 

Tomorrow we just go to Walmart.  I'm going to get some ginger root, which is anti-inflammatory, and some more 8-hour Tylenol.  Also some more stretchy bands (for exercise) because Biscuit attacked the one the rehab hospital gave Ron, putting some holes in one end.  I guess he thought I was playing with him. 

That's one thing I intend to do everyday, my shoulder exercises.  My shoulder liked just plain shoulder circles, like you do in gym class.  I am always glad to find things that are helping me feel better. 

Anyway, that's it for now.  Tomorrow it's back on the paleo bandwagon.  I think one thing that slowed me down with Atkins before was the all or nothing mindset. 

Yes, a cheat now and then will slow my progress but it will keep me eating healthy 95% of the time.  That can only help. 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are trying to get biscuit to lose weight I don't think it is fair that he gets fed with the other cats. How are you going to know how much he is eating? 2 cans of wet food for 3 cats does not seem like very much food and now no dry food? I would be upset if I was biscuit too. Ron is more than likely creating the obesity problem with all the treats he feeds the cats. A pathetic egotistical little man and now poor biscuit has to suffer. I am horrified at your feeding of the cats especially biscuit the poor little guy (big guy). You and Ron need to get it together with the cats and be on the same page and if Ron won't control the excessive treat he is feeding the cats then he shouldn't be allowed to dispense treats. As he hurts himself with alcohol he is hurting the cats with the treats.

Heather Knits said...

I told the vet what I was feeding, she's the one who said to cut the dry food in half. Per her own words: the companies try to tell you to feed a lot more than the cat actually needs. I always, ALWAYS have leftover wet food, generally half the can, twice a day, so there is plenty to eat.

So, they still get 1/3 of a cup of dry food at night. The food chain works with Baby Girl eating first, if she is around, then Biscuit, then Torbie.

I have watched Ron treating Biscuit, Biscuit gets 3 treats each time. That is about 6 calories, maybe 3 times a day. Biscuit gets pukey if he gets too many treats so Ron has learned to keep the level down.

He feeds the girls a lot more treats but they are at a better weight so I don't worry about it. They are still eating real food.

Vet also wants Torbie to lose a pound and get down to 11 pounds, so it's not just for Biscuit.

I will go out of my way to get some recent photos of the cats, but remember "poor" Biscuit is 16 pounds, Torbie is 12.5, and Baby Girl is 11. Baby Girl eats the most food out of the bowl and she is the slimmest. She also eats about 5 treats maybe 3 times a day from Ron.

I would never starve my cats but I want them to be healthy. High body fat leads to diabetes, arthritis, etc. I don't want that.

Spankadoo said...

I am thinking the previous comment is so harsh it made me forget what I was going to say !
Be well Heather you are doing an amazing job at caring for kitties no one else wanted fat or not they are in a better place than where you found them regardless of other peoples opinions.

Anonymous said...

Aint nothing but the truth in it spankeroo.