Weight Gain/Loss on the Cavity Healing Diet

It just goes to show that we all react differently to the same diet.

My dog, Molly, and I eat pretty much the same thing: a lacto-paleo, nutrient rich diet that I hope will heal our minor cavities. I've lost one to two pounds, but Molly has gained weight: she's 73 pounds and I had to loosen her collar. Of course, it may be that her owner is simply feeding her too much; even on a low-carb diet, some people and dogs gain weight with too much food. It could also be a thyroid problem, which the vet is checking.

Looking around the web, it seems a 60-pound dog (which I'd like Molly to be) should eat around 1100 to 1200 calories per day. Molly may be eating a little more than that, but she probably needs fewer calories on the diet we follow. Another site recommended about 1.25 pounds of meat per day for a 60-pound dog. (The vet recommended diet dog food to get the calories just right. I didn't ask him if he weighed out his own food and counted calories to avoid going over.) In any event, I will give Molly somewhat less food than I have been and not assume she wants a snack if she bugs me. But if she really does seem to be hungry, I'll give her a small snack. And if she doesn't lose weight, I won't put her on a starvation diet.

Comments

Jan said…

I feed my dog homemade food that consists mostly of beef, chicken and organ meats with a few vegetables and occasionally small amounts of white rice or gluten free oats. He gets the occasional treat of cheese. He is fed well, and often - and still acts as if he's dying of starvation. LOL

April 26, 2011

Lori Miller said…

I'm happy to say that Molly doesn't seem hungry on 1000 calories a day. We'll see if it makes her slimmer and trimmer.

Although if she had the chance, Molly would eat until she threw up, if I ask her if she's hungry, she won't jump up and bark if she isn't.

April 26, 2011

Anonymous said…

My experience (with cats) is that if they have been starved somtimes (longer periods) during their life or have experienced severe competition for food, most of them will eat until the bowl is empty and they don't get any more food (even if begging) - or until they trow up.

But if the animal always has experienced "a full bowl" it will regulate itself. Again - my experience is with cats, and not with "indoor only" cats.

My cats always have food in their bowls. Both are maine coon mix. One is stockish - he is 7kg at winter, 6kg at summer and the oher one (female and smallish) is 4kg and uninterested in food.

July 01, 2011

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here . * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fermented bread and butter pickle recipe ft. L. Plantarum

After Dr. Davis said the other night that L. plantarum may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have L. plantarum bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color. Special equipment Quar...

Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time

"I'd rather hold a girl in my arms than a football." -Joe DeCicco, friend and dancing fanatic Have you heard that it takes a woman 77 hours of exercise to lose a kilogram of fat? (For us Americans, that's half a pound.) That's according to a study cited by Dr. John Briffa .(1) The women who huffed and puffed three hours a week for a year ended up 4.4 pounds lighter than the sedentary women. That doesn't surprise me: my own weight loss involved a lot less exercise than what I'd been doing. I did no cardio workouts, just strength training . I had more time and energy for dancing, which is a stress reliever, helps keep me in shape, and it's a ton of fun. It's not expensive to dance (as long as you stay away from the studios). I've found excellent lessons at clubs where the teachers really care about the students getting it. Here in Denver, there are dancing clubs that are run by nonprofit organizations, where the prices are reasonable and...

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog