RawPetMedics FelineFridays: Fat Cats 2

And that's us.

Hello everyone.

Hey, hello.

It's another month, another month, and we're back in the room. Sun is out, it's just glorious in the UK, and I bet it's just marvelous with you. Amaya, come on, give us an image of where you're at.

You know, do you look out? Actually, it's not a good picture.

You've got a dancing pole in the background.

Yeah, I can give you that. There's a lot of light. There's a— yes, it is, but the mountain is right there. It's not here. Okay, sorry guys, next time.

Next time. Yeah, we want a view. We want you doing live from the veranda, you know, so that we can look at the expanse of blue sea.

Next time I'll do it on the on the beach.

I just simply go there and RPM on the road.

Yes, totally. I will do that next time.

So you can see, just trying to think, when is the next one? Am I in Scotland?

I can be in the garden with the trees, with the forest. I can do the woods.

It's good. It's going to sound awful because I'm sure internet connection there is not going to work as good. But anyway, do you know what?

I think the next one we want to do is actually for the cats, and we should just record local birdsong in the local woods at dawn and then just do an hour of playing it and just let the cats can truly watch us.

I like it, I like it.

I'm just gonna make up those, those noises.

Let's not start with the noises again, people. Amaya, we don't need to see a beautiful shocked cat when you do it. Hi Maggie.

Hello. Yeah, so hi guys. Yeah, well look, this week— this month, sorry, I just get so used to weeklies. This month we're going to be talking about more of the emotional stuff. Last month we went into the science of why our cats are putting weight on with high processed foods. And so if you want to look back to more of that detail, please to do. I'm sure because I'm so old and forgetful, I'll probably repeat some of that just because that's who I am. And you love the science.

And I love the science.

But we promised, Julianne, we promised, we promised, we promised that we would touch more on the stuff for our cats and obesity and the more emotional part of this. Guys, if you want to see some of the information, please do visit us. You know, there's the Patreon page. I'm sure we'll put some of this right under. Nick's been playing with this whilst I was away. If any of you guys were watching Nick on Tuesday, I allowed him to log in. I can't believe it. I absolutely let it go. I allowed him to log in and look what he's done. I've got like minuscule writing.

Now you're regretting that.

I could barely see it.

Yeah, what did he do?

So that's patreon.com/rawpetmedics, uh, lots of information on there. For the price of a cup of tea, you can join us and have a look at that. Um, also, um, you know, if you want to catch up on this live at any time, if you like and follow our page at Raw Pet Medics on Facebook, you will be able to see see us appear in your timeline and catch up at will. So please do like and follow our page as much as you can. Remember, I've put the links to Amaya's page and also to Julianne's, so please do go along and like and follow them too. That would be wonderful. And it's nice to see everybody from around the world because we just associate the UK and Dr. Judy's page over in the States, and of course we've got people from around the world. So hi, Australia! You know, just if you want to quickly stick in where you're calling from, where you're calling in from. That'd be great, um, just to see you guys. Um, there will be any messages if you want to write some questions down, please do. Um, I often pop back on after these lives just to answer some of those. Uh, obviously it's a little hard for me as a fella to actually multitask and try and answer those questions at the same time as talking to these wonderful women, um, that are joining us today. So, uh, please do bear with us. And look, South Africa.

Oh, I was gonna say, yeah, yes, beautiful. One of my clients as well.

Ah, very nice.

There we go, marvelous. So, um, without further ado, um, where do you want to take us, Julianne? Yeah, where's—

so, so you— we— the last session that we did, like you said, if anybody hasn't caught it, hasn't watched it on replay, we talked a lot about the kind of the science behind obesity, what happens in the body, what happens with what you're putting in versus what comes out, and what happens, you know, to get a cat to become obese. And at the end, I, you know, had a bit of a moan and said to these guys, you know, we didn't cover how to support them if you need to reduce their food, you know, how to deal with the emotional side of changes to their diet to reduce their weight. So we managed to— I managed to convince these guys to do a part 2, which is why we're here today. And I really want to talk about, you know, what happens next. So we talked the time before about, you know, you've got a fat cat, the reasons why you've got a fat cat, but then we didn't talk about then what, you know. So the vet said to you, okay, your cat is obese, or looking at the body, um, condition, the body condition score. Thank you. I was thinking management scale. It's not quite right. The body condition score. Um, I need another coffee. You know, if your cat is towards the kind of chunkier end, what happens? Because in my experience with Pickle, the vet said to me, reduce what she's eating, give her less food. That's, that's all he said to me, like, as if like it's just that easy. You know, you just cut out a meal or you just put less in the bowl. You know, I didn't have any advice from him about switching diets or transitioning. So I'd really love to get from you guys, you know, some, some support that we can share with people about that. So, you know, let's take it from the place that, like I said, I've been diagnosed with a fat cat. What would you advise people? So, Amaya, let's start with you. Like, what would you say to someone? These are your next steps, this is how you want to then approach this, almost like this next chapter of your obesity journey with your cat. What would you start with?

Okay, uh, usually as a vet, I would You know, you start with diet and you, you, um, you say, okay, nutrition is a big part of this. Uh, you should go to more, let's say raw. It's not the first thing you could transition to. Not always, at least in cats. So you have to give alternatives to other sorts of foods and make sure that, um, that we switch on a low carbohydrate diet. Right. But with that, said, I mean, there's also another part of this that it's the emotional side that you wanted to talk about. And it is, and it's very important that we understand the cat as, uh, probably as an addict, let's say, right? So the cat, the cat is eating a lot. There's a reason behind that. There is an emotion behind that. And probably it's in the routine. Probably, uh, people will say that the cat doesn't want to play. And of course it won't, you know, the cat is not going to want— I mean, nobody with an overweight, you know, wants to play or wants to run. It is heavy, it is hard, right? And we still look at cats that they are predators and they have to jump and go somewhere and, you know, just play a lot. And so the cat will get tired and simply just look like this. And, um, But the thing is that once they gain weight, there is a process that happens. There is like kind of, they get depressed. I'm using psychological terms to explain something that happens in cats because it's easier for us to understand. So the cat gets depressed and they cannot fulfill their instincts as predators. They cannot grab the prey. They cannot act as they would naturally would. Um, so that becomes a vicious circle. They gain more weight, they eat more, they sleep more, they don't want to play, right? Uh, so one of the most important things for me would be start activating that instinct, even by playing like this, or maybe hiding something like, you know, but just, um, I don't know, a pen under the rug and something that motivates him to, oh, okay, yes, I see something, right? And, uh, and do that at the same time you're transitioning to a new food, to a more appropriate food. Yeah, right. Uh, but you have to keep in mind that that cat in a way feels that the environment becomes more unsafe, so he needs to protect himself. And if you look at it in the psychosomatic way, in humans happens the same thing. Sometimes you do a lot of diets, you do a lot of things, but there's a fear inside that makes you protect yourself from the environment. And this is something we have to consider. If a cat is having all that vicious circle and at the same time, you know, that the environment, he becomes more easy to catch, more easy to be a prey instead of a predator. So the cat feels like the environment is— it's been dangerous. And we need to understand all this cycle to address obesity.

I love the bit where you just said then about, you know, putting a, putting a pen under the blanket because it, for me, it feels like it's like going to the gym for a human, right? You want to lose weight. So you look at your diet, which obviously, you know, Raw Pet Medics, we'll talk a bit more about that in a minute. But you also, you know, we look to bringing in exercise. Now you don't go to the gym and, you know, do 25 minutes on the treadmill running, right? You go there and you lift the tiniest little tiny weight, you know, once or twice, and you build it up slowly. So what I would say, you know, for people with cats, like, if you've been told your cat's obese, you don't have to go straight to like, we've got to get them running around the room. Like you said, Amaya, they're not going to be keen to do that. And also, if they are— talking about the emotional side— depressed and withdrawn and retreating within, because they're shutting down, like you said, because of that predator and prey element, just sometimes putting a pen under a blanket and popping it back out again. If you see that, you know, the pupils dilate, the ears move and their interest sparks, that is the start, right? That is the first time at the gym. And you will get to a point if you consistently engage with them and do that training and behaviour work and playtime, whatever, exercise, whatever you want to call it, you will eventually get to the point where you've got one toys and you're in the front room and they're, you know, playing and engaging. But that's not going to happen when they're carrying all this excess weight if they're also mentally shut down as well.

Exercise— I mean, losing weight has to start here.

Yeah.

You know, and then it becomes, it becomes something you can start doing with food, with everything else, but starts in the mind.

Yeah. Brendan?

I mean, it is the same. Somebody was asking, you know, is this the same for dogs? You know, they have to have that degree of alertness and you know, being with it. There's lots of diseases in dogs which would make it different to cats, and so we're going to leave dogs aside for a moment. We talk enough about those on Tuesdays. So, um, I can see these guys glazing over again. Can you stop talking dog? But I would definitely say there's that element. So there's some big wins that you can make for weight loss in ourselves but also in our cats. And actually, you know, that's getting—

and why are the cats going— yeah, that's neighbors.

So one, stop the cats riding the mopeds, get them to walk down the street.

They should be walking.

You know, stop being so lazy. Firstly, recognizing cats are not humans. Okay, they're not dogs. They're not going to go through that whole thing of a normal 12-hour sleep cycle through the night. Okay, they're going to be wanting to be up at dusk and dawn. Okay, they'll have a sleep cycle through the day. You've got to let them just do their bit, and that's absolutely fine. So we're not going to be provoking them into a little bit of activity around those times is great because that's the natural circadian, that's the natural daily rhythm for a cat. Okay, so activate them at those. So don't poke them at midday when you come home for lunch and expect them to be super active, especially if it's a lovely warm day like it is in the UK right now. You know, they're going to be chilling out or sunbathing, whichever is going on, and that's going to be perfectly natural to what they're doing. Okay, and we're going to do a little special on sunbathing and protecting your cat because squamous cell carcinoma is a thing for cats, and we need to make sure. So watch out on Patreon for a little video on what to do with that. But coming back to this, getting this normal daily rhythm, giving them some activity at those times. Absolutely agree with what Amaya says, you know, do some prey drive stuff just to make sure that they're eating something a little healthier because there's this transitional stuff that we need to get them into. Get their activity up. Movement is great. Okay, so normal sleep cycle, gentle movement doesn't have to be vigorous. You know, we're not getting them to run up and down stairs 20 times in HIIT training. You know, it's just a case of, you know, we want them to be moving around and doing this stuff.

HIIT training, high intensity training, in case anyone doesn't know what that is. Definitely not doing that with pussycats, people.

Can you imagine? Have you seen that video where they, they do the— the cat has to, you know, gets picked on by the dogs, and so they then put it through the, uh, yes, and he goes and do abdominals in the gym.

Yeah, no, not my kind of thing.

It's a great reel. I'm going to share it with you just to wind you up.

No, no, no. I say, all you do is wind me up. Don't send me that. Oh my God.

And then it gives you the how cats react and they absolutely kung fu the dogs to bits. Anyway, so from a point of view of definitely that for sleep, movement, water, can't impress upon you guys how important normal fluid intakes. Now it's great with raw. It's almost done for you with raw. Okay. But then we're going to have to do something special when we're talking about water just for the whole live, because there is so much that we need to talk about. But increasing water intake, whether that be through a water fountain, whether that be through just not using chlorinated water, please. You know, there's better stuff than just comes straight out of the tap. There are a lot of people have filters in that now, which is great. Okay. But you can get filters fall the water. You can collect rainwater, often is more attractive to cats.

We're doing water in August, Brendan, don't go off on a tangent.

I'm not gonna go. All right, but I, you know, just think about how you can increase water intake, okay? And that could be through bone broths, you know, all sorts of things. You see, a week doesn't go by, a month doesn't go by without me mentioning bone broths. So all of those things to get fluid intake and just watching the impurities that can be in that that can actually be pro-inflammatory and cause them to keep weight on. You've then got to think about reducing your ultra-high processed foods. Now, for many of you watching this, you'll be saying, yeah, I feed raw. This is me. I do raw. But we've got to think about how we can just reduce all of that ultra-high processed foods. And we talked about that last time. So this is where it sort of leads into inflammation, emotional stuff. There is this crossover, it's getting the parasympathetics up, the sympathetic drives down, okay, will help so much with weight control and reducing weight. Okay. So do have a little think about those as little mechanisms before we even go into calorie restriction, because they will all have hormonal input into how they metabolize those calories.

Yeah.

So it's so important. So it's not as simple as calories in versus calories out will give you whether they're going to gain or lose weight. All of those other things about activating their system, their parasympathetics, which is why emotional state comes in. You know, this is where Julianne's so great at this point, because there'll be things that you can select for your cat that should increase their parasympathetics. So Julianne, straight back at you. Come on, give us, give us some of your top tips for really opening those cats up, giving them some more emotional space, and improving their parasympathetics.

Okay, mic over to me. Um, so one of the things I would say is like our mental state impacts them, you know. So if you've been told by the vet you've got to deal with the cat deal with that yourself, you know. Let, let go of the guilt, the frustration, the anger, whatever it is that comes up for you, because you don't want to bring that into your cat. You don't want to project that onto your cat. So you need to deal with your own stuff, you know. That, that is for me like the first step. So journal, go for a walk, talk to friends and family, whatever it may be. Get it out of your body, the emotions that come to you when you find out that you're in this state with your cat. You know, I found out about Pickle I had a lot of guilt. I didn't realize we were feeding the wrong thing. You need to let that out. The next thing I would say is, you know, with the cats, most cats, you know, they do well with routine. They're a little bit sort of suspicious about change. I know Amaya says that if the change is good for them, they'll embrace it, and I totally agree with that. If we're making changes to food and their routine, they may not be as on board. So do changes slowly, give lots of reassurance. You know, Brendan said about not doing high-intensity training, you know, getting the cat running up and down the stairs, but is there a which just gives me the craziest visual of me and baby Max, I tell you. But is there a way—

haven't even mentioned ice baths yet.

Why do you always do a funny one? It's my bit to talk. You derail me so much. I get so many mental images.

That's the point.

You said you're a minx. Let's see, I lost it now. Oh yeah, so Brendan.

No, no high intensity training. I am so sorry, guys. Julianne, I do apologize.

I should say, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. You get— I get my energy gets moving, like my cheeks are all going now. I've got to focus, right? Uh, support the parasympathetic. So sort your own stuff first. Secondly, you know, how can you have fun Right. Bringing in fun brings in an element of joy and a different energy. You know, guilt is dense and heavy. Joy and fun and excitement is high, you know, a high vibration. And if you can make it fun, it's a completely different perspective. So like, oh God, I've got to get the cat to lose weight because the vet said it's overweight. Like, you know, isn't that crappy? Versus like, right, what's the challenge for this month? We're going to lose, I don't know, I work in pounds. But, you know, say half a pound in a month. Like, I know that's not the way to do it because it's kilos, kilograms with cats.

That's all right, 250 grams.

Okay, cool. So, so you set yourself a target, you know, and look at how you can work together. So you're not doing something to your cat, you're doing it for them, you know, you're doing it with them. And again, there is an opportunity to really strengthen your connection and your bond with them by working on this together. So if you see it as I've got to make my cat lose weight To be honest, you've kind of got— you're a bit of a losing battle there to start with, because if the cat doesn't take to food changes or frequency of food delivery, you know, if the cat doesn't take to the changes you're making, you're going to get frustrated and you're going to put that on the cat. Whereas if you look at it together, it's a real opportunity to go on a bit— I hate this word— but go on a bit of a journey together, you know, see what you can manage. For me, like, the emotional side is crucial because under every behavior there's an emotion, under every reaction there is an emotion. So like Amaya and Brendan have said, you know, yes, they are addicted, particularly if we're looking at dry food. You know, yes, there is the science part of the body, but underneath that as well, there is this cat that doesn't understand, you know, it doesn't understand why there is less food, doesn't understand why you're feeding it now once a day instead of 4 times a day, or, you know, whatever it may be. So I know, Brendan, you may mock this, but I would encourage people to talk to their cats, you know, either verbally out loud or quietly, you know, like pressing his lips, you know, tell them.

No mocking here, no mocking. I talk to my animals all the time. I think it's really great. You know, even when I'm out with the goats out on the field, I'll be talking to them. No, it's absolutely a way of spreading your intent. For humans, we very much are about vocalization, about, you know, coming out with that stuff. Along with it, as I'm doing right now, using my hands, comes, you know, subconscious movement. And alongside that, your face will change, your, you know, how your eyes are, you know, whether you're, how your mouth is moving, all of that gives signal to these other animals. We know, you know, Darwin back in the 1800s was looking at how across all mammalian species, there are similar changes in facial emotional states. And actually, pretty much you can be between 80 and 90% accurate across species recognizing emotional states. That's amazing. That's not human to human. I recognize whether that person's, you know, upset or not. That's across species. So, you know, you can understand that those species that are our companions and being with us recognize what we're doing. Now, we express better when we're talking. Okay, so it just means that for many of you out there, all of that subconscious stuff is easier to do. The intent that some people will say when they're dealing with horses for, you know, natural horsemanship, you know, they'll talk about intent. Well, that's actually just being really good at your body language when interacting with the horses. So it's— this is the same for your cats, okay? How your body language is, how your actions are, all of that is picked up and that is so important. So I am not mocking talking at all.

Okay, okay.

And also, and also adding that to the talking, sometimes we move and we walk around the house like, uh, you know, in automatic pilot. So sometimes that can also give a reaction to our cat because you're walking like, like crazy and, you know, and there is an, there is an energy in your movements, in your way to the way you move around the house, and that can also have an effect on your cat's reactions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. So, so yeah, talk to them, tell them, this is where we are, buddy, you know, this is, this is what we're going to try next, and let's see how we can manage it together. I mean, for me, I would always— I'd also recommend herb gardens because any change in sort of circumstance, routine, uh, environment, you know, household, you want to give them the capacity to deal with their emotional state. So like, you know, Amaya mentioned again the, the addict part. If someone's like withdrawing or detoxing or, you know, reducing the input of those chemicals and things, there is the effect on the body and that has an emotional toll. So I would always recommend, you know, a herb garden. So you've got a small blanket or a towel in a beautiful quiet corner of the house, you know, not somewhere where there's a lot of foot traffic, somewhere nice and quiet. You know, we've got ours in the corner of the dining room, so it's still where I am, but it's not, you know, right in the vicinity of the kind of family area. And, you know, I would be putting down 4 dried herbs or flowers, one in each corner. So particularly for like weight management, I would recommend chamomile because it's calming, because there might be this frantic emotion around, well, why is my bowl now empty? When is the next meal coming? Which you need to support them with. And actually also recommend St. John's wort. So these are all dried. So St. John's wort helps with depression. And I don't want to keep— my screen keeps going black. I don't know why it keeps doing that. St. John's Wort helps with depression and again, so it can actually be uplifting. So if the cat is adjusting to the changes, particularly if you are, you've made a few changes, the cat's maybe withdrawn or you're taking a step back, this is going to help them to kind of take the next steps forward. I would recommend calendula. So calendula supports with inflammation in the body, but also it helps on an emotional side to boost self-confidence. So remember Amaya said about, you know, you've got cats that are withdrawn, potentially depressed. They're in this predator-prey, you know, kind of freeze state. So we want to give them help. And also, if you're starting to do a bit of activity with them, you know, as you would have the personal trainer at the gym sort of cheering you on when you lift the next set of weights, you want to give that to the cat, you know, which just gives me this image of a cat with these tiny little dumbbells and me going, come on, buddy, you can do it!

Or just using the Eye of the Tiger song and it was like, yeah, you can get through the stairs, come on! Yes, you can.

We're back to HIIT training on those stairs again, aren't we?

So what have we got so far?

So just 10 more seconds.

Chamomile, St. John's Wort, calendula, and then I would probably say rose. So rose for me is— it should be on every garden, you know. It's the most emotionally supportive remedy there is. And actually, like, you know, you as a human are going to be going through quite a lot of stress while you're going through this. You're going to have great days, you're going to have wins, don't get me wrong. You're also going to have a backstep and moments that you just don't know what to do. So give the cat rose because it helps them with their energy and you let them go and sit on it. Let them, you know, do what they need to with it. They may eat it, rub on it, roll on it. It's absolutely fine. Do not add any of it to their food. Give them the choice because you're giving them a sense of autonomy when they can't control what's in that bowl or what time that bowl goes down or the change of food, give them something that they can support themselves with and control in their environment, which is how they go on to the, onto the herbs. So I think I'm going to pass it, but pass it over because I'll just ramble for, you know, the next 10 minutes.

These oils are available in kits, aren't they? So you can get the kits on Amazon even these days with a selection of oils and you can give them some choice of those. But for those guys that are planting, have you got any specific options? So for instance, you talked about rose. Well, look, you know, you go to a rose garden and there are hundreds of different roses. Some of them look spectacular, have zero scent whatsoever. And really, you know, we're talking about this, if it smells great, then it's probably emitting loads of those essential oils. Okay, so you want to be looking at those. But for you, Julianne, is there a specific rose plant that you would advise people, you know, choosing from, or are you very much, no, just as long as it has a good odor?

Yeah, to be honest with you, it's about the potency. So what, you know, I would say anything that smells good, you know, like you said, that's got— that means it's got those strong, um, potent essential oil elements. So, and again, if you've got a cat that goes outside, put it in the garden, but if you've got it indoor you need to bring it indoors, you know. So yeah, I would say it's about the scent, and the scent comes from the components, the essential oil components. If it's not smelly, there will obviously be a nurturing energy of it, but we know that cats use their sense of smell for like everything in their world, you know. And sometimes there'll be some cats that, like, particularly like my Leo, he doesn't like to be on a herb garden because that means downtime in one spot. So therefore he's he feels vulnerable, whereas if he can walk past it, get a sniff, and then go on, he then works with it that way. So I don't, I don't have a particular flower as long as there are good scent molecules from it.

So I'm going to be so disappointed if I don't see lots of you guys that are following us today, um, posting small videos of you scattering rose petals before your cats, um, as they walk around the house, just to give you another image to have a chuckle at.

Come on, up the stairs, up the stairs, follow the trail, there's food at the end.

And wafting them with ostrich feathers, it'd be like, you know, we do have spoiled cats, we do have spoiled cats, absolutely.

One thing that is very important that here I'm reading, well, Carrie has like many cats, and one of the problems that you have is in multi-cat households because the cat that is suffering from this addiction and this overweight will probably be bullied by others.

Yeah.

Right. And would probably become a little bit more reluctant to, you know, social skills with this social skills and would become aggressive or it could, all those things can happen. And I had many stories about this. They can just simply stay in the room. They will never come out, or they will just hide. And so this is why it's so important that it's not just— if we reduce food in this situation, the cat is never losing weight because you are not addressing the other part that it's the relationship with other cats and the relationship. It is, it is that, I mean, the prey and predator model. You have to know if the cat is acting as a prey. It's not that the other cats are being mean on the other, you know, on the overweight cat is that there is an emotional thing going on, a communication between them that it's, you know, the other cats are simply one, maybe they just want to play. As predators. And the other one is like, no, I don't want to play, this is uncomfortable, you know, I can't, or I feel depressed or whatever. So the cat reacts bad and that increases over time and it could turn into aggression or fear or any other things like urine marking or even lots of things, behavior. Aggressive is one of the things, aggressiveness is one of the things I see mostly. But that is also related to the prescription diets.

Yeah.

So I believe there's a nutritional thing also going on there.

That's one of the things when people come to me with a cat with aggression or behavior manifestations that are connected to aggression, my first question is, what are you feeding? You know, particularly, you know, dry food, the chemicals that it's covered with, the impact on the body, it makes them, like you said, like that addict kind of, you know, that intense sort of response to their, to their environment, then they're not— I was gonna say sane, I don't think that's the right word, but they're not at the, at their best, you know, functionally, if that makes sense.

And, and also that they could be, they could act as predators, they could look like predators, but at the same time they're just simply, uh, I, I always say this is kind of a facade of I don't care. I just make myself bigger. So I make you believe that this is— I'm not afraid of something, but any reaction for one side or the other that is not in the balance in between, it has an emotion behind it. So it could look like the cat is being the bully because I've seen fat, overweight— I don't like to say fat— overweight cats, say, you know, being bully. Being the bully, you know, instead of— yes, it's a defense. It's a way to— before you attack me, I will attack you just in case.

Yeah.

You know? Yeah. So that could also happen, but behind that, it's, uh, fear, it's depression, is it an emotion behind it? So look at— because you have— you will find something. Yeah.

And that's the wonderful thing about homeopathy, when you start to look at some of the, uh, constitutionals and the emotional states, and that predisposition to how to react. Or, you know, so we can often look at those that in certain stress situations may become insular, they may be not reactive at all, and they can be very mineral cats. So they'll maybe sort themselves into a set routine that's almost OCD, but be very enclosed and not interact with their surroundings. That's a very mineral aspect or they can be very reactive. So, you know, they— if you poke them strong enough, there's certain plants which will give a violent reaction. But on the other side, you know, they are very much responsive to those environmental stimuli as to when they react. You know, they don't— they're not out there and acting on stuff, they're reacting to the environment. It's a very plant remedy thing to do. You know, plants react to the environment, whether that's the amount of water they're getting, the amount of sunshine they're getting, the amount of wind that's hitting them, you know, all of that. That's a reaction versus the animal remedies. So indeed, you know, we actually even look at some of the predator remedies like Lion, like Tiger, and we see how they will often be competitive and actually actively going out and seeking and hunting and how they then grab So whether that's the back of your leg or the back of the other cat, or, you know, do they pounce? Do they try and grab around the neck? Do they try and pounce and take down by the haunches? Do they, you know, this is the individual things. Are they like snakes that spit in your face and, you know, will sort of launch at you head on? Those are all of the interesting things. So you get all of those nuances, as Amaya was saying, in how those cats react, how they're expressing themselves depending on their constitution. And so that's where homeopathy sort of comes in for me in those emotional states. If they're really getting, you know, out of kilter, they're really expressing themselves when we're doing these things, absolutely, you know, consider those other things. Somebody asked, where do I get these things from? You know, I'm in Australia, where could I find my aromatherapy oils. I think that pretty much is the same as in the UK. Uh, Julianne, if somebody was looking for aromatherapy oils in the UK, where would you sort of be saying to search? Because I just obviously reached for Amazon, but I mean, there must be better places.

Yeah, so, so unfortunately I don't know what delivery is like for Australia, but there's 3 places that I would go in the UK. So I— you check out and see if they do deliver. So one would be Caroline Ingram's site, So, you know, she is the founder of Applied Z-Pharmacognosy, so all of her products are suitable for use with animals. The second would be My Animal Matters, which is Rachel. She's a student of Caroline's, and again, her business, although she focuses more on dogs, you know, all of her products are safe for animals. And then I would say Oshadi, so O-S-H-A-D-I. They have some— they, again, I would— I got some of their products. So if I can't get something, a remedy from Caroline or from Rachel, Rachel's is My Animal Matters. Um, I go to Oshadi. So those are 3 that I would recommend. So Caroline and Rachel obviously are smaller, you know, the single, um, sole traders, whereas Oshadi is bigger. So potentially they may have the option to ship to Australia. I mean, when it comes to essential oils, you know, you want to ensure that you trust the supplier that you're getting them from. So there are some, uh, rose and lavender, particularly those 2, are heavily adulterated because Lavender is one of the most common, and rose can be one of the most expensive to make. So ensure that you ask questions, you know, how are they distilled, how, how, what, where do they get their products, the flowers, are they organic? You know, you want to be asking questions wherever you're getting these from. You know, I, I also love Amazon for a lot of things, but I would say like there are two things I would never buy. And I have bought essential oils from Amazon. I bought peppermint and it smelled like bleach. Um, so essential oils and crystals are two things that I would never get from Amazon. Everything else, you know, great, convenient, love it, you know, does the job. Don't get me wrong, like, I don't want to line Jeff's pockets, but, you know, it has got its place. Um, but, um, you know, with oils, I would check the, the quality of them and if possible get other recommendations from people that you know and trust. And when it comes to herbs, I would say get organic if you can. So I noticed Cherry mentioned, um, about rose tea with buds. You know, rose tea, you could make it, you don't need to use the buds, you can offer the cold tea as almost alkohydrosol, you know, give them the opportunity to self-select if they want to. Um, again, I wouldn't be adding anything to food, so you could try tea or the rosebuds. You know, you don't have to have them together. You, you know, some cats will prefer different, uh, delivery methods or different modes of botanicals. You know, like essential oils are more concentrated, herbs are more gentle, and the energetic profile is softer. So it depends what your cat needs to which they'll choose, but give them a choice and they will, they will guide you. You know, if you're giving them a choice, you can't get it wrong. Get organic where you can, get the highest quality that you can, and give them a choice. You know, that's kind of the basics of self-selection, the very basics, that if you give them the opportunity to work with it themselves, they will guide you with it. You know, again, self-selection, we need to do a topic on that.

And I would therefore say, you know, for the essential oils I think a good— if you really stuck to find those, whichever country you're in, whether it's South Africa or Australia or America, look for a really renowned herbalist. Okay, I'm sure there's going to be a herbalist within your town, city, that's gonna have, you know, some great reputation. And ask, you know, go in and ask. They are probably 9 times out of 10 gonna have a source of essential oils as well as the herbs that they produce. So, you know, do, do look at that alongside remedies, etc. But, you know, aromatherapists, yet again, you know, there's always those. It's great, you know, that we've got those people within the UK. For those of you who are maybe practicing further afield around the world, please do share who you use. But I would say even then, if you've got a personal recommendation, do just double-check a few things because that person may not have check that they're organic, check how they're, you know, they're extracted, you know, are they cold pressed, all of those other things, you know, what levels of the oils you're getting within there, you know, even for some of them it's also whether there's not just the oil extracts but we've got also the water parts to some of those plants within those and that will depend on how they've extracted them.

Yeah, beautiful.

And well, here in Spain, I use Terpene Labs. Uh, it's a, it's from, it's a Spanish company, and they actually give you every detail in every bottle, which type of, uh, the product, it's organic. They usually go through smaller producers of plants. So, you know, and sometimes they will tell you we don't have the product until it's possible. So That's it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so they've got the actual plants there to make it, right?

Yeah, exactly. So this is good. Those are questions that you should ask. And we have to get used to asking these questions in anything. Also for our raw food providers or any foods. So if you don't get an answer, then you should start looking elsewhere.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Cherry. Yeah. Caroline Ingram is the That's the name. So just taking it back to, to obesity, because I do think we could do a great topic on self-selection and remedies and things. I want to know from you two, what would you say to people? So one of the things I really struggle with with Pickle was when we had to reduce her food, you know, we changed, we transitioned, etc. But she struggled with smaller meals and like we tried both. We tried smaller meals and we tried less frequent meals. So what advice— Amaya, I'll come to you first— what advice would you give to a guardian to support them if they were making either of those changes to give the cat that emotional support? Like, what would you recommend?

Well, I don't usually— I reduce the food very, very slowly. Very slowly. I mean, my goal is go like 1% every month or something, you know, just very— until I get to know the cat's emotional state. Um, so I, my goal is not you have to lose weight in 6 months. No, it's like you have to lose weight. Yes. But if I, if I'm not sure, or if I'm working on the emotional side, then what I do is set my goals very, very small. And in a, in a very long period of time, it's 1 month every single time. As I, let's say 1 to 2% of their body weight. And, uh, I reduce that in a whole month or maybe 2. And then go back again and then go back again. And that's it. So one of the things I would never push the cat into a more stressful situation if for him reducing meals or reducing the amount of food is going to be a problem. Yeah. Because as I said before, emotional state is the most important thing. And then I start reducing more if I see that the cat is feeling better because you're already doing so many changes at the same time. You're changing the food, you're reducing carbohydrates. You have to give the body some time to produce a new bacteria going on and say that he's not hungry anymore. He doesn't crave for sugar.

Yeah, yeah, they've got to balance out, right?

Yeah, yeah. You have to reduce inflammation. You have to do— I mean, there's so many things to, to tackle on, so This is one of the things that people, you know, usually guardians get tired of this, you know, say, but I've been trying. So yeah, but this is the way you don't, we are so used to even for humans to lose weight in a very short period of time that that's not the way it happens. No. So make sure you start with whatever you can and where your cat is comfortable with and then go from there.

I'm glad that you said that about, you know, the timescale. You know, because there are, there are weight loss clubs for humans. You know, you go every week, you weigh every week, you lose, try to lose every week. You know, that's stressful. Yeah, tell me about it. And with cats, you know, like, it is, it's just not going to work that way. And also, like, you can get neurotic, like, it can play to your OCD side if you are that fanatic about it, which again comes back to what we're saying about the energy piece. You know, it's got, you've got to be kind to yourself as you're working with your cat. So I love the way you mentioned that. Thank you. Brendan.

Yeah, I totally agree with those. I mean, look, for most people, and, you know, if you don't get it right, for most animals, the initial weight loss is going to be just about water. You know, they're going to, you know, they're not hydrating properly, they lose weight, you think, oh great, you know, I'm getting them down on their weight, but actually you've just totally dehydrated the patient. That is, you know, increasing their inflammation load, probably making them feel dreadful. You know, some of them are addicted to the dry, high-processed foods, the cat crack within it. Okay, that's effectively the sweeteners that they put in many of these foods. And so it can take time to move them across. It's great when you get people that just launch them into raw foods and the cats are straight on it and this is brilliant and that's, you know, it's just like Yes, but I get that for some cats, no, they've been addicted for too long. They can't cope with that change and you have to do the wean process to get them to take away. I sometimes liken it to a builder and their tea. You know, you can't get them from 6 sugars to 0 sugars overnight because they will just spit the tea out at you. You need to slowly wean them off it. Okay, and you know, that's when they don't recognize that the food necessarily has changed in that, in that taint that's in there. Some other little things that we're at the right time of year, people will be out there and you know, I know most of you following this are really holistic viewed, you probably, you know, wouldn't touch your garden with a chemical or whatever, but there'll be people coming across this that haven't necessarily got that, that, you know, view on the world yet. And well done for sticking with us so far to get to this point in the video, but I would still use it as a reminder to say, look, we're using weed and feeds on our garden, we're using things to clear the paths, you know, path clear, etc. All of these chemicals that your cat is wandering out into can have an impact on their emotional state, their disease state, their obesity state. Okay, so be aware of all of that. If you live in a wonderful part of the countryside with open fields rolling out behind you, but you know that every 6 months there's a farmer coming out there and spraying off the field to plant the next crop, okay, just question yourself as to what is in that field being sprayed off, especially if the bottom part of your garden dies away every 6 months. Okay, it's a real— no, this is not a great situation to be in. Okay, so those chemicals will waft into your garden. Okay, even if your garden doesn't die off, but plants just don't seem to thrive quite so well, or you can only plant grasses up to the edge of your garden, then it may well be that there are chemicals going down in that environment that are not beneficial to your cat. So just to remember those. But going back to feeding, emotional states, definitely set your targets realistically. Do not expect to get to your target weight within the month even. Okay, you want to just see sustained gradual decline in weight is what's going to be sustainable for health in the long run.

Exactly.

Okay, yeah, totally.

Yeah, yep, yep, totally agree. Um, well, what you said about the chemicals is very interesting because, uh, we are as humans, we are suffering a lot from hormonal weight gain also. So this is, this is also, you know, we forget about that. Yes, it's all about hormones and hormones, but yes, your lifestyle will also be affected, you know, that affect your hormones and the inflammation and all.

Yeah. Oh, I did a massive thing. Yeah. So I also was talking, I do a human podcast called The Health Sensei, and we're talking more and more about this. I did that this morning and we were talking about the effects of farming on a lot of the oils. So a lot of us that are maybe increasing the amount of plant material that we're eating within our diets, there's lots of vegetarians out there, not remembering that actually in order to intensively farm the plants, okay, that we eat, we are coating them in lots of materials. Now, you might not realize that actually, in order to produce some great rapeseed oil, okay, for your salads, that actually, in order to produce that, they have to crop the field in one go. Now, the field doesn't ripen in one go. There'll be areas of the field that are drier, that the seed is ripening, and then if it's left too long, it will crack out of the pod and fall to the ground. That's lost. And there's another part of the field which is super green, you know, lots of moisture in it and it's not ripened as quickly. You know, those seeds may be bigger, but they're not ripening as quickly. So what does a farmer have to do? He has to do an overall view of the field. And when 15% of the crop is about right to dry and of its own accord, he has to go into the field and spray that field with glyphosate to kill all of the rapeseed off in one go. Now, that's— there is no way organically, if you just try and do this organically and don't spray a field, you actually then have an increase in molds growing within that crop. The moisture content is wrong. So organic farmers are allowed to spray crop off, okay, in order to crop it at the end of its life cycle. Believe it or not, then you can end up— when they extract the seed, okay, so the seed doesn't get washed by little elves, you know, washing each seed, okay? It doesn't go through some miraculous washer. It literally goes— I'll share a video as to how canola oil is made, okay, which is rapeseed oil. And literally it will go through a sieve which will take out the most of the chaff that comes in with it. Okay, um, it will then go through steel rollers to press the initial seed and then to squeeze through a screw under pressure. Much— about 50% of the oils come out that way. The rest is then done by sending the cake that's left into vats of solvents to extract the remainder of the oil. That then goes through a process a little bit like an oil refinery to actually heat and take out the remainder of that oil, okay, down, you know, down to the 99th degree. You then have them extract some of the larger fats that they'll use as vegetable fat shortening that people will use in baking and things like that. So there's a whole heat process oxidizing those fats. And then what do they do? So we, if we're eating a nice salad, might put that stuff on our salad. It's full of solvents and other things that are contaminating it unless it's specifically small batch, cold pressed from, you know, that somebody is cropping from a field, you know, with their elves, with their elves. Okay, you know, so you've got to choose your oils carefully. Olive oil is the safest one to use.

Yeah, the canned food for pets, usually they have a lot of oils, so that it's not helpful for weight loss. So you have to make sure that when you look at it, let's say you're into the wet food before raw, and you have to look into the ingredients of what they have because sometimes you'll find— well, mostly here we find sunflower oil. But, you know, in order to press the can, you have to, uh, pasteurize, so that is heated. So be careful with the oils that you have there. It's best to have only meat, let's say, and then you add the omegas or whatever you want to add afterwards. The fat, you know, that the oils, especially when they, when they get heated, they, they are really bad for even losing weight.

Yeah.

So sometimes people— because of the blaming of the fat— it's not the fat. Exactly.

It's not the fat. It's the, the state of the fat, the oxidation of the fat, the contaminants within the fat, the fact that that glyphosate is still going to be in those oils at the end of the process.

Okay, it's where all the drugs are stored. So yeah, in the fat mostly.

Oh, so that's actually one other thing that I should say. We know for humans, as we lose weight, one of the biggest things that we get is feeling really quite sick at that initial fat loss. Okay, so because we start to circulate all of the toxins, all of the drugs, all of the the aflatoxins, that's the molds, all of the contaminants within our environment like glyphosates suddenly mobilize back into our bloodstream. So also beware for your cats, you know, if they're feeling down, if they're feeling under the weather in that initial weight loss process, it may be that there's lots of that material coming back into their circulation. This is why giving liver support can be really useful, giving kidney or, you know, Berberis taraxacum, you know, things like that, milk thistle, you know, they can be all really useful to give to support the liver enzymes that are battling away to deal with both those contaminants to get rid of them from the body, as well as then trying to also deal with the metabolites that are coming through from the digestive process.

They usually also select spirulina.

When they're losing weight.

So it's something else to consider.

So, wow, a brilliant hour.

Yeah, that was given.

I'm super conscious that we, you know, we'll have Dr. Judy's page shouting at us for overrunning. I always imagine them because they always message me about this point going, are you going to finish soon? Because we've got somebody else coming live. So enjoy the next program on Dr. Judy's page. For us, we're back to work. So, uh, off we go. Um, it's been, um, brilliant to see all of your comments. There's going to be some more answers that will come up with there. Thank you so much. Uh, look forward to seeing you next month, Julianne. It's—

yeah, it's the 23rd of June at 1 PM, and we are talking about asthma. So very, very interesting topic. Yeah, if you've got questions, let us know. And, um, thank you everyone for being here. It's been great to, uh, to have your comments. And like Brendan said, don't Don't forget you can find RPM on Patreon, and we look forward to seeing you next month.

Yes, brilliant.

Me too.

Take care, guys.

Thank you.

To see you all as normal. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye.