NEWSTone It Up's Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn Talk Pet Health and Their Bikini Challenge
April 10 2014, Published 4:06 p.m. ET
Tone It Up fitness mavens Katrina Hodgson and Karena Dawn have long been proponents of positive health and well-being, but they aren't only interested in getting you into shape, now they've teamed up with Purina Cat Chow to make sure we're taking good care of our feline friends as well. A recent Purina survey found that 57% of pet owners don't measure their cat's food portions and 51% reward their kitty with treats, leading to a massive obesity problem in pets. Katrina and Karena chat with OK! about what we can do to keep our pets healthy and how we can all get bikini ready for the first day of summer.
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OK!: How can cat lovers ensure their pets are in tip top shape?
Katrina Hodgson: Well we’re excited to work with Purina Cat Chow because we have our kitty Monkey. Monkey makes us so happy and keeping her healthy is so important. On Tone It Up we preach every day about the importance of being a healthy weight and it’s the same for your animals. They have the same benefits as you and I do. There are a few things you can do. The first thing you want to do is assess if your kitty is overweight or not, which you can learn how to do on CatChow.com. If you find out your kitty is overweight, you can do portion control, which is the same thing we have to practice sometimes, and they have to be more active. For Monkey we play with her or get one of those little toys with a feather on the end of it and she goes crazy for it. What we find at Tone It Up, too, is finding a workout partner helps you stay more accountable and it’s more motivating to have a friend with you to try a new spin class or a new gym or a new workout. Well it’s the same thing with your pets. It’s actually really, really healthy to have two pets so they play together and they’re less depressed. Cats can actually get really depressed and it’s up to us as cat lovers to make sure our pets are healthy and we’re not over-feeding them and we’re the ones responsible for their health. We’ve met with a lot of people who have cats and will say, “My cat is really, really overweight and has diabetes,” or, “I have so many medical bills to help my overweight cat.” It’s one of those things where no one really thinks about it until it happens. It really is important when people have pets.
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OK!: Pets need friends, too!
KH: We’re not their only friends. They need each other, too.
OK!: Do you think you’ll get another pet to be friends with Monkey?
KH: Well Monkey has Skunky right now, who is a little Pomeranian. They actually play together. Monkey had a little weight problem and I was like, “Hey, Karena, Monkey’s getting a little chunky here, so we had to cut back and practice portion control and then she did get Skunky as a playmate and now they run around the house together. Monkey is fit and fabulous again.
Karena Dawn: We learned a lot from working with Purina Cat Chow, too, and how there are over 50 million overweight cats. And it’s costing people a lot. It’s all about balance for you, your family and your pet.
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OK!: What should we be doing to get bikini ready?
KD: As of right now there’s 10 weeks until the first day of summer but we are launching our annual bikini series, you can actually find #bikiniseries on Instagram and Twitter. It starts on April 28 and it’s eight weeks until the first day of summer. It’s a huge challenge where over half a million women participate. We’ll have about three million people coming to our site every single day checking out our daily workouts, daily challenges and really being held accountable, getting your friends to join you. A lot of these challenges are lifestyle challenges where, say, instead of working out you’re going to go grab happy hour but you’re going to make healthy choices and then check in with us. Our number one piece of advice to get bikini ready is to make sure your nutrition matches your lifestyle. Not only are you working out but you’re eating lean, clean and green. We love our what we refer to as a booty call, a booty call is where you wake up first thing in the morning and call a friend to go work out your booty together. Hit up a yoga class, a studio or one of our workouts on Tone It Up. You can do our workouts when you have 10 minutes or 20 minutes and you can do them at home. There are no excuses. I you really want to commit and get ready for summer to feel confident and have a fun summer then now is the time to do it.
What's your go-to workout? Tell us in the comments or tweet @OKMagazine.
