How to get a beardie to lose weight?

[Sauzo]

As some of you might have read my thread in the health section, I weighed Harley today and she is fat! No way to sugar coat it. She is 1.3 years, 17-17.5 inches and 610 grams! She is the cutest little girl but she is lazy and loves hers bugs and doesn't love the veggies. My question is how do you do beardie diets? As I posted, she generally eats anywhere from 2-10 large dubias a day and maybe 4-5 pieces of greens. If we talk worms, she will polish off a whole silkworm or hornworm container in a day if I let her(she has eaten 10 really large hornworms in a day). Should I just nix out worms altogether for a couple months and cut her dubia intake to maybe 2-3 a day and just tough love her into eating veggies? I should have seen this coming with her quadruple chin beard, fat jowls, pudgy arms and a potbelly that would make any pig envious :lol: but she was always so happy to get her worms. Tonight she climbed down off the back of the couch onto me and plopped her whole pudginess onto my chest and went to sleep. I think she knows this diet is coming and she is trying to soften me up before it even starts Anyways any input to help would be great as I've never had to actually limit her intake of food before and I don't want to starve her or cause damage to her.

 

[AHBD]

So she can eat 10 large hornworms ? I don't think I've ever seen any of mine eat more that 3 of the finger sized giants. :lol: Well, I think that sticking with your plan of dubias, but only 2-3 per day, sometimes 4 may work....but it is tough for anyone/anything to lose weight so it will take some time. If she eats greens in the a.m., that may be the best time to offer them then....but as she gets hungrier she might go for them in the afternoon as well. I don't think you need to rule out the worms altogether, but I know it's hard to keep hornworms without feeding them off in a week or 2 before they die or begin to pupate. I've read that you can wrap large ones in newspaper and chill them for a week in the fridge but I've never tried. But if she readily eats the dubia, that may be the best way to go. You might experiment and see if she eats more salad if you skip a day of dubias, just give her 5-6 large every other day and it might increase her appetite for the salads on the non dubia days.