Honey is our 10 year-old Labrador retriever. She is red and a sweet middle-aged lady.

She doesn’t know it, but I’ve had an ongoing competition with her for a number of years now. I’ve yet to win.

This competition happened at least three times a week — but recently is happening daily.

In the past couple of months, I have started to practice something called Intermittent Fasting. To do this, one eats all meals in an 8 hour window, and then eats nothing for 16 hours until the next 8 hour feeding time comes.

Honey & Intermittent Fasting

I typically eat between 10AM and 6PM and fast between 6PM and 10AM the next day. Simple.

Honey, being a dog, likes to sleep most of the day. After her breakfast at 8 and her morning constitutional, she retires to our bedroom to sleep under Debra’s desk.

At around 10AM, I prepare my first meal of the day. It’s always the same. I put a whole avocado in a bowl, mix in some salt, pepper, and turmeric powder, then add greens and a tin of wild salmon.

And this is the start of the game. I win if I can empty the salmon water from the tin into Honey’s dish before she comes downstairs.

She’s undefeated.

Every day, it goes something like this:

1. Cut the avocado and scrape into a bowl.
2. Add the condiments and mush together.
3. Retrieve the tin of salmon from the pantry as quietly as possible.
4. With can opener in hand, cough, turn up the music, or otherwise make a noise as the blade of the can opener punctures the tin with a noticeable ‘pfff’.
5. Continue to make said noise as the can opener does its thing.
6. Walk over to Honey’s dish and use the lid to squeeze the salmon water into Honey’s dish.
7. Dump the salmon into the bowl and mix it all.

Inevitably, somewhere between steps 4 and 5, Honey is on her way down the stairs, tail wagging, ready to lap up her morning nectar.

So Honey has never lost a competition she doesn’t even know she is part of. And tomorrow morning I will try in vain yet again to break my winless streak.