Lair's take on training a cat to lose weight sounds about right to me. The only thin cats in Ellen's family are either a) victims of strokes that only have about 1/4 of their brain left or b) too busy just staying alive to get fat (Teddy is perpetually 6 seconds from his heart detonating in his chest).

The rest, including "gramma's", are in various stages of fat-tub-o-lard-dom. Maybe we can get Nina to send us some pictures of "jabba", an Edloe-class cat if I've ever seen one.