Nov
15
2009
How Do You Put Your Feline On A Diet?
Posted by: Alan in Cat Health Problem, tags: Diet, Feline, Your
I have a fat cat…24 lbs to be exact. I feel like I have failed him & I am concerned about health issues in the future. The problem is that I don’t think I overfeed him & don’t know why he is overweight. I have put him on diets recommended by two different vets & neither have worked even after following the program religiously for nearly a year. I just don’t know what to do & would like to hear from someone who has experienced something similar with their cat.
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November 15th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
LOL – I have you beat by 1 pound. I allowed Poppy, a Maine Coon type, to swell up to 25 pounds. Oh, she helped but it was my fault.
So anyway, good for you for doing something about this. Not everyone realizes how bad it is.
I have done quite a bit of research on this and I know I can help you.
First, you should know two things – the most likely reason for cats to be overweight is the same for people – too many calories going in and not enough exercise sending them back out – or eating the wrong foods. It’s possible, although rare, for there to be a medical reason for a cat to be fat. I forget the exact name – hyperthyroid or hypOthyroid. Either way, if your cat has that it will not only be overweight, but you’ll see other signs as well. Mainly listlessness – the cat will likely act as if life is a burden and it can barely find the strength to move.
So if your cat is or has been normal, you can pretty well assume it’s overeating or bad food, or both.
The second thing you should know is that we don’t really understand what is a proper amount for cats to eat. Many of us overfeed because we’re projecting our needs onto them. Cats don’t need to eat anywhere near as much as some of us feed them!
I’m going to paste in my usual answer below, but first I want to add that in addition to diet, it is possible and easy to add a little exercise to your cat’s life. I picked up a book yesterday which gave me some good ideas. You don’t have to sentence your cat to 30 minute workouts. This book suggested starting very slowly and simply – two 30-second periods of exercise. Who can’t manage that?
There is going to be something that your cat will move for. Poppy resists playing with just about everything, but she is obsessed with string. I bought a cat teaser (I think it’s called) and she will chase that forever. To ensure that I don’t get bored and stop doing it, I’m going to keep it short – I’ll get it out and walk around the house a few times with it. Total time spent will be about 2 minutes. That, in addition to the good food she now eats, will surely get her down to a good fighting weight.
She’s already lost weight – I started her diet in October, but I’m not sure what she currently weighs and I think she probably still needs to lose a few pounds.
And now, from my blog:In a nutshell, most cats are fat because they’ve been fed too much (free-feeding or indulging them) and because they’re fed dry food which is NOT appropriate food for them due to the grain/carb/sugar content. Cats are obligate carnivores who need to eat a high meat-based protein diet, which is also high in fats and low in carbs.
Many vets, who are sadly ignorant on the topic of proper cat nutrition, will recommend prescription diet foods (usually dry). Cats are expected to lose weight on a starvation diet of 1/4 or 1/3 cup of food per day. Everyone is miserable in these situations.
The solution is to switch the fat cat (and any others in the household as well) to a good quality canned food. Because these foods are species appropriate, the cat will lose weight at a safe, slow pace (no more than 1 pound per month). Switching foods needs to occur slowly, and if you’re trying to get a kibble junkie to eat canned food, that will happen naturally.
That’s it. Easy as pie. Not only will fat cats lose weight, but it and any others in the home will reap many benefits of eating a speciies appropriate diet.
See the links below for detailed information on this topic.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Hi Leslie! I am the owner of a cat that is on a diet. You’ll need to ask your vet what a healthy weight for your cat/food ratio would be.
Do not free feed your cat. In the wild, a cat would eat equivalent of about 1/4 a cup, or a full dixie cup of dry food per day. House cats have a lot of time on their hands and will eat at will. Plus, if you give your cat treats, or if you feed your cat when she meows by the food bowl…your cat has learned to beg and or associate food with love!
Here is my best advice. Feed your cat a premium cat food. Cheap cat food is full of fillers and your kitty will eat mroe to over compensate.
If you can, set up a regular feeding schedule and feed your cat small portions over the course of the day, ie morning and night.
you can also try doing a protein diet with your cat, feeding her only wet food once a day for a few weeks.
Exercise and play are key. Good luck, and I hope this helps!
Really, switching to a premium food and feeding less in two feeds worked for me.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Science Diet has a good diet cat food, I think it’s WD. My “fat cat” did lose enough weight to make the vet happy.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Here’s a site with some great info – http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac…
Are you “free feeding” this cat? Meaning, do you leave food out all day? I’m thinking you are as if you were truly regulating how much and what your cat eats your cat would be losing the weight. Have the vets also done any tests to rule out some sort of glandular or hormonal issue that is contributing to the obesity?
November 16th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Hi’
You didn’t fail him, your vets and the food companies did.
It’s the dry food that is hurting him
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.