Food for an overweight cat?

I'm trying to post again... my post was LOST...

My name is Leonor--I go by "leonorilda"--and my cats are Nati and Nicky. They are not diabetic.

Nati is an 8-1/2 year old very overweight cat. She's overweight because she scarfed down food intended for Valentín, my CRF cat who passed away on August 18, 2008. Valentín was born with deformed kidneys and had been on a diet of K/D. It was impossible to feed Nati and Valentín separately.

My second cat, Nicky, is a year and a half old... he joined us after Valentín succumbed to CRF. Nicky has congenital gingivitis under treatment (successfully) with Clindamycin. It's been suggested that his canned (wet) food intake be very limited and that he eat a good quality kibble. He is currently fed Hills Science Diet Oral Care.

Nati is being fed M/D on my vet's advice. She was prescribed M/D in September 2008. At that point, she weighed 18.5 pounds. If she has lost 1 pound on the M/D, that would be a miracle. I am very much concerned that all this extra weight could push Nati into a diabetic state, something I very much want to avoid.

Nicky sneaks Nati's food, which is not good.

I'm looking for a dry food that would promote weight loss in Nati that Nicky could also eat.

A friend in NYC suggested One Earth Naturals (because her very overweight senior cat has done very well with that food), but it is not sold in my area--I'm in Palo Alto, CA.

Does anyone have any recommendations, please?

Thanks so much!
Leonor
Nati =^..^=
Nicky =^..^=

 

Hi Leonor

I'm going to refer you to Dr Lisa Pierson's website www.catinfo.org

There you will learn that KD is not a good food for CRF (just for future knowledge), that dry food is NOT good for teeth, and that all cats (with a few exceptions) benefit most from a quality canned or raw diet that is low in carbohydrates. Get your cats on a healthier food and then limit calories as needed.

Hope this helps

Jen

 

Once you read the info. at www.catinfo.org, your best bet is to check out the Pet Food Express on Middlefield Rd. in Palo Alto. They have a great selection of high quality, low carb., species appropriate cat food (canned, raw, and even low carb. grain free dry foods), and they have a buy 3 get 4th free deal which makes the prices pretty good. I think it also helps to add some water to the canned/raw food because it helps kitty feel full and potentially eat less. Kind of like how humans should have a glass of water before eating to encourage weight loss...

 

Hiya Leonorilda,

Good to meet you

We have found that when our cats became diabetic, we knew nothing. The vast majority of us were shocked and even shamed to discover it was the very food we were feeding that was causing our cats their illnesses, diabetic and non-diabetic alike. I urge you to research as much as you can on the internet about feline diet, and perhaps even to contact the owner of the site that Jen gave you, as she is a veterinarian with heavy background and research in feline nutrition.

Many of the fallacies and myths about cat foods have been propagated by the pet food industry themselves, as they have no agency to oversee their manufacturing policies or advertising falsehoods. They can say and do anything they want, and believe me when I tell you, they do. They are well funded and able to lure vets to sell their foods with claims of "studies" and "veterinarian input". They manufacture diets for anything they think they can make money off of, and label them prescription. The most revolting thing is it was their food that caused these illnesses in the first place.

Cats are carnivores, and thusly should be eating meat. That's the bottom line when it comes to feline nutrition and I think in your research, you will learn that dry food is filled with grains that cats cannot digest, and fillers that turn into fat on a sleek cat's body. Dry food does not clean the teeth, and interestingly through its formulation actually contributes to the cavities, tooth loss and gum disease we see in our dry food eaters.. much as if you ate a Twinkie and didn't brush your teeth afterward.

Please research this, you're off to a great start so far.

 

Thanks for all the good information. I'm literally a few steps away (not quite, but 5 minutes by car) from Pet Food Express and I'll be checking out their selection. Best, Leonor, Nati, and Nicky

 

Just echoing the comments of others. I know it's hard to listen to something totally contrary to what you've probably believed your whole life. I was originally a "hold-out" when people started discussing the high carb dry junk as a cause of diabetes. I don't even recall why now. Probably cause I couldn't fight what I'd always heard and thought it was just people who were fanatics about food. (It probably didn't help that at the time there was a really big push for a couple of specific foods, which I got sick of listening to.)

Well, now I'm one of those fanatics. Except now I know there's nothing wrong with that, because when it comes down to it, if you think about what a cat would eat in the wild, and then look at ingredients on stuff, it just makes a lot of sense. And with research I've done, I just now understand better what the high-carb dry stuff is doing, and not just diabetes. Not to mention how many cats I've watched go into remission just by putting them back on a cat-appropriate diet, or IBD getting under control, etc. I hate the term "diabetic diet" - it's simply a cat-appropriate diet. (And you shouldn't need a prescription for it, for pete's sake!) The last time I checked the ingredients on a bag of Friskies I about puked and freaked that I used to feed stuff like that. ohmygod_smile Neither cat is overweight. Well, one has a tendency to sneak a little over, but we reign that in when it happens.

Think about it: what if all humans actually ate healthy before they got heart disease or something? We don't require prescriptions from doctors for people to eat healthy. Why can't we learn a lesson from this for cats? (And a prescription for Hills is a little like a doctor giving me a prescription for McDonald's. Mmm, that sounds good. Trust me, my cats eat much better than I do!)

Carolyn, really great post! I love your bluntness about the food manufacturers. ;-)

 

For chronic gingivitis - pull the teeth

Fiona had this problem, became diabetic and then we pulled her teeth (all but the K-9's and those tiny little teeth in between, everything else is gone). I'm not saying the gingivitis made her diabetic but it certainly didn't help. We had to clean her teeth every 6 months and still had to extract bad teeth each time. Clindamycin is no fun, dentals aren't either and they're expensive. Fiona is doing fine w/out her teeth and it's one less thing I have to worry about. All the advice I've gotten on the K-9's is to not pull until ready to come out. They are frequent jaw breakers.

I can't help w/food because Fiona is HUGE now. But I'm interested to see what others have and will say.