Many chronic cat diseases caused by poor diet, or, how to get your cat to lose some weight!

[ginnyinWI]

I wanted to share this story. I've had cats for many years and was always told that they should eat a nice dry cat food and stay away from high calorie canned foods--only get it for an occasional treat. And I've had cats who were overweight and prone to getting ailments like crystals in the urine (FUS). They'd be fat and lazy and not too playful.

Then I heard a vet who was a guest on Wisconsin Public Radio. She has a background in pet foods and says that basing food for domestic cats on what is good for domestic dogs is all wrong. Cats don't handle carbs the same way; it makes them sick and fat to eat dry cat food with its high levels of carbs--even the expensive high protein ones are too high. Cats don't use carbohydrate for energy like dogs or humans do--they burn protein for energy.

This is her book: http://www.amazon.com/Your-Cat-Simple-Secrets-Stronger/dp/0312358024/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228107715&sr=1-1

So I decided to try it on our 14 year old calico cat who was overweight. Nothing we had tried before worked. She had been on the strictest diet for three months (on an expensive high protein dry food with no canned at all) and her weight did not budge.

She was delighted with the idea of going over to all canned food. Every day was a special day! It satisfied her better and she had more energy within just a few days. More energy means more moving around and more burning off weight. And she was probably taking in fewer calories too. Between the end of last March and now, end of November, she's gone from around 14 lbs. to about 9 lbs and looks really good. She has tons of energy for an older cat. We have two other cats, a 5 yr. old tabby and a 4 yr. old black Angora. They are on the same food and have gone from "gettin' a little pudgy" to sleek and svelt again. And these younger two have even more energy now than before. The calico is also prone to getting tartar on her teeth, but so far her breath is nice with no sign of gum problems. Dry food is not a "teeth-cleaner" like people think; it actually leaves a sticky, gummy residue on the teeth. Canned food or actual real meat or eggs are what I'm going to be feeding now.

Here are the calico's before and after pics:

"Before" at about 14+ lbs. Slept a lot and walked with a limp:


And here she is about a month ago at about 9 lbs. Quite a difference after losing 5 pounds--a third of her weight!

[BrklynLiberal]

1. What a magnificent looking cat.

I have found that it is always worth the extra money for good food because in the long run you save more than what you spend on food by not having the vet bills.


This post has a lot of excellent information about pet food.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=243&topic_id=4388

[ginnyinWI]

2. I agree and have been telling people that.

Not to mention the pain and suffering of the cat involved.

One teeth cleaning costs almost $200. That will buy an awful lot of canned Friskies!

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Check out Weruva. I give it to my cats..and my dog. It is fantastic.

http://www.weruva.com/


When I get old and have to eat dog or cat food, this is the one I am going with...;-)

[Lorien]

4. Yep, switching my cats to a grain free, USDA human grade pet food diet has

made a huge difference for them. My late great tuxedo cat Miro was once 26 pounds on his Friskies and Fancy Feast diet! Once he was switched to Innova Evo, Wellness grain free and Merrick (I don't believe in feeding one brand-too much of anything is bad for us, so I'm sure the same is true for them) he went down to a much healthier 14 pounds!