Dry food (halved) v Dry food light (Cat)

larmy16

Hi

I have posted before about my cat (male) who is overweight and rather lazy.

I have made an appointment to see the VN at my vets to have a look at him. I have spent a year trying to reduce his weight to no avail.

My dilemna is this. I have just bulk buyed two 2kg bags of adult Hills in chicken and lamb + plus a small bag of Applaws and Burns.

He loves the Hills. He also has 1/2 pouch of wet food in the morning/1/2 in the evening and an allowance of 1 oz Hills.

I am dreading the thought that I am going to have to scrap all this food now and be told to put him on a low calorie one!:eek:

Is there anyway I can use up the Hills but in a smaller amount, so say halving the amount so it equals the low calorie one? It is hard to work out how many calories are in these foods!

Obviously I will ask the nurse all this but I thought it would be better to prepare myself!

I also switched him to Nature's menu wet - he will eat it but prefers Felix.

I have noticed his poos are rather choice smelling fromt he NM wet food.

~Chameleon~

Is there a specific reason you're supplementing an already complete and adequate diet with pouches of wet food? This could be the reason he's not losing weight as effectively you're feeding him extra sweets/pudding on top of his dinner

Fire_Fox

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Is there a specific reason you're supplementing an already complete and adequate diet with pouches of wet food? This could be the reason he's not losing weight as effectively you're feeding him extra sweets/pudding on top of his dinner

Why is a high quality wet food such as Natures Menu a bad thing? It'll be lower in calories than any dry food, weight for weight?

larmy16

Hi Chameleon. Thanks for replying.

Well as you know the subject of wet and dry is pretty confusing to a cat owner.

Here is my logic which may well be flawed I appreciate.

I have been told the dry is good for teeth etc (though some say it makes them fat- being so much carbohydrate.)

Ideally I would like to get him to 4.5 kg. On Hills it recommends 50 - 65g per day and I feed him 25g. He is currently 5.5kg.

I am hedging my bets that if I feed him one pouch of wet (to eliminate the crystals in the urine problem which I had with another cat) plus the 25g of dry I am doing my best for his teeth and bladder!!!

I would understand if I were feeding him the total amount of Hills plus a pouch but I am feeding under half.

Your comments much appreciated.

larmy16

Just adding that I guessed that half of a full fat product would be equal to a doubled quantity of low fat? I mean we are told that diet foods have all sorts of stuff added to make them palatable and then we end up eating more as they don't satisfy.

My lady on Freecycle is going to be over the moon if I have to get rid of this stuff!

~Chameleon~

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Why is a high quality wet food such as Natures Menu a bad thing? It'll be lower in calories than any dry food, weight for weight?

I wasn't aware I'd said it was a bad thing!

hotcookie101

larmy16 wrote: »

Just adding that I guessed that half of a full fat product would be equal to a doubled quantity of low fat? I mean we are told that diet foods have all sorts of stuff added to make them palatable and then we end up eating more as they don't satisfy.

My lady on Freecycle is going to be over the moon if I have to get rid of this stuff!

my cat used to have 20g obesity dry, now has 22g RC neutered young male skin stones weight (I think! -its the highest protein lowest carb one) No regular dried food would reccc feeding more than 50g for a 4kg cat afaik also has 1 sachet cheapy rubbishy felix (he loves it! and stops cystitis that he gets with all dry diet) it may well be 90% water, but it suits. he weighs 4.5 and should be 4.2. Restricting food too much will result in a slow metabolism so you wont see weight loss (just like in people crash diets do not work:))

I'm not a fan of most cat "light" foods as they seem to be carb rich, and certainly in my cats case-carbs are not his friend! (although he loves veg, pasta spuds and rice which I do give him, I swear he was a labrador in a previous life!!! :cool:)

OP please chat with the vn who runs weight clinic, I bother ours all the time, and I'm the vet, but they have done further qual in nutrition compared to me-I keep up to date, but don't do nutrition courses-my continuing education tends to be for medical/surgical things rather than husbandry....

~Chameleon~

larmy16 wrote: »

Hi Chameleon. Thanks for replying.

Well as you know the subject of wet and dry is pretty confusing to a cat owner.

Don't worry, the variety available these days is confusing to ALL of us unless you happen to be an expert nutritional scientist/analyst

And as you can see from the responses you get on a forum such as this, every individual has their own ideas about what is best for their own pets.

larmy16 wrote: »

Here is my logic which may well be flawed I appreciate.

I have been told the dry is good for teeth etc (though some say it makes them fat- being so much carbohydrate.)

Ideally I would like to get him to 4.5 kg. On Hills it recommends 50 - 65g per day and I feed him 25g. He is currently 5.5kg.

I am hedging my bets that if I feed him one pouch of wet (to eliminate the crystals in the urine problem which I had with another cat) plus the 25g of dry I am doing my best for his teeth and bladder!!!

I would understand if I were feeding him the total amount of Hills plus a pouch but I am feeding under half.

Your comments much appreciated.

Are you looking at recommended food amounts for his current weight, or the weight he should be?

I think 65g of food sounds rather a lot for one cat. I have two cats (old girls, one weighs 3.5kg the other 4.2kg) and they have 24/7 access to their (dry) food (RC 28 & 34) but only eat on average approx 75g per day between them. They do get wet food as a treat but again, they will share a small 85g tin or 100g pouch between them.

If you're only feeding him 25g of dry plus a single pouch of wet food a day then I can't understand why he's not losing weight. Has he seen the vet recently?

Fire_Fox

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I wasn't aware I'd said it was a bad thing!

Now I am really confused .... you likened wet food to sweets/ puddings?

larmy16

Chameleon I am looking at the amounts of the weight for what he should be. I don't have the bag to hand but think it was 50-65g - he gets approx 25g or 1oz exactly.

Then one pouch of either Natures Menu or Felix. I don't think this is a lot of food for a cat his size which is 5.5. I was aware that you must not cut a cat's diet too quickly or too much or they could become ill.

This is why I am worried about him. Well I will let you all know what the VN advises. Thanks for responding everyone.

~Chameleon~

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Now I am really confused .... you likened wet food to sweets/ puddings?

No, I said feeding another type of food on top of an already complete diet was like adding pudding/sweets, regardless of whether it's wet or dry :rolleyes:

I'm actually growing quite tired of this personal crusade you've developed regarding cat food. I said before you were obsessed as a joke but now I clearly think you are!!!