Advice Needed Over Diet for Overweight Cat

tesuhoha

I think I need your advice because I have conflicting issues over this.

My tabby cat unlike my Bengal is a fussy eater. She will only eat a few wet foods but will eat any biscuits. Because I want the best for them I had for months been feeding them on Cosma Thai (tuna and crab) and Applaws chicken biscuits. I thought the Applaws was a really good thing to feed them as it is 80% protein. I was more or less free feeding them.

Both girls were spayed last year and gradually I have noticed that my tabby cat has been getting rounder and rounder. The Bengal is one of those lucky people who never puts weight on no matter what she eats and she is so full of energy anyway. In contrast my tabby cat sleeps a lot and lies around. She doesn't like going out very much and will go out reluctantly and stick around the house for five minutes then ask to come in. I do play with them with the Cat Frenzy toy but she doesn't do much chasing, just sits back and watches the Bengal.

Anyway, when I took her for her annual health check up they weighed her and she weighed 4.89kg which for her size she was obese so she is now in Cat Weightwatchers and has to go to be weighed every 3 weeks. The nurse said that Applaws is too rich for her, that any meat based diet would have too many calories and the Cosma Thai and other tuna based food she likes are extremely iffy. The nurse worked out a diet for her. The diet is one third of a pouch of Cosma Thai for breakfast and over the course of the day in 4 meals, 40g of the prescription dry diet food.

Unfortunately, this diet has had the effect of making her starving hungry all the time and she attempts to climb into the fridge and cries at me begging for food and seems generally obsessed by eating all the time just like a human binge eater. I find it very hard to stick to and find myself giving in to her and giving her meat like the rest of my steak or leftover chicken/fish etc. This of course is shared with the Bengal and the tabby won't always eat it. The Bengal now eats the diet dry food as well because its impossible for one to eat a different diet. If I feed one the other one appears and if I try to shut one away while the other one eats then the shut away one howls and the eater is put off their food.

Anyway since 25th April when she first weighed in at 4.89kg she has only dropped to 4.75kg. The nurse said if she doesn't lose weight next time she will have to go on diet wet food (which I know she won't eat). I find myself making all kinds of excuses to the nurse but I think at heart I am not happy with the diet. I looked at the ingredients in the prescription diet food and it has far too many cereals for my liking - its got wheat gluten in it for goodness sake. A cat shouldn't be eating that! Her coat doesn't seem to be as glossy as it was before and it doesn't even fill her up.

Therefore this week I have been trying to introduce more wet food into her diet as I believe that is better for a cat trying to lose weight but unfortunately, most of the wet foods she likes are not complete foods. I thought if I put her on 50% wet food with 4 small meals a day then it might help her. She likes Cosma Thai, Applaws chicken and another ocean fish one, the name escapes me but it is not a complete food. I also want to take her off the prescription food. I bought her Sanobelle which is light and seems more nutritious but the packet is finished now and I wanted to put her back on something more healthy. I have ordered some Orjen chicken dry food which is grain free and I thought I would feed her 40g of that over the course of the day with some Cosma Thai for breakfast or alternatively two meals of wet food and 2 of 10g of Orjen biscuits. No more free feeding. That will be healthy and give her more protein but will she lose weight on that?

The other thing is I would like to give her a good quality complete wet food but she won't eat Bozita, Feringa, Lily's Kitchen, Smilla. Sometimes she will reluctantly eat Thrive or Gourmet but then she leaves it and asks for biscuits. You will probably think I am pandering to her but she is stubborn and if she doesn't want to eat something then she won't no matter how hungry she is. I was thinking of trying Grau next. Lucky I have the unfussy Bengal otherwise I would have millions of cans of uneaten cat food all over the house.

I was reading the thread about raw feeding but I think I would not be capable of designing a nutritious diet for them and as she is such a fusspot I can't imagine her wanting to eat it. Luckily although she is a biscuit eater she likes a nice drink of water.

So does anyone know a delicious complete wet food which is tuna or fish based? Has anyone any suggestions how I can get her to lose weight in a healthy way without her having to eat cereal based prescription diet food and be constantly starving? She is only a young cat, 18 months old.

arbroath_lass

My first question would be, what qualifications does this nurse have in feline nutrition?


My solution would be to feed her as normal but reduce (very slightly) the amount she gets. Once she's used to that you can reduce it again, if necessary. And try to encourage her to play a bit more. No different from people! My cat is the same, once she was spayed it became really difficult to keep weight off. Especially the older, and more sedentary, she got.


Honestly, how does a cat know she's "on a diet"?


Good luck!

tesuhoha

arbroath_lass wrote: »

My first question would be, what qualifications does this nurse have in feline nutrition?


My solution would be to feed her as normal but reduce (very slightly) the amount she gets. Once she's used to that you can reduce it again, if necessary. And try to encourage her to play a bit more. No different from people! My cat is the same, once she was spayed it became really difficult to keep weight off. Especially the older, and more sedentary, she got.


Honestly, how does a cat know she's "on a diet"?


Good luck!

Thank you. That's my way of thinking. My husband thinks I should throw the diet biscuits away and I will once I receive the Orjen from Zooplus. I think the nurse wants to sell the diet food but she runs the pet diet club (does dogs as well). The vet is based in PetsatHome. I can't fault them as a vet so do not want to leave but feel the advice is not right.

fairy_lights

I would not put any faith in 'prescription dry food'. Does it happen to be a brand the vets sell, (and get a kick back on) by any chance?
Have you ever tried raw feeding her?

endlessdreamz

I'm no cat nutrition expert, nor do I have a nutrition qualification, but I did study animal nutrition and I have 3 cats myself. One of my cats is quite chubby and weighs over 4kg, in regards to her body condition, clear fat deposits on the outside of her ribs, she's only a small cat. And she's a greedy cat and will gorge and steal other cats' food if I don't lock her in the bathroom (that's where she eats) until the other cats have finished. I did put her on diet wet food (royal canin and wainwrights) for about few weeks back and it really didn't settle in her stomach after a while, she was vomiting and regurgitating what she ate. So I started giving her cooked turkey breast mince I got from the supermarket. I usually give her the stuff when she has tummy problems and it seems to settle it quite well as it's just protein. I have also noticed that since she went back onto turkey mince and wet food mix (about 30% wet food), and only put 2 spoonful on her dish, that she ate less and was more satisfied after she ate. This morning she didn't even finish her food in her dish before walking away.
Maybe when it comes to a cat that likes to eat and overfeed it's about the satiety and nutritional value (amount of protein and not fat) of each mouthful?

GwylimT

The nurse is a moron if she thinks carbs and sugar are less calorie dense than meat, can they explain why lions aren't obese?! Does she even know that cats are carnivores?

Firstly with cats you shouldn't go by weight, but by body score.

All the prescription brands contain a high amount of carbs, they also contain sugar, these are both stored as fat. They are also both a cause of obesity and diabetes in cats, dry versions of the food (or any dry cat food) is also associated with dehydration, urine crystals, UTI ans kidney disease.

Decent cat food is wet/raw with no sugar or grains and a high meat content. The closer a diet is to the natural diet the better for the animal.

Our cat is largely fed raw, we make our own but you can easily buy ready made stuff as well, occasionally she has some wet natures menu or macs. On raw she eats around 180g a day at the moment, she is slightly underweight on the body score, when she has wet she eats around 300g a day.

GwylimT

endlessdreamz wrote: »

I'm no cat nutrition expert, nor do I have a nutrition qualification, but I did study animal nutrition and I have 3 cats myself. One of my cats is quite chubby and weighs over 4kg, in regards to her body condition, clear fat deposits on the outside of her ribs, she's only a small cat. And she's a greedy cat and will gorge and steal other cats' food if I don't lock her in the bathroom (that's where she eats) until the other cats have finished. I did put her on diet wet food (royal canin and wainwrights) for about few weeks back and it really didn't settle in her stomach after a while, she was vomiting and regurgitating what she ate. So I started giving her cooked turkey breast mince I got from the supermarket. I usually give her the stuff when she has tummy problems and it seems to settle it quite well as it's just protein. I have also noticed that since she went back onto turkey mince and wet food mix (about 30% wet food), and only put 2 spoonful on her dish, that she ate less and was more satisfied after she ate. This morning she didn't even finish her food in her dish before walking away.
Maybe when it comes to a cat that likes to eat and overfeed it's about the satiety and nutritional value (amount of protein and not fat) of each mouthful?

Unless you are adding a complete supplement such as felini complete your cats dietary needs aren't being met, if you aren't adding these the mince shouldn't make up more than 15-20% of her diet.

pinkteapot

Just to reiterate what GwylimT said for anyone else who may read, raw/homemade etc does *not* mean buying meat from the supermarket (the same meat you'd buy for yourself) and feeding that to your kitties. Cats need certain substances - most notably taurine - that are not present in high enough quantities in your average meat. In wild prey, taurine is found in muscle and organs - precisely what you don't buy from Tesco.

True raw cat food that you can buy will have appropriate supplements. You can also buy supplements to add to normal meat so you can make your own raw feed, but do your research on recipes first.

Plain chicken/turkey is sometimes recommended when kitty has an upset tum but only for short-term use (1-2 days) as it's not a complete food.

bitofsaving

I have a similar situation - one picky eater, and one who gets fat very easily. Both are fed Orijen cat dry food, a complete food with 80% meat content. My fat cat simply gets less. She gets her daily dose split into two meals a day, sprinkled over a "cat maze" toy, so it takes her longer to finish.
I had to reduce her daily dose from 45g down to 40g, then down to 36g to get her to loose weight again (she'd crept up without me noticing from around 4.8kg which is okayish on her, still a bit too fat, up to 5.2kg). I have to weigh out her portions with kitchen scales because it is really easy to feed an extra 5g, and that's enough to get the weight creeping back up again.

This regime was approved my vet who saw the cat at her annual check and vaccinations. Previous to that appointment (which woke me up to the fact that the weight had gone up again - this is a life-long challenge with my cat) I had started feeding her one meal a day dry food, the other wet food. But I found it really hard to figure out what the equivalent of the wet food was to her usual ration of dry, and it must have contributed to the weight creeping back on. I've gone back to all-dry, and if the cats are drinking plenty (as mine do), there is really no issue with feeding a good dry food. In fact, it can help keep the teeth in good shape. My cat is now 15 years old, has been on a diet of quality dry food all her life and is still a picture of health. I would not go and start messing with raw food. It can work if done right, but there's also an awful lot that can go wrong. Most of the vets I've spoken to are not fans (even those who are not pushing the expensive prescription diets instead).

Last comment - a loss of 140g for a cat weighing 4.75kg is close to 3% loss of bodyweight, and nothing to sneeze at.

jenny-wren

I have the same problem - an overweight but adorable and very contented puss that has little interest in exercise. I tried the Royal Canin and Hills prescription diet routes recommended by the vet. The wet food was vile (especially the Hills) and I didn't want her to be on a purely dry diet. We gave it a go but she lost very little weight and her constant crying for food was driving me crazy.

I've now transitioned her onto a better quality grain-free wet food (Animonda Carny) and a limited amount of grain-free dry (Porta 21). I tried her on Granatapet and Grau and both were met with a 'no way am I eating that'. Fussy little madam.

She gets 57g of Animonda Carny for breakfast, 5g of dry left down during the day, 57g of Animonda Carny and 3g of dry for dinner and then 40g of a small Sheba pouch and 4g of dry at suppertime. From my calculations that's about 185 calories a day and she's still not losing weight. She's a very unhealthy 6.8kg and I'm at my wits end. She has virtually no teeth (dental problems before she came to us) so a raw diet isn't really an option. She has the attention span of a goldfish and gets bored with playing after 5 minutes even if you offer a variety of play things (including scratching tree, balls, flying frenzy, kickaroo, squeaky mouse, feathers, string, fingers and toes). Our house looks like a Zooplus advert. Physically there's nothing wrong with her, she's just a complete couch potato.

As I see it my options are:
1. Reduce her current food further and chase her round the garden every half an hour;
2. Ditch the good quality food and resort to giving her larger quantities of a food that will fill her up quicker;
3. Get a kitten (so that she won't be able to sleep for 20 hours a day); or
4. Book her in for kitty liposuction :rotfl:

If you find a solution that works please please share!

StaffieTerrier

jenny-wren wrote: »

I have the same problem - an overweight but adorable and very contented puss that has little interest in exercise.

I have a cat that used to be fat. She also has no teeth and is incredibly lazy. I bought her one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Company-of-Animals-NGC-Interactive/dp/B00EB4IV2A/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1468582490&sr=8-5&keywords=cat+bowl+slow+feeder

All her dry food and odd treats go in there. She has to work a bit for her food now. I did start off putting her wet food in there but she was ending up with soggy paws then insisting on sitting on my lap :rotfl: