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Happy New Year to everyone. With the new year comes new beginnings and promises.
Our furry feline friends suffer from the same major health issues as their human companions. The number one condition being that they are overweight or obese. Studies have shown that almost 60% of cats are either overweight or obese.
Why should we care? Overweight cats can look adorable and Garfield has made them socially acceptable. As with their human friends packing on a few pounds does carry risk. Among these risk are diabetes, osteoarthritis, insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cruciate ligament injury, and kidney disease. Being overweight can decreased life expectancy (up to 2.5 years). Finally it increases your cat’s risk for cancer.
There are many theories and ideas about what is the best feline nutrition from home prepared versus commercially prepared. For our purposes on this blog, we are going to discuss weight management only.
The first thing to consider is calories. How many calories does your cat need in a day? Here is a link to a wonderful Feline Calorie Calculator. With this calculator, you can help determine a baseline for your cat’s daily caloric needs. If the web site is down, please use 250 kCal as your base line.
Here are some examples – a 6 lb kitten needs 373 kCal/day to grow. A 10 lb neutered cat needs 262 kCal/day to maintain their weight. When you enter in your cats weight, it is best to use the weight they should weigh not what they currently weigh. For example you have a 20 lb cat who should weight 15 lb. Put in the 15 lb and use the weight loss kCal side – so for this cat that would be 283 kCal/day not the 354 kCal/day for weight maintenance.
So now you are armed with the knowledge of how many kCal/day your cat needs. The first step is to find out how many kCal/day they are currently receiving. If you have more than one cat, please estimate how much each one receives. If you are not measuring the dry food, this is the time to start. Canned food is easier because it is already portioned.
Once you know what they are receiving, try to gradually reduce their food to the recommended amounts. Increasing the number of feedings is helpful. So smaller portions but more feedings.
Here are some popular diet caloric contents.
In my humble opinion, the easiest way to get your cat to lose some pounds is to feed canned or home prepared foods. These diets are less caloric dense than dry foods. With canned food, the meal is already portioned. Most cats need about 2-3 3 oz cans daily.
There are many reasons that people prefer to fed dry food and some cats will only eat dry food. Measuring the food becomes very important. Food puzzles can be very helpful because they make your cat work for their food. This serves to make eating more like hunting so it is more interesting. Food puzzles also do not allow for gorging of food. Most cats need about 1/2 cup of dry daily. There are some videos of food puzzles at the end of this blog.
There are many varieties of “diet” foods. Hill’s has a diet that increases metabolism – Metabolic. Royal Canin has Satiety which helps make your cat feel full after eating. It is very important that you cat likes and eats the food you give them. Cats can develop a very serious liver disorder if they stop eating. Both diets are guaranteed so if you cat does not like them, they can be returned for a full refund.
Our team is here to help you determine a diet and regimen to help your furry friend reach their ideal weight.
We are holding a raffle to give away a food puzzle, a bag or case of diet food, and nutritional counseling. The money will go to the Chris Griffey Feline Memorial Fund. The raffle starts Wednesday – January 6, 2016 until Wednesday – January 13, 2016. Drawing for the prize will be Thursday – January 14, 2016. Tickets are $1. You can click here to enter the raffle.
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