My cat is 30 lbs. Tests ruled out diabettes and/or thyroid problem, and I'm working on getting him exercise..

Question

What particular foods would you recommend for diet?

Answer 1

Check out these articles on obesity and one link to an article listing of the very best foods you can buy.

In a nutshell, exercise is great, but diet is key. You need to feed species appropriate food, which means either raw meat or commercially prepared CANNED food (good quality ones). Or you could consider Nature's Variety Instincts or By Nature Organics - these are two that I'm going to try.

If you start feeding better food, your cat can eat a good amount and so won't be pestering you for food all the time. And he'll lose weight at a safe pace, which is around 1 pound per month.

Answer 2

30lb?!? That's one big cat!!

OK, I do weight clinics at my practice (I'm a vet nurse) and have found all patients so far have responded well to Hills r/d diet food, or Royal Canin Obesity diet. Both come in wet and dry form. Ask your vet if they supply these, or get them to write a prescription. You need to feed the guideline daily amount for the weight you WANT the cat to be - between 7.7-8.8lb for an average cat. If he's a VERY big cat then his ideal weight might be as much as 12lb. You need a vet to take a look at him to give you an idea of what he should weigh. You need to feed in specific mealtimes rather than leave the food down at all times.

Ideally a cat should lose 1% of his bodyweight a week (about 4.5oz), the weight loss shouldn't be too quick. You need to weigh him weekly or fortnightly to see if you need to adjust the food amount - increase if he's losing more than 1% a week, decrease the amount if he's not losing enough.

Dieting must be accompanied by exercise, so get him some toys to start playing with - anything on a string is good, laser pens are great. Maybe put his food up on levels so he has to move to get to it! You'll find he becomes more active as he loses weight.

Chalice

Answer 3

I would suggest trying any light formula dry food that is high quality - California Natural makes a good one. Measure food carefully and don't free-feed - leave food out all the time.

My overweight cat that I adopted (only 17 lbs. though) had trouble with the different types of diet foods - he would throw them up - so I switched to regular formula California Natural dry and fed him less.

He is gradually losing weight - which is good. It is important that cats lose slowly and steadily.

Answer 4

Any good quality high-protein, low-carb WET food. (Tho if you must feed dry food there are a few grain-free dry foods available.)

Cats are obligate carnivores and should not be fed dry foods that are full of wheat, corn, and rice.

Please see the feline nutrition links below. And remember that any diet change should be made gradually (over the course of a week), to avoid stomach upset.

Answer 5

Hi

Unfortunatly, you have gotten some really horribler advice even from people in the vet community.
You were worried about diabetes? Dry food is probably the number 1 cause of it as well as kidney disease. You will find many more cats overweight on dry foods compared to wet. I wish they would outlaw dry foods and force vets to take nutrtion classes from a nuetral party and not from ther food companies trying to sell their products regardless of the cost in lives. Dry foods are loaded with carbs and fillers such as corn which is inappropiate for a cat and many cats end up paying the price for it. You want to feed canned foods that don't have gravy. My cat wasn't fat but did get diabetes from eating dry foods. I have since rescued diabetics and many are in remission one the switch was made to a low carb quality canned food.
BTW someone recommended the food WD which is one of the worst foods you could feed any cat especially one that needs to loose weight. They have the nerve to sell this crap as prescription food and charge a premium price for pure garbage
Please learn about cat nutrition. You can start here
http://www.catinfo.org/

Answer 6

I work at a Veterinary Hospital. Science Diet is what we recommend. They have a prescription line called r/d (for reduction diet) and w/d (to maintain the weight once the cat gets to the goal weight). Talk to your vet about what s/he recommends. Follow the guidelines they give you as to how much to feed per day. It will take a long time to lose the weight, cats and dogs should not lose weight as quickly as humans.

Answer 7

Any high quality cat food without corn or wheat will help your obese kitty get down to size. I like science diet, but I have converted my 3 kitties over to Innova Evo. I use the no grain product, but you can use the others that have rice or barley in them. Switch over GRADUALLY to avoid "the runs" digestive discomfort and vomiting. This cat food is richer in protein than many others and has a money back guarantee. It's one of the best foods you can get. I get mine at www.petfooddirect.com . On the bag, it will give you guidlines on how much to feed. however much you feed now, cut that down and feed half in the morning and half at night. Slowly cut him down to about 3/4 of a cup or less, depending upon the bone structure of your cat (ask the vet), serving half in the morning and half at night. Once the cat gets down to normal weight, serve the amount suggested on the package. No wet food. Only one treat per day if any. At first, you don't want to excersize too much as it will be too much for kitties heart. Increase excersize gradually after he starts loosing weight. Since your cat is so large, it's very important not to overdue phyiscal activity in the first stages of weight loss, but be sure to give him some and like I said increase as he looses weight. Your kitty is very seriously overweight and could experience many dangerous health problems so be careful. I know one person whose cat was overweight and would not get active. He was very food motivated, so she would put food in the dish and walk several laps around the house with his food dish. Kitty would follow, getting a good start on physical activity. Once her kitty lost some weight, she started him on a more rigorous physical activity schedule. I hope this helps. : )

Answer 8

Try feeding the cat what the vet recommended.You can't get all these tests done and not get a recommendation from him

Answer 9

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Answer 10

Wet food. There's much less carbs in it than dry, and it's overall much healthier for cats than dry food is. As well, get him much more exercise. Put his food up on a table or something like that, where he has to jump up to get to it. A friend of mine put his cat's dry food in a cup, so he'd have to use his paw to get it out. It was just another way to get him to work for his food. :)

Here's actually an article on feline obesity that talks about getting cats to lose weight and how she went about it. The author is actually a veterinarian herself. You might be interested in reading it. :) http://www.catnutrition.org/obesity.html