Any Experience re Cats and LCHF for Weight loss, pls?

[Deleted member 308541]

Don't think I'd give them the bacon and egg - they'd soon be hoicking it off my plate So far, they don't bother me when I'm eating so that might well change if they think they eat the same!

It was easier to cook another egg and a extra bit of bacon for the cats, and keep them from digging claws in to my knee scrounging while we were eating.

 

[Brunneria]

I don't think I could cope with giving them raw birds and mice, even though it's a natural food for them

You don’t have to.

I buy pre made food, in the correct proportions of raw muscle and organ meat, with added veg and herbs and fish oil mixed in. The phrase 'prey model' refers to the balance of muscle and organ and bone that adds up to the proportions of a prey animal.

Have a look at the brands mentioned by @Engineer88 above. We get it delivered frozen or buy from the nearest supplier (half a mile from where we live).

 

[Bluetit1802]

I was wondering about the fat content. As they are both on RC Obesity Dry, I had a thought that it would possibly have lower fat content and that, if I were to give them more fat, that they might not feel so hungry, just as us humans find fat helps to stave off hunger etc. Yes, some oily fish could be useful in this respect.

Cats love fish, and so do dogs. Salmon, tuna, mackerel etc. You could buy a small tin of salmon for example and make it last a few days with a small portion added to his food every day or alternate days. The oil is good for their fur and skin apart from anything else. My dog loves it. I have tinned salmon a lot at lunch times. I mash it up in a dish, spoon it to my plate, then she cleans out the dish. She sits waiting for it!

And yes, eggs are also a good thing.

 

[LooperCat]

Mine also hunt and eat what they catch - I nice came downstairs to find two of them sharing a juicy pigeon on my kitchen floor, so I left them to it and all that was left was the head, a foot, and a few feathers... we live my a river, so there’s a few juicy rodents to keep them occupied too.

 

[KibbyRose]

So, I'm just wondering if anyone has any knowledge/experience regarding LCHF for cats, please. [/QUOTE]

Greetings from NYC! My cat has been in remission from diabetes for 6 years because I changed his food to low carb. My vet, like many doctors, just said to put him on insulin with no nutrition advice. Cats, even healthy ones, do not need carbohydrates--they need protein and fat. Most dry foods are pretty high in carbs. Even the cheapest canned food is better than dry, but wet food can have carbs too--especially the ones with gravy. There is an excellent website with all this info, catinfo.org to which I give full credit for saving my kitty!

 

[Energize]

Hi all

Apologies for not getting back here sooner. I've had some busy days and the time has just whizzed past. However, I very much appreciate all the suggestions and links on here and I have managed to read many of the links.

I saw the Vet Nurse yesterday (without my cat, tho, as it's rather traumatic for her to be caught and put in carrier etc. Long story but they both had an incredible difficult start to life before being discovered and put into the care of Cats Protection - where I adopted them from at 5 months old)

So, the vet nurse and myself had a very long discussion - approx 1 hour, to be honest !!! Needless to say, her views are based on those of the surgery and promote Royal Canin so I'll say no more on that! However, I did explain how I was looking into low carb or prey-model diet etc and also explained why etc and she was clearly holding an open mind. She said she would like to look into further, as she agreed it did sound sensible etc.

So, for now I'm going to change her current diet more over to wet food, and a different pouch food, gradually, of course. I still feel both my cats would ultimately benefit from a more natural diet and am looking into the prey-model to see where/how to get the food, how much it will cost etc. I feel I will likely change over to this style of food quite soon, to be honest, but I need to be sure I fully understand what I'm doing first. I see no reason to suggest my cats may have issues eating the raw food, although will be introduced gradually. They certainly chomped well on some raw chicken I bought yesterday, cut into inch cubed pieces. Again, I suspect they may have been weened on wild birds and mice!!!

I have a lot more reading to do before finally embarking on this new feeding regime but I'm sure it will solve the weight problem in a much better and healthy manner.

Please feel free to post any further advice or suggestions (particularly where to source this food type) as I'll always be happy to increase my knowledge etc. I always like to learn new things, although my memory often fails me too much

Again, many thanks to you all

 

[Energize]

Hi again

Just another question, if I may? Regarding the raw feeding, prey-model, can I slowly introduce this new food or should I change to it straight from previous 'normal' pouches, please? I would refer to change over gradually but the girl at the shop where I can get 'Nutriment Raw' said I should change straight over, if that's what I decide to do, something to do with different enzymes required to digest it???

I've always been under the impression that any change in diet should be gradual, so as to lessen any risk of upset digestive systems.

I'd very much appreciate your opinions. Many thanks

 

[Bluetit1802]

I know nothing about feeding raw food, and very little about cats. However, with dogs it is never a good idea to swap from one type of food to another all at once. Gradual is the way to go if you don't want a poorly sick dog.

 

[tim2000s]

We feed ours Aatu food which is a dry food that is85% meat content, 15% veg and herbs. They seem to like it and are very shiny.

 

[Brunneria]

Go gradually!
Cats can be very fussy, and sneaking stuff I may be the only way to transition. You may also get some soft bowel movements for a while, and it is kinder to let their tummies and bowels adjust.

One thing I noticed very clearly, is that their movements are a heck of a lot less stinky. Hardly any smell at all. A huge improvement on that dreadful second hand processed junk food stench.

 

[AloeSvea]

I know that I had a 'ah hah!' moment when having new kittens in a keto/lchf household last year. If food companies and doctors can sell us/on dangerous food at worst (hello fellow type twos!) inappropriate for our species at best, what would stop largely unregulated pet food companies from doing the same thing for profit?

The answer of course - absolutely nothing to stop them. And pet food companies are less regulated than human- food companies.

And vets, like GPs and the medical profession, often get the same nutritional information that us commoners do - from the food companies. If you read the ingredients you realise what a fabulous piece of marketing 'science diet' and a word like 'purrina' (purring and pure! very clever) - are. Do we get sucked in? Oh absolutely!

Yes, as cats are obligate carnivores any carbs are inappropriate at best, but more so than us, downright dangerous - absolutely.

How many really fat cats are there about now? Just like us humans - heaps and heaps. With diabetes and kidney disease down the track, and various metabolic cancers (I'm talking cats here, but you can see how it applies to we mammals as well!)

I too found and find cat kibble to be very convenient, but read the ingredients - and wo ho! No wonder these poor cats are getting fat and sick on that diet.

If our current food environment makes us fat and sick you can bet your bottom dollar so does processed food made for our pets. I'm a cat person, so for me it is about carnivorous cats, and how they do (not well!) with carbs and 'meal' as fillers and the latter - the main ingredient often, as is 'rendered' ie very bad quality meat product.

We absolutely need to do the same thing for our cats that we do for ourselves, says me and Herr Svea. Read the ingredients on catfood, and understand what you are reading - remembering the order of ingredients is very important, buy 'grain free' - absolutely! cat kibble if you need to do that.

Cats have great intestines and so on to deal with raw meat - if they didn't they would not be a very alive species that they are today. (But I have read about this when we researched proper cat diet.) They do not have opposable thumbs and the wherewithall to start fires like we do! (To cook our meat and veg to make it easier for us to digest.) They are just fine with raw meat. And with bones! (I can't believe I actually took on board that bones were dangerous for cats in my pre-now life!) (Hey! I feel the same way about egg re we humans r!) They are absolutely not fine with veg! When starchy veg are used in cat food products it has nothing to do with nutrition, and everything to do with the profit principle. (Cheap fillers!)

But yes, they do need the organ meats as well as the muscle meat. Steak and kidney, livers, heart muscle beef - that kind of thing.

Chicken nibbles (yes - raw) have been a good easy addition to our cats' diet for the bones (teeth health). I thought good quality kibble (ie very low carb if any!) would help their teeth, but apparently no, I read somewhere. It does need to be bone.

When wondering about cats and nutrition, imho, think rodents! And yes they eat just about everything except the tails...

And birds. (This is a problem in NZ because the poor old native birds, some being flightless, have a very tough time with that excellent of all predators - our kitty cats - but that is a whole other story.)

 

[Energize]

Many thanks to @Bluetit1802 , @tim2000s , @Brunneria and @AloeSvea

Apologies for the time taken to respond. It seems I'm not getting any notifications so I'll check that out.

Anyway, many thanks for responding. Yes, I was surprised when the girl said to change over to raw in one go. It's very much against what I've always been led to believe, hence the question. Her reasoning was something to do with raw food requiring different enzymes to digest it. Didn't ring quite 'true' to me! So, 'gently does it' when I start.

I still haven't decided which food brand to go for but I do think raw is the way to go, now that I've been reading up on it.

So many thanks for all the advice and support from you all