Weight Loss Diet for Cats

the 1st Key to Taking Pounds Off Pets

Carefully following a restricted calorie diet is absolutely essential to weight control.

There are three parts of the POP Diet Plan:

• The Main Diet
• Treats
• Reviewing & Revising the Plan

We also offer some Tips & Tricks for a successful POP Diet.

Main Diet: Prescription Weight Loss Formula

An important early step in your cat's POP Plan will be selecting an appropriate prescription weight loss diet for your cat. We will help you choose a new main diet for your cat and will also help you choose appropriate treats for your cat if you like to feed treats.

Your cat will need a prescription weight loss diet to allow him to lose weight through calorie restriction while still receiving adequate vitamins and other nutrients.

Over the counter "low calorie" foods are not sufficiently calorie restricted to facilitate weight loss, although they can be used to maintain weight loss once a healthy weight is maintained. Our prescription weight loss diets are lower in calories than over the counter "low calorie" foods and are designed to be palatable (tasty!) and filling while providing your cat with all the nutrients he needs. Strict calorie restriction on a non-prescription diet can lead to nutrient imbalances, is not generally successful for weight loss and should be avoided.

Choosing the Best Diet Food for Your Cat

We carry a variety of excellent veterinary diets to appeal to even finicky eaters. Some cats prefer one brand over another or canned or moist food over dry. The right food for your cat is the one that works! Our main prescription diet lines are Hills Prescription Diets as well as Royal Canin. We are also happy to order Purina and Iams/Eukanuba prescription diets by special request.

High Fiber, High Water or High Protein? What's the deal??

Fiber: Weight loss diets typically use "fillers" to create a feeling of fullness or satisfaction without lots of calories. This filling effect of fiber is why people on a diet crunch on celery or air popped pop corn. Traditional pet weight loss diets, such as Hill's r/d or Royal Canin Calorie Control High Fiber are high in fiber because fiber fills us up without adding calories. This approach has proven effective for many, many pets. One down side of a high fiber diet is that all that fiber leads to a lot of poop, which can be inconvenient. Because the high fiber approach is a tried and true method and has proven safe and effective for many years, it is usually the first recommendation of nutritional experts for most cats.

Water: Like fiber, drinking lots of water can also help fill the stomach, so canned foods (all formulas are available in canned; Hill's r/d is even available in multiple flavors) or moist foods (Royal Canin formulas are offered in a moist formula in addition to canned or dry) are often recommended for weight loss since the added water can help fill the stomach. Since extra water intake helps prevent the urinary tract problems that so often afflict cats, we often recommend canned foods for cats, especially if using a high fiber diet formula such as r/d, since fiber acts to absorb water and so will increase a cat's daily requirement of water. Which ever food you choose, it is always important to ensure that your cat drinks plenty of fresh water every day. Cats are finicky about cleanliness and prefer cool fresh water, so washing out the water bowl daily is important. Cat water fountains can also encourage your cat to drink more.

Protein: Recent advances in the science of weight loss have suggested that a diet relatively high in protein can help achieve weight loss better than a lower protein diet. Ask any 10 weight loss gurus whether high protein is the answer to successful weight loss, and you'll likely get 10 different answers. In human weight management, many current diets (like Atkins or South Beach) emphasize a high protein content. High protein content is believed to help people and pets feel fuller on fewer calories. A cat's natural carnivorous (meat eating) diet is higher in protein than our own omnivorous (eating everything) diet. Since a cat's natural diet is high in protein and since a high protein diet is associated with weight loss, it makes sense that a higher protein diet may be particularly appropriate for cat weight loss. Royal Canin Calorie Control High Protein and Hill's m/d are high in protein content.

Click on an image below for detailed information from the manufacturer on each recommended diet. 

Hill's Prescription Diet Feline r/d * this is a high fiber formula	Hill's Prescription Diet Feline m/d * this is a high protein formula
Royal Canin Feline Calorie Control High Fiber	Royal Canin Feline Calorie Control High Protein *also available in moist pouches

When your cat starts POP, you may purchase a "Diet Sampler Pack" with samples of appropriate weight loss diet foods. This sample pack provides an economical way to try a variety of textures and flavors of appropriate diets without purchasing an entire bag or case of each food. You will offer your cat samples of these diets over a few days until you find the diet or combination of diets that your cat prefers.

You'll want to continue with your cat's regular diet while trying these sample foods. It is never a good idea to suddenly change your cat's diet as this can cause stomach upset and also can make it less likely your cat will accept a new food.

At meal time during the sample period, you'll first offer your cat a half size meal of the sample food. Allow him 15 minutes to try the sample and eat as much as he will. Then, add a half-size meal of your cat's regular food to the remainder of the sample and allow your cat to finish whatever he wants. Remove all food after 15 more minutes. (Meal times should generally be limited to 30 minutes.) After a few meals, try the next sample. Keep trying samples until you have tried them all and have chosen the food that your cat likes best. Once you have chosen a food, it is time to come back in for a POP Consultation with a nurse so we can calculate the appropriate feeding amounts each day for your cat.

Establish the POP Feeding Plan

Once you have selected a diet, you and your cat will come in for a POP consultation with a nurse and she (or he) will help you finalize a feeding plan using your preferred food(s), along with any treats you plan to continue to feed.

We will provide you with a written plan telling you exactly how much to feed your cat, allowing for treats if you like to provide treats and providing feeding tips for weight management. We will also provide you with a marked measuring cup for measuring your cat's food if you will be using dry food.

Your cat's POP Plan will include a feeding plan, an exercise plan and a schedule of POP Weigh-In consultations to ensure progress over time.

Review & Revise the Plan

We will refine, adjust and revise the feeding plan as needed over time. Each POP Weigh-In visit will include an assessment of what is and what is not working for your cat and a revision of the plan as needed.

Food Diary Sometimes Needed

We generally expect to see about 1% weight loss per week on a POP Plan. If weight loss is not adequate, we can trim back the food amounts or increase exercise.

If we suspect that your pet has an unusually slow metabolism or that snacks, treats or table scraps are sabotaging your cat's diet, keeping a detailed diary of exactly what your cat eats for several days can help us determine exactly what is going on and develop a solution for your cat. If you need to keep a food diary, make sure that all family members are on board with the plan and record every item they feed. Measure all amounts and include copies of labels of treats and foods that you feed so that we can count the calories for you. Keeping an accurate diary for 3 to 7 typical days is usually sufficient.

Bring the diary to your next POP Weigh In so we can revise your cat's feeding plan using the information we learn from the diary.

Tips & Tricks for a successful POP Diet

• Provide plenty of fresh water at all times. It is essential for health and helps fill the tummy as well.
• Always measure your cat's food. Mark a "fill line" on your measuring cup.
• Split your cat's food into 2 or 3 small meals per day instead of one large meal. Each feeding fires up the cat's metabolism and satisfies hunger for a while, so if your schedule allows it, you can feed even more than 3 meals, so long as you count those total daily calories!
• Don't free feed.
• Designate only one family member to feed the cat.
• If more than one family member feeds your cat, measuring out each day's meals a week at a time in zip lock bags (or label cans with a marker). This way, everyone knows whether your cat has already had his meal and he can't double dip.
• Measure out each day's treats and place in a labeled zip lock bag, especially if more than one family member feeds the cat.
• Don't feed any table scraps at all.
• Replace high calorie treats with low calorie treats.
• Consider making your cat work for some or all of his food by hiding it in locations around the house or using a treat dispenser type of toy.
• Show your affection with games, playing, training or petting instead of with food.

Tips for dealing with the multi-pet household

Keeping the dieting cat out of the other pet's food is one of the greatest challenges to weight loss. Some tips & tricks to solve this challenge include:

Don't forget your dog also needs Exercise to take the pounds off!

Return to main Weight Management page.