Help recommend a food?

I can't say what foods are available in Canada, but I can say to avoid all 'light', 'indoor' and 'weight management foods'; they tend to actually make cats gain weight instead of lose.

Look for a food with higher protein and fat percentages, or if you are up to some math, calculate the DMB and find a food with the lowest percentage of carbs that is affordable for you. http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/choosi...-matter-basis/

As she looses weight, she will become more active, but buying her toys like Da Bird will help a lot with her weight loss.

15 minutes is actually pretty good. If she does that once or twice a day, it will be very helpful.

If she doesn't finish 1/4th cup, then yes, it would be fine to cut back.

Could you point out the Royal Canin that you tried? I can't seem to find any on this page that specifies it's for spayed/neutered. http://products.royalcanin.us/products.aspx?Animal=Cat
But if I presume that it has 6% fiber, 6% ash and 10% moisture like the food you are already feeding, the Royal Canin would actually be a Worse choice.

All of those foods are 'light' or weight control formula, and unfortunately, the manufacturers don't seem to realize that more carbs = fatter cats, and that's exactly what diet formulas are: more carbs.

Which holistic foods are you talking about? Some may list veggies in the ingredients yes, but if they are farther down the list and the food says 34%+ protein and 15%+ fat, then the food is more than likely a better choice than what you currently have.

Hi, Ravenology (cool name!). Welcome to TCS!

Have you considered switching to a canned grain-free diet? Cats on canned food lose weight far more easily than those on kibble.

CatInfo.org (Dr. Pierson) has an article you might find interesting: Feline Obesity: An Epidemic of Fat Cats, and Dr. Hofve, of LittleBigCat.com also discusses this issue here: Feline Obesity.

Feed more wet food. In general, cats should receive at least 75 percent of their diet as wet food, either good-quality canned foods or homemade diets. For significant, healthy weight loss, feed 100% canned food and get rid of the dry altogether. (There are many reasons to ditch the dry food, but we can just start with the fact that all those carbs will turn to fat because the cat can’t use them for energy!) Always make sure kitty is eating; some cats are so addicted to their dry food that they will go on a hunger strike without it. Be sure you work closely with your veterinarian when changing diets to minimize the risk to your cat.

A high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet (think “Atkinsâ€â€“or should we say, “Catkinsâ€!) is truly ideal for the cat. Most canned cat and kitten foods meet these standards, but try to choose those with the least carbohydrate. You can get a fair idea of carbohydrate content by simply subtracting all the listed percentages on the label from 100%. About 8% carbohydrate (or less) is best. Although it seems counter-intuitive to eat more fat while trying to lose weight, adding will help maintain a good balance in the body, and provide support for the immune and nervous systems.

Feline-Nutrition.org also has several articles on this topic, including "Diabetes and Obesity: Preventable Epidemics" and "Feline Obesity: A Cat as Big as Omaha". Dr. Hodgkins discusses the impact of nutrition on diabetes and obesity on her website YourDiabeticCat.com:

As important as the proper management of feline diabetes is, it may be even more important that cat lovers learn to prevent this terrible disease in any cat with whom they ever share a home in the future. Diabetes in the cat is a man-made disease, which is completely preventable by avoiding the "kitty junk-food" that is dry kibbled cat food. Without question, it is the continuous, day-in, day-out consumption of this poor-quality, highly processed, carbohydrate rich "breakfast cereal for cats" that causes so many felines to become diabetic.

Many cats also become obese from such a terrible diet, but obesity does not cause diabetes, as some experts would have cat owners think. Rather, obesity and diabetes simply have the same cause, non-nutritious, high carbohydrate commercial cat food. To prevent both obesity and diabetes, we need only avoid such junk food when we feed our cats. Instead, we must feed the cat what it evolved to eat: meat. Fortunately, there are many canned and pouched cat foods, as well as many recipes for raw meat diets, that provide good quality nutrition of the obligatory carnivore that is the cat.

Hope some of this info is helpful to you!

AC

Hmmm, are you only feeding her once a day? Cats evolved to eat many small meals a day and can get tummy aches - which can cause vomiting that, in some instances, will make a cat go off her food entirely - if they go too long without eating. I feed my cats three times a day and that's what I always recommend: once shortly after you get up, once immediately after you get home, and one more time just before you go to bed.

Most kitties eat ~one 5.5 or 6 ounce can of food a day. You can feed 1/3 of the can at each sitting, which your fur-baby should be able to eat within a few minutes.

CatInfo.org has a great transition article that will be very helpful to you if your girl gives you any trouble finishing her food at each sitting: Transitioning Feline Dry Food Addicts to Canned Food.

Can you give this a try?

AC

Once again, all of those foods are light or 'weight management' foods, so they are going to be higher in carbs, and therefore, higher in grains and veggies. If you want a high quality, low vegetable content food, you need to stop looking at diet foods. Innova is probably listed as a holistic food and the protein of their wet is at a staggering 50%!
Other brands to look at are Evo or California Natural.

I don't think the OP meant that she only feeds once a day, but that since her cat doesn't tend to eat all the food in her bowl at once, she's worried about the wet food sitting out all day while she's gone.

But no, Raven, your cat won't get poisoning if you leave out the food. In fact, after it starts to dry out a bit, she probably won't touch it again. What you can do is leave one ready-to-eat-now bowl, and another bowl with frozen wet in it for her to eat later.

Excellent. You'll be surprised how much better your cat will look and feel once you get her onto a quality grain-free canned food. In addition to the resources I've already posted, the Feline Nutrition Education Society's website, Feline-Nutrition.org, has several relevant articles on food products and their relation to obesity, as well as tips on choosing high quality foods.

Best regards!

AC

Over the years I recommended kitten/ puppy foods for overweight animals and actually had a few vets come and ask for help

My vet was so surprised at how well my cat is losing weight, he wanted to know specifically what I was feeding, but then couldn't believe that a wet food only diet (and non-diet foods) could do the trick so he was convinced it was diabetes or the like until he saw my cat's blood-work.

I plan on continuing to wow him with my cat's good bill of health.
(Well, besides what was already broken when I got him :P)

Here is the list of canned foods I've been feeding my fosters:

Before Grain 96% Chicken Formula Canned Cat Food ''1''
Before Grain 96% Turkey Canned Cat Food ''4''
Before Grain 96% Quail Formula Canned Cat Food ''5''
Before Grain 96% Beef Formula Canned Cat Food ''6''
By Nature Natural 95% Meat Beef and Liver Formula Canned Cat Food
By Nature Natural 95% Meat Chicken and Chicken Liver Formula Canned Cat Food
By Nature Natural 95% Meat Turkey and Turkey Liver Formula Canned Cat Food
by Nature Organics Chicken & Chicken Liver Canned Cat Food
by Nature Organics Turkey & Chicken Canned Cat Food
by Nature Organics Turkey & Turkey Liver Canned Cat Food
Felidae Grain Free Cat and Kitten Formula Canned Cat Food
Go! Natural Grain Free Chicken,Turkey & Duck Canned Cat Food
Innova Cat and Kitten Formula Canned Cat Food
EVO Cat & Kitten Canned Cat Food
EVO 95% Beef Canned Cat Food
EVO 95% Chicken & Turkey Canned Cat Food
EVO 95% Duck Canned Cat Food
EVO 95% Venison Canned Cat Food
Natural Balance Grain Free Limited Ingredient Chicken & Green Pea Canned Cat Food
Natural Balance Green Pea & Duck Formula Canned Cat Food
Natural Balance Green Pea & Venison Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Beef Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Chicken Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Duck Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Lamb Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Rabbit Formula Canned Cat Food
Nature's Variety Instinct Venison Formula Canned Cat Food
Wellness Beef & Chicken Formula Canned Cat Food
Wellness Chicken Formula Canned Cat Food
Wellness Turkey Formula Canned Cat Food
Wellness CORE Grain Free Chicken, Turkey and Chicken Liver Formula Canned Cat Food

Regards.

AC

Before my cat got allergies (he has immune issues), i was feeding a random assortment of: Innova, Before Grain, Authority, Simply Nourish, By Nature and Blue Buffalo.

Mine are not "broken" but also not "normal" ... they eat a Variety diet ... a moderate premium only avail at one store ... canned food from FF ( the no grain no by product types) to Evo )... they also get raw and cooked meats per there needs

Basically figure out what you will and wont allow in your cats food and I can make much better suggestions.... right now I have three kinds of raw ( one made me and two commercial) , 8 brands of canned and two kinds of dry ( one with grain one without )

I'm curious the ages of your cats? I have 4 cats all under the age of 5. I've read threads that suggest an all grain-free diets aren't the best for cats, especially males. But perhaps that is only if feeding dry? I'd like to feed an all-wet diet, but I'm confused about whether it should be all grain-free cans or a mixture? I have 2 males and 2 females.

Hiya, Kittysback!

Sometimes, folks who feed kibble will buy grainy kibble because feeding grain-free seems to cause diarrhea in their cats, and kibble with grains seems to "correct" that issue. Unfortunately, what's really happening is the cat's body is reacting to being fed kibble - which is not a species-appropriate food - and the addition of grains is covering up one of the symptoms of that reaction. The solution isn't to add a product that doesn't belong in the cat's diet, it's to switch to a more digestible and feline-appropriate product altogether; for most, that's canned, for the rest, it's raw (either commercial or home-prepared).

Looking for canned products that are grain-, fruit- and vegetable-free and have a high percentage of a named meat (i.e. "turkey" instead of "poultry") is a good place to start. Wellness, Natural Balance and Felidae all have grain-free varieties, and Nature's Variety Instincts and Evo 95% meat products are all grain-free. A "grain-free canned cat" search on petfooddirect.com will yield a veritable cornucopia of options, and you can conduct a side-by-side analysis of the ingredients and nutritional profiles.

Feline-nutrition.org has a nice article on deciphering pet food labels under their Nutrition section that offers additional insight into choosing different products.

I'd also recommend feeding your kitties a rotation of foods; this will keep them from becoming fixated on any one product (a problem if they change or stop producing it) and protect them from potential quality control issues by diluting their impact. Since cats can develop hypersensitivity when continually exposed to the same proteins or ingredients for extended periods, it will also help prevent food intolerance issues (and the associated diarrhea and vomiting).

Dr. Hofve has a great article with even more reasons for rotating foods: Switching Foods.

Best regards!

AC

Thanks AC, appreciate the reply. Didn't mean to hijack the thread, so I apologize to the OP.

I'm familiar with those sites and like I said, I am hoping to switch to an all wet diet. Currently I feed a 50-50 diet of TOTW dry and a variety of wet foods, mostly grain free like NV Instict, Wellness and Natural Balance, and others like Chicken Soup, Feladae and Blue Buffalo. Of course with 4 cats and not much left in the budget, I can't quite go 100% wet. Trust me, I'm trying through. My only real question was with regard to males and total grain-free diets. But after I posted last night, I read a myriad of threads with discussions of this, so I don't need to open that can of worms again!

The only real issue I currently have , except for the lack of funds for an all-wet diet, is trying to feed 4 cats! 2 of them need to lose a few pounds, and one of those is a complete vacuum cleaner - I have to watch him like a hawk or else he will shove the others out of the way and eat theirs. I'm going to have to start feeding them all separately, I think.

Or go raw. Home-prepared raw will likely cost you considerably less than feeding canned, will help normalize the various weights, and may help settle down your vacuum cleaner.

Actually, on the cats' weights - once you shift to all canned, you'll likely see a drop in weight anyway.

AC

This food has a nice marketing scheme, but is exactly what you didn't want: corn and wheat balls.