Feline Obesity

If you think you have a hard time losing weight, just think of your cat. Cats get fat easily and they lose weight with great difficulty. They are so sedentary, that with twenty hours of sleep a day, it is amazing that they use any energy at all. Dogs are different, because you can walk your dog many times each day to make it lose weight, if needed.

The cause of all obesity, in pets and people, is simply eating too much food. Metabolic problems, genes, "big bones" and all the other excuses are equally invalid in people as they are in overweight cats. Fat cats are getting too much food and they, like us, love to eat.
What should a cat weigh? Female cats should be in the six to nine pound range. Male cats should be in the nine to twelve pound range. Any cat over fifteen pounds is obese. Even the larger breeds don't get that heavy unless they are suffering from obesity and being overweight.

How do you get weight off a cat? There's only one way: Caloric restriction. See also my book on life extension and the benefits of caloric restriction with optimal nutrition: http://www.ikelerbooks.com/ and my blog on the same subject at http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/

You have to feed a kitty a limited amount of food each day. Typically one cup of food per cat per day. That is one leveled measuring cup of weight loss food, like Science Diet R/D, and you can divide it up into three or four meals to keep kitty satisfied with multiple meals throughout the day. With a person too, it helps to eat before you are hungry, and have four to five small meals each day that add up to twelve to fifteen hundred calories of dietary intake.

It will take weeks to months to get your cat back to ideal weight, but it can be done. The need to do it is the same as in people: Health Benefits. Cats get the same diseases we do from being overweight. Diabetes, arthritis, asthma, kidney disease, hepatic lipidosis, and cancer all have an origin in obesity. Cats don't appear to get cardiovascular disease as much as people do and that may be due to the fact that they don't live as long and have a slightly different physiology than we do and don't inflame their arteries and veins with alcohol and tobacco products.

The heaviest cat I have ever personally seen was exactly thirty pounds. He was huge! The world record is 46 lbs and that cat died of respiratory failure at age ten. No surprise, since all that fat would be pushing up on it's diaphragm and make it very difficult for the cat to breath. The oldest cat I have ever seen, just to throw in a point of interest, was twenty nine years old. He was one old stiff bugger, but he was hanging in there. The world record for oldest cat is thirty eight years old. Pretty amazing since the average cat lifespan is fifteen.

Obesity shortens lifespans dramatically in people and in animals. Take steps today if your cat is overweight. See your veterinarian for help with this process. See your physician or join Weight Watchers if you are overweight. I have seen many of my clients over the years lose tens of pounds of excess weight, and invariably, they said they did it through Weight Watchers. It is an honorable thing to do to respect your health and live at ideal weight. I applaud the people who take the steps to do it.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

http://www.lifeextensionbooksbydrdougikeler.blogspot.com/