Mary Allen
Have you decided to put your cat on a diet? Excellent! This gives her more zest for life, reduces the risk of many diseases (including the risk of cancer), and extends her life expectancy. But how to start the diet? With light food, FDH, or a special diet? Here you can read which cat food is the healthiest way for your cat to lose weight and which quality criteria a good diet food must meet.
Which Cat Food is Best for Weight Loss?
Scientific studies have clearly proven: A reduced diet composed according to the latest medical knowledge brings the best results because such a diet food promotes healthy and sustainable weight loss —— without severe loss of muscle mass or the yo-yo effect.
Diet food that corresponds to the latest scientific knowledge can only be obtained from a veterinarian.
For example, we recommend diet food from Royal Canin, Hills, or Specific.
What is the Difference Between Light Food and Diet Food for Cats?
The term Light is a marketing designation that the manufacturers are allowed to assign themselves. They usually use it to describe the lowest-calorie feed in a product series. This means that what passes for “light” from one manufacturer may have just as many calories as normal dog food from another manufacturer. So you have to compare calorie content to be able to see whether the light food is suitable for your cat.
Light food is not usually suitable for losing weight, but rather for preventing obesity, for example after castration or for maintaining the ideal weight after a successful diet.
The term diet food, on the other hand, is legally protected. According to feed law, diet feed serves a “special nutritional purpose” (indication) and must meet certain quality criteria. An EU directive specifies which indications are permissible and which information may or must be given on the packaging. For example, the energy content and recommended feeding amounts must be indicated on a diet food to reduce obesity. Here you can be sure that your cat can really lose weight efficiently with the diet food.
What Distinguishes a Good Diet Food for Cats?
Logically, a weight loss diet food definitely has a significantly lower calorie content than average cat food. Depending on the manufacturer and product, the calorie content of a reduction diet is usually 15 to 25% below that of maintenance food for adult cats.
So your cat has a good portion of food in its bowl even during the diet, stays full longer, and therefore begs less than if you simply gave it less of the cat food it is used to in order to lose weight.
Medical diet food for weight loss does contain less energy, but in relation to the number of calories, it contains more vitamins, minerals, and trace elements than ordinary cat food so that no vitamin or mineral deficiencies arise during weight loss.
Diet foods contain all the essential fatty acids that your cat needs, despite being lower in fat. High-quality reduction diets are even enriched with anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, which help stabilize blood sugar levels.
According to the latest state of knowledge, compound reduction diets for cats have a relatively high protein content. This not only makes them tasty, but also prevents a lack of essential amino acids, promotes targeted fat loss, and, in return, the preservation of muscles during weight loss. This not only keeps your cat more agile but also counteracts the dreaded yo-yo effect after the diet.
Soluble and insoluble dietary fiber, also known as dietary fiber, keeps your bowel and stomach full. In the right amount and combination, they also promote intestinal health and regulate digestion. For example, fructooligosaccharides (FOS), mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS), psyllium (psyllium), and pectins (e.g. from beet pulp) are useful.
Last but not least, veterinary diet foods for cats make it easier to stick to the diet because they are easy to weigh and allocate.
The newest development in the cat diet food market at the moment is Hill’s Metabolic Feline. Hills Metabolic formula is based on the latest findings in nutrigenomics. This science, which is still relatively young, researches the influence of nutrition on genes and tries to prevent diseases or promote healing through nutrition adapted to the individual genetic makeup.