Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weight loss. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 July 2024

43 lb cat is a potato trying to become fries

Axel, aka Biggie Smalls is as you might expect a social media star because he is enormous. Sad really but I have to admit he does look amazing. Amazingly enormous. Health problems come to mind (diabetes, hypertension etc.) and how to lose weight gently to avoid hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). Fast weight loss can cause this serious disease. I trust the owners of this cat are aware of that and that the weight loss drug for humans is going to be marketed for use by pets but the problem with Ozempic (Wegovy) is that is can cause blindness under certain conditions. Very serious. I have written about this drug - click here.

"Just a potato trying to become fries. Starting weight 43lbs."

Heavyweight lifting competition. Screenshot.


Here is a video from TikTok of this star. He is on a weight-loss diet. Slowly please. He'll get there. He lives in Ottawa I understand and is a rescue cat. He likes his food! And it is difficult for the caregivers to diet him. He probably got into the habit of eating for pleasure. Cats can do that in my view. It is the product of boredom. Good luck on his diet.

Some thoughts on excess weight in cats.



Thursday, 4 July 2024

Ozempic (weight loss drug) for pets and humans might cause blindness

Just four days ago I cautioned that there was an over-zealous approach to monetising Ozempic and Wegovy (same drug, different name) as a weight loss drug. The big Pharma companies want to monetize these drugs bigtime and they can see a lot of money in the obese cat and dog market for these products.

Ozempic (weight loss drug) for pets and humans might cause blindness
Ozempic is not a wonder drug for losing weight in people and cats as touted. Image: MikeB

These drugs have proved effective in suppressing appetite in people causing weight loss so why not do the same with cats and dogs?

Well, here is one reason: today's article in The Times newspaper "Blindness fears over weight drug Ozempic".

The Times refers to a new study which concluded that the drug may cause people to go blind. 

The Harvard researchers found that people taking semaglutide (Ozempic by a different name) were, in the words of the Times journalist, "significantly more likely to develop a rare and irreversible eye condition."

That I condition is called non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy, which results in sudden blindness in one eye. Usually it doesn't cause pain or discomfort and patients only notice one ey blindness on waking up. Shocking.

Ozempic was originally created to treat diabetic patients because it reduces weight and excessive weight can cause Type II diabetes. It is these patients who were found to be four times more likely to be diagnosed with this eye condition. People given the drug for obesity were seven times more likely to develop vision loss.

The study is published in JAMA Ophthalmology. It is the first study to identify that eye problems could be a side-effect of this popular new drug which is being rolled out in the NHS in the UK. Not any more I suspect.

I don't think that I need to go on. Researchers have found a very severe and side-effect to this wonder drug which has been touted as a massive solution to widespread obesity in people and cats in the UK and America. It isn't.

In an earlier post I said that humankind was emotionally lost if they have to rely on Ozempic to lose weight. The way to lose weight is to eat less. To rely on a drug is to go down a bad route because all drugs are poisons. A drug is worthwhile if the benefits outweigh the negatives. But there are always negatives, it just depends how bad they are.

This finding will put a huge dent in the monetisation of Ozempic and Wegovy and the good thing too because it might drive people to losing weight the natural way and in doing so they will probably feed their cats less as well because domestic cat obesity is the result of overfeeding and a lack of exercise. The two are always linked.

And I have always argued that if a cat caregiver is overweight they are likely to normalise being overweight and lose sight of an ideal weight resulting in not being able to assess their cat's weight accurately.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Friday, 19 January 2024

An important trick to eating less and achieving a good BMI

Although there are many factors in reducing your weight and achieving a good BMI, in this short post I want to address one particular issue. It's actually one particular moment.

An important trick to eating less and having a good BMI
Beat that desire to eat more. The desire will pass quickly if you deny it. And eventually you won't experience the feeling at all.

It's the moment when you finish eating. You have eaten quite a small meal because you are on a journey to losing some weight. You immediately feel like eating more. That feeling comes about because you enjoyed eating. You want to continue the enjoyment of eating.

This is the brain playing tricks. It's almost how addiction works. You like to do something and therefore you want to do more of it. Food gives you pleasure and therefore you want to do more eating to get more pleasure. Simple formula.

And so there's that one moment when you finish eating when you want to eat more and you go to the kitchen to get some more food. And you go on doing that perhaps until you are sated. Until you are full up.

But the trick is this: you should know that that feeling that you want to eat more only lasts for quite a short time. That's how the brain works. If you deny that desire to eat more, which is quite a difficult thing to do sometimes, within about 20 minutes the urge to eat more will have disappeared. You then have no desire to eat more and you will have beaten a major problem of losing weight.

It all turns on that split second and having enough self-discipline or commitment to tell the 'devil' to go away. Soon afterwards it will be history and you'll feel better. 

There is an added benefit. You'll have trained you stomach to want less. A time will come when the desire to eat more won't happen.

You will have a clear conscience that you did the right thing and that you are on the way to a good BMI and better health and therefore more happiness because there's nothing that makes older people more miserable than chronic ill-health and obesity is likely to cause ill-health in old age. 

It can be tackled. It can be beaten and in this article I address one small but vital trick, one tool in the toolbox to beat obesity.
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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Friday, 18 August 2023

How do you define "cat obesity"?

When you think of the word "obesity" you think of very fat people or sometimes very fat cats (and I don't mean the human fat cat namely the greedy, alpha male smoking a cigar happy in the knowledge that they have ripped off people to make a large profit).

Just 15% above the normal

But it might surprise people that feline obesity refers to cats with a weight which is 15% above the ideal. That's not much more than 10% above the ideal. You might think that is acceptable. You might not even really notice it and I wouldn't blame you. That's because people, including me, tend to normalise weight gain. You gradually lose your bearings as to what is the correct weight both for yourself and for your companion animal. The problem creeps up on you almost invisibly sometimes.

So, a weight gain of 15% in your cat might not be noticed but a veterinarian would describe your cat as obese. And it might not surprise you that the most prevalent nutritional problem for domestic cats and dogs in Western Europe and the United States is obesity!

You may have heard about the obesity epidemic both in humans and cats and I suspect dogs as well. It affects between 10 and 20% of pet cats but that figure is probably out of date as it is constantly climbing. The figure relates to a book published in 2007. That's long enough ago for the obesity epidemic to become much worse.

Infographic

Overfeeding

The reason for cat obesity might be a medical condition and it should be ruled out before a weight loss program is started. However, in the vast majority of cases weight gain is associated with over-nutrition i.e. feeding too much. The cat is taking in an increased calorific intake or there is a reduced requirement for the body to burn up those calories. The infographic above mentions other issues.

To put it another way, the cat is either eating too much or not burning off enough calories or both. My mind immediately turns to the trend which I believe is taking place in America and in the UK to keep cats indoors full-time. This restricts activity. Cats become bored and they eat addictive foods for pleasure. This is a formula for obesity.

Health problems as a result of feline obesity

And the problems associated with obesity include:

  • Respiratory difficulties
  • decreased cardiac reserve
  • insulin resistance and the development of diabetes
  • poor response to infectious diseases
  • fatty infiltration of the liver
  • increased surgical risk due to increased risk of anaesthesia, fat necrosis, slow wound healing, technical difficulty in performing surgery and
  • feline lower urinary tract disease.

A quite comprehensive list which comes from (verbatim) NUTRITION AND WELFARE in my book The Welfare of Cats Edited by Irene Rochlitz.

Slow weight loss

Veterinarians would provide a word of warning about reducing a cat's weight. It should not be done too fast as this can lead to hepatic lipidosis which itself is a serious disease which can, unless it is turned around, lead to the death of the cat.

Clearly, for an obese cat to lose weight requires self-discipline on the part of the cat's caregiver. It's probably wise to obtain veterinary support to encourage the owner to follow dietary recommendations. This may be crucial to success on occasions.

Eating less is more effective than exercising

In respect of people becoming obese and desiring to lose weight, my personal research indicates that the strongest way to lose weight is to reduce food intake compared to doing more exercise. The latter will certainly help but the former will have a more dramatic effect and it should be a permanent change in diet for the lifetime of the person and the cat!

Sunday, 19 June 2022

The key to losing weight both for owner and cat!

Important note: this is not a lecture. I have no right to lecture anybody. I'm just passing on what I believe as it may help somebody. If it helps one person so much the better. If it helps one cat the same benefit applies. Everyone should have the courage to pass on what they learn if they believe that it is useful to others. Note 2: It is very satisfying to lose weight and maintain a correct BMI. That's a motivator and you'll feel better and good about yourself.

After years of managing and stabilising my weight as an old man (going on 74) and avoiding a pot belly, I think, this morning, that I have figured out the key in one sentence to losing weight and stabilising it. And this key must also be applicable to the domestic cats that we look after them. 

It is as simple is this: you have to feel hungry and you have to feel that hunger for an hour or two a day daily before you eat. And that should apply to every meal you eat. If you use that trick - and it requires self-discipline to quite a high level - you will lose weight and eventually stabilise it. Guaranteed. What percentage of people in the West only eat when they are hungry? A very low percentage is my guess.

Pic: Pixabay.

And if your cat feels hungry, they will be less picky. I am not advocating that you starve your cat. Far from it. I'm just advocating that you should ensure that both cat owner and cat go hungry for a while. My belief is that if you feel hungry you are then ready to eat. If you delay eating when you feel hungry you will burn fat. Fat is a good source of energy. If you don't satisfy that desire to eat which you obviously feel when you are hungry the body turns inward and starts to burn fat as energy.

And when you eat you should still feel a little bit hungry when you finish eating. In other words, you should stop eating when you want a little bit more. This, once again, requires quite a lot of self-discipline. There is no escaping the need for self-discipline when losing weight and stabilising weight. But you can't overeat after you have been abstemious in your diet otherwise you counteract all the hard-fought gains.

There is a natural propensity for elderly people to put on weight. This is because their metabolism slows down but they continue to eat at the same level they ate at when they burned more energy and their metabolism was faster. It is about habit formation. If you don't eat until you are hungry and if you delay eating when you are hungry for an hour or so you create a new habit. Little by little it requires less self-discipline but it will always require a certain amount of self-discipline.

We need to impart that self-discipline to your full-time indoor cat who ends up eating for pleasure. We all know that people eat for pleasure which is entirely understandable. I am very sympathetic because I eat for pleasure too. However, the pleasure I get out from not having a big pot belly is greater than the pleasure I get from eating! And that probably, too, is another key to keeping your weight down.

Ultimately, if you enjoy eating more than you would if you were slim then you won't be slim. You will put on weight to the point where you become desperate enough to stabilise it. And this is the irony of being overweight.

People who are overweight often don't keep on putting on weight. They stabilise at an obese level so why not stabilise at a slim level! Stabilising at an obese level requires a certain amount of self-discipline because you aren't putting on weight anymore and therefore you have cut back on what you're eating. Why not lose some weight and then at that point stabilise it by eating a bit less?

But ultimately, if you want to lose weight you have got to be hungry and you've got to get used to being hungry for a short while until you satisfy the urge to eat.

Thursday, 25 February 2021

Before and after pictures of a cat who lost a lot of weight

Here is a nice montage of a couple of side-by-side, before and after photographs of a cat who lost a lot of weight. His owner praised his cat. I praised his owner! It takes persistence to get this effect and it should be a slow process to avoid the possibility of feline hepatitic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). Slow cat dieting is the order of the day if it has to be done.

Before and after pictures of a cat who lost a lot of weight
Before and after pictures of a cat who lost a lot of weight. Photo: Reddit.

Senior cats should be on a reduced calorie diet. Before dieting a cat it may be wise to consult your veterinarian in case there are no medical reasons for the obesity. An estimated 40% of cats are obese. As many cats turn carbohydrates into fat, a low carb, high protein and high fat diet will help her lose weight. This sort of diet may be more effective than a low calorie, high fibre diet. A high protein diet takes a domestic cat back to her natural diet.

Food should be provided in a measured way 2 or 3 times per day and no more. No gourmet foods, human scraps and treats. Perhaps a limited amount of treats! Make sure she is not scrumping food elsewhere such as from a neighbour. Chart the weight loss. She should lose one percent of body weight per week and no quicker to avoid hepatic lipidosis.

Provide some exercise daily. Try and make the food harder to access by moving it around. Lean body mass may be enhanced with a supplement called L-carnitine. Seek your vet's advice on feeding it at 250-500 mg per day.

The diet should be complete after about eight weeks. Then maintain the correct weight using the tools and methods that you have learned in getting her weight down.

Thursday, 24 May 2012

Cat Obesity Effects and Management

Some more notes on cat obesity. The first point to notice is that cat obesity is defined as being greater than 15% over the ideal weight (9-12 lbs for a male and 7-10 lbs for a female cat - but cats vary considerably from breed to breed and from individual to individual). I am surprised because 16% over normal weight is not a lot overweight and yet a cat will be classified as obese.

Cat obesity is the biggest problem regarding the feeding of cats in the USA and Western Europe. Apparently, up to 20% of cats in these regions are obese. My late lady cat Binnie was obese at one time so I have first hand experience of cat obesity.

Nearly all cat obesity problems are because the cat eats too much in relation to the lifestyle that he or she leads. By eating too much I mean that the calorie intake is too high. By lifestyle I am particularly referring to the level of exercise the cat partakes in. As usual it is all about how much goes in and how much is burnt off.

There are a lot of charts on assessing cat weight but we don't really need them because anybody can assess whether there cat is overweight. We simply need to use a common sense method. Essentially use common sense and you can feel your cat's shoulder blades and their spine when they are within a good weight range. You should be able to feel your cat's ribs under a layer of fat when they are of the correct weight.

Obese grey cat
Obese gray cat. Image by Quinn Kampschroer from Pixabay


Problems

Problems that can be associated with an obese cat:
  • breathing difficulties - the recent, well circulated story of Meow the 39 lb cat sadly illustrates this problem.
  • FLUTD - feline lower urinary tract disease.
  • higher risks of failure during veterinary surgery.
  • response to infectious diseases is poorer.
  • resistance to insulin - development of diabetes.
  • the inability of the heart to work harder when called upon (reduced cardiac reserve).
  • the accumulation of fat in the liver cells.

Reducing weight

It can difficult to reduce the weight of your cat. I think we all know that. This because:
  • we don't see the effect of a diet quickly
  • we lose discipline
  • our cat pesters us successfully
  • cats have specialist diets being obligate carnivores
  • cats are less food orientated than dogs
  • cats sometimes have a strong preference for a particular food type.

There are various ways to feed a cat. For weight loss there is no secret that the method is lower calorie intake and/or more exercise. The former is probably easier to achieve than the latter. How many calories does a cat need?

The reduction in food intake should not be more than 30% lower than normal (or 70% of normal). It can be dangerous from a health standpoint to try and force a cat to eat a food that he or she does not like. However, feeding a food that he is less keen on, especially at night when you are asleep so don't have to deal with the emotional problems can be successful in my experience. Weight loss should be managed otherwise it can cause fatty liver disease (hepatic lipidosis) which is linked to sustained loss of appetite. Weight loss should be no more than 1.5% of body weight her week. This is to avoid the possibility of a cat developing fatty liver disease which can happen when a cat becomes anorexic.

Bearing in mind that cat caretakers may, and often do, struggle to diet their cat, it is probably sensible to get your veterinarian involved from both the standpoint of advice on a feeding regime and the type of food that is suitable together with the motivation that this may bring to the task at hand.

Apparently as a cat's calorie intake is reduced the cat's calorie requirements are reduced (the basal metabolic rate falls). This would seem to work against the diet being successful. The answer to this problem is to try and encourage your cat to exercise more.

Cats are very persuasive companions. It is difficult to resist their demands for a meal. We need to bite the bullet and to a certain extent be cruel to be kind.

Night time dieting as mentioned above works for me as my cat accepts the fact that I am asleep and won't pester me for food.

Source: Myself and The Welfare of Cats ISBN 978-1-4020-6143-1

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