The Weighting Game, with Molly

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Mollycat
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The Weighting Game, with Molly

Post by Mollycat »

Has anyone else had a cat get fat on renal foods?

Molly has been on renal wet and dry, eating less of her pouches than she did when she was on normal foods, for 8 months, and put on a lot of weight, from around 5kg to I would estimate 5.8. I know a little padding in early renal issues is a good thing but this is quite a bit and seems out of proportion to the calorie increase - the ones I can find are around 110-115 kcal/100g compared to slimming food at 87 kcal/100g and a standard off the shelf mid range food at around 95-100 kcal/100g. Given how much less of it she eats (a third to a half a pouch per meal, compared to normal food before at least 3/4 of a pouch) she seems to be taking in significantly fewer calories, yet getting fatter.

Any ideas? She does also have dry available so that could skew my results a fair bit, but she goes through phases of eating dry and not eating dry without any visible impact on the weight gain.

We do know she has an odd metabolism as she was a fat hyperthyroid 3 years ago.
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

Post by fjm »

Tilly has put on weight eating renal food, but that is because she eats so much of it! I wonder if some of Molly's weight gain may be down to her being more relaxed and no longer wasting energy through anxiety?
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

Post by Mollycat »

Does anxiety really burn up that much?

Another thing I have noticed is rather worrisome, for cats who lick off the jelly or gravy and don't touch the chunks of wet food. In one popular off the shelf food, the overall meat content was 14% but 44% in the chunks. That means if they aren't eating the chunks, they are getting a lot less protein than the label suggests.

Good news for Tilly though!
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

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Yep, I've also had the same problem, I think my old vet said that renal sometimes has a higher fat content to compensate for the poor appetite. I've also had the opposite with senior food, poor Buster lost a load of weight when we put him on Whiskas senior, till I noticed the fat content was significantly less than the others, once we swapped, he went back to his normal weight. I do try and give Lucy mainly Whiskas senior for that reason!
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

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booktigger wrote: Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:05 pm Yep, I've also had the same problem, I think my old vet said that renal sometimes has a higher fat content to compensate for the poor appetite. I've also had the opposite with senior food, poor Buster lost a load of weight when we put him on Whiskas senior, till I noticed the fat content was significantly less than the others, once we swapped, he went back to his normal weight. I do try and give Lucy mainly Whiskas senior for that reason!
In the nicest way I'm glad I'm not alone with this one. The weight difference just seems out of proportion to the calories. Although in my case it is a bit harder to work out because of the dry just being down and there was no dry when she was on normal food, so perhaps that is what's making the difference. Dry is also very calorie dense isn't it?

Yes Tanya's Pages is interesting on the fat/protein balance topic, and I have read elsewhere as well that a high fat diet for cats doesn't have the same health concerns for cats as it does for humans and that it's increased for calorie count, I don't remember reading that it's also for palatability but that does make some sense.
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

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Yes, renal dry can be calorie dense - I still go off something I read years ago about 20g of biscuits being equivalent to a 100g pouch, but that is quite broad. I'm sure I read that some dry foods are sprayed with fat for palatability, would explain why some do leave grease stains.
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Re: The Weighting Game, with Molly

Post by Mollycat »

We are on Hills, they certainly feel greasy. She always has k/d and i/d to choose from, she tends to help herself to the i/d when she needs it and give me The Look to bring her in a handful of grass when I forget to plant a pot for her.
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