Quote:
Originally Posted by deirdra
My cats (all rescues) have eaten a grain-free canned "Catkins" diet and stayed in the 7-9 lb range. The vet techs often mention that they are "tiny", even though they are "perfect" on the body composition scale and the size of all cats I ever saw in the 1960s. Now, the average cat is overweight or obese, so people think it is "normal".
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Funny how even cats can vary, just as people can. I had five cats for many years. The older three have since passed on, but I still have the two younger cats (not super young anymore at 7 and 10). They all ate the same diet - grain-free higher protein dry kibble with the some cheaper canned food.
Of the three older cats - two were lithe and slender their whole lives. One lived to be 20 and was fit and active until the last day of her life. The other thin cat only lived to be 16, and had gotten weak and less active his last year or so. The third cat was build, as I used to describe her, like a soccer ball with legs. Fattest cat I'd ever owned, despite eating the exact same food in the same amounts as the others, but she was pretty active too and also lived to be 20. Of my current two cats the 10-year-old is lithe and fit. The seven year old, at 12 pounds, is a couple pounds more than the vet would like him to be - but he looks more solid that fat, and is very active as well. So the same diet affects different cats differently, just as the same diet affects different humans differently.
The protein limit suggested in this article here sounds awfully low to me. I don't always get as much protein as I feel I should but at least I strive for more! Dr. Naiman feels 30% of our calories should come from protein. I almost never hit that level, but I'm usually good about getting 20-25%.
I remember Tom Naughton's blog post about eating like a gorilla. I have to imagine that an orangutan eats fairly similarly.
Today I'm actually right in the Naiman range with 126g protein (32%), 119g fat (65% fat) and 10.4g total carbs (3% carbs), because I bought and roasted a bunch of chicken wings, skin on of course - but not something I do every day. Though I actually love chicken wings and could probably eat them more often.