The best light cat food comprises the right dose of carbohydrates and proteins that form the very foundation of cat nutrition. However, the best light cat food is low on carbohydrates and high on protein that makes the cat lose weight in the long run.
You should not want a cat that is as fat as Garfield.
How does the best light cat food help in weight reduction?
It is already established that a diet that’s too rich in carbohydrates and lacks the requisite amount of protein leads to lean muscle loss.
This in turn, reduces the cat’s metabolic rate, leading to weight gain if the diet is not adjusted to counter the change. Therefore, the best light cat food needs to have a minimum protein content of at least 35%. This is important because proteins help in maintaining muscle while cutting the excessive fat.
Some of the best light cat food are also rich in fibers, which help retain muscle in the short term. Again, the protein is essential because long-term muscle mass loss always leads to regaining fat very quickly when the calorie intake is returned to a maintenance level.
How to introduce your cat to the best light cat food
Before introducing your cat to the best light cat food, consult your vet and get it weighed accurately. This will help you know how much weight needs to be shifted to reach healthy weight levels once again. The vet will also identify medical conditions, if any, that would influence your choice of the best light cat food.
It pays to remember that cats tend to fuss with their food and sudden changes from rich food to light food may not go well with it. The best way to introduce your cat to light food, therefore, is to gradually introduce it to a weight loss food by mixing it with its current diet.
Start with a low 15% mix of the low calorie food, increasing it over the next two weeks. This would make the transition seamless and prevent the cat from rejecting its new diet flat out.
It is also important to know that drastically reducing food amounts are very dangerous for felines because it could lead to malnutrition and critical illnesses such as hepatic lipidosis, a deadly liver condition.
Free feeding also needs to be stopped and specific meal times need to be set. Care should also be taken not to leave food around for the cat to snack on and treats too, need to be limited so that they constitute less than 10% of the animal’s calorie intake daily.