Pet Weight Loss Plans · Vet's Guide

do you want to help your pet lose weight? it's not always as simple as just cutting back on their food or cutting back on the treats in this video I'm going to walk you through the steps that I might take when I'm creating a weight loss plan for a dog or a cat if you notice that your pet is getting overweight I always recommend talking to your veterinarian or in some cases a board-certified veterinarian in nutrition or a certified pet nutritionist this is because it may be more complex than just cutting back the total amount there being fed when I'm discussing weight with owners one of the first things that I will do is I will assess the overall health of the pet do I see anything on a physical exam that makes me nervous we also want to rule out underlying diseases that may predispose your pet to putting on and maintaining extra weight like hypothyroidism an underactive thyroid or Cushings Disease if the pet seems otherwise healthy the next thing that I'll do is have the owner create me a food diary I want to know everything that is going in this Pet's mouth every single day this means any table scraps treats any food they're getting I want to know it all I have the owners keep a food journal for me over the course of a week now it's important to point out here that every pet is going to have their own individual nutritional needs based on many factors this can include things like species breed age and underlying health conditions in simple cases we may find out that it is just a matter of cutting back on the treats that's the source of the extra calories but in some cases it can get more complicated than that now if the problem isn't that straightforward we do need to start looking at nutritional balance in some cases we need to look at the fact that we can't just cut back on the amount of food fed because we're going to be putting the pet at risk for a nutritional imbalance this means that we are now not providing the appropriate proportions of things like protein fat and fiber that they need to maintain a healthy body weight by creating this food diary it's going to help me determine how many calories per day the dog is currently eating to figure out how many calories in theory your pet should be getting now now it's time for us to do some math first we're going to start by calculating A Pet's resting energy requirement or reer when we're doing this we are determining the minimum number of calories that your pet needs to maintain at rest to work this out we use this formula once we've calculated your pet's resting energy requirement or re now it's time to calculate their maintenance energy requirement or me this daily calorie allowance is going to take into account factors that might impact the amount of energy they use every day let's use an example of a healthy medium-sized neutered male dog let's say 15 kilos this equation is popping up on screen now the factor that we use to multiply R by to get M or your maintenance energy requirements is going to vary based on some factors this might include your pet's age if they are obese prone or trying to lose weight or even if they are very active for example if your pet is a healthy he neuter dog often times we will be using the factor 1.6 now you may find in pets that are overweight or obese prone we are using a smaller number and that is because those pets are going to need less calories to maintain a healthy body weight so we may be using something like 1 or 1.2 on the flip side and pets that are extremely active so those are going to be our working breeds our German shair pointers our Collies they are going to need a lot more calories based on the amount of activity they do every day to maintain a healthy weight so their factor that we'll be using is going to be something as high as 2 or three for a weight loss plan we're going to go back to our math and what we're going to do is we're going to calculate re and Me based on our goal or our ideal body weight so let's go back to our example of our 15 kilo dog we'll say this dog is a little overweight and let's use 11 kilos as our new goal we're going to use 11 kilos in our calculations to get a rough idea of how many calories that that dog would need to maintain a healthy weight at 11 kilos once we've calculated the resting energy requirement for an 11 kilo dog we will then use the appropriate maintenance factor to multiply to get the me or the maintenance energy requirement it's really important for me to point out to people that these calculations are just a starting point it is very common that we are going to be doing some adjusting for pets once we get the number it's a ballpark it's a place for us to start I've had many cases where we have an idea in our head of what we want the weight to be and what the calories need to be and we are continually ad adjusting based on the results we get throughout the process the next part of the process for us is going to be choosing a food and choosing the amount of that food that is going to meet these calorie goals now it's important that we do so under the recommendations of a professional because we want to make sure that we're still achieving the appropriate nutrient balance for that weight we're going to talk more about this in our video about choosing the right food for overweight pets if you have more questions we aim to start at the current calorie intake and slowly work down to the calc calculated calorie intake for our goal weight we want to work at this over time gradually now it's important to note that also in some cases it may be appropriate to go straight to feeding the calculated calories for the weight is going to be dependent on the pet this can be achieved with either a commercial weight loss diet or a homecook diet just make sure that either way you are Consulting a Veterinary professional to make sure that you are appropriately choosing nutrient levels for your pet safe weight loss should be done slowly ideally we're aiming for no more than 1 to 2% loss of body weight per week often the weight loss plans that we create can take several months to reach the end goal and that's okay it's really important that we are regularly reassessing our progress throughout a weight plan I see too many pets fail at weight loss plans because we don't have a set followup every time so we want to make sure that we are reassessing things like body weight body condition score and body fat percentage as we go along the process to make sure we are achieving the goals that we want and and doing so safely it's important for us to point out that similar to humans what your pet is eating the total amount of calories they're taking in their diet is going to be a much bigger player when it comes to weight management and weight loss than activity exercise is important to keeping a happy healthy animal but it's important that we emphasize that diet is going to be the biggest player here don't forget that different pets are going to need different types and amounts of exercise this is going to be dependent on things like age and breed now A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is a lot of happy healthy pets will appreciate about 30 minutes of exercise a day but it's important to remember that smaller breed dogs may need this broken up into shorter smaller sessions to achieve that 30 minutes but if you're bringing home a working dog like a German short hair pointer they may need upwards of 60 to 120 Minutes of activity every day I know we talk a lot about dogs but I am also a crazy cat lady don't forget our cats cats need exercise too if you have an indoor outdoor cat a lot of the times they're taking care of exercise on their own but they still may need a little bit of help for my indoor only kitties I am an indoor only cat owner we have to remember that we need to help provide exercise outlets for these guys also this can include things like short play sessions with your mouse on a string or even puzzle feeders finally remember that weight loss is going to be so dependent on your individual pets needs if you think your pet needs a weight loss plan I very much recommend Consulting a professional like aeteran Arian or a certified pet nutritionist so we can make sure that we do this [Music] safely