Canned pumpkin for weight loss?

[weebeasties]

When Desdemona went to the vet last week, she'd gained about 3/4 lb since her last visit in March. The vet would like to see her drop that amount, so she's going on the all-canned-food diet that's been successful for us before (she'd currently been getting about 1/8 cup of Evo dry for breakfast, canned for dinner). The vet also suggested adding some canned pumpkin to her meals to add a bit of "bulk" so she feels fuller. How much, would you think? I'm guessing not more than a teaspoon or so.

[Susan]

That's sounds about right to me. I've never given my girls pumpkin for weight loss purposes, but a while back I was having difficulty getting them to eat wet food. One of the tricks was to put canned pumpkin on the wet food to entice them to eat it, and a teaspoon was the recommended amount.

[razzle]

You want to give your cat pure pumpkin not pumpkin pie filling.

Kathy

[saitenyo]

Originally Posted by razzle

You want to give your cat pure pumpkin not pumpkin pie filling.

Kathy

I don't know why, but this made me laugh out loud. I just got this funny mental image of a cat eating pie.

But on the thread topic, that's interesting! I didn't know that about pumpkin. Apollo was recently diagnosed by the vet as a tiny bit chubby, so I'll have to keep that in mind Although in his case I think I was just feeding him way too much. I was still thinking under "he's a kitten, he should get as much as he'll eat" terms (he's 8 months), but the vet told me he's old enough (and big enough!) now that I can start restricting his portions.

[Susan]

I agree with Kathy on the issue of pure canned pumpkin vs. pumpkin pie filling. The pie filling includes various sugars and spices, which result in it being much higher in calories and having less nutritional value than pure pumpkin.