"How Can You Tell If It's Fat or Muscle?" Question From Cat Land

I asked this of my vet on Friday morning after weighing one of my cats, and seeing him gain weight...a whole .1 lbs. Right away, I was advised to get the cat on a weight-loss dry food, because this cat "shouldn't weigh 14 lbs."

This cat in particular was a shelter rescue (meaning I rescued it from an SPCA shelter), and I could see was suffering from food allergies, osteoarthritis, and was borderline diabetic--sound familiar to you Paleos out there?

As a responsible pet owner, I did what I had been trained to do from previous cats I owned: whipped out my last cat's homemade diabetic diet, added cod liver oil for the skin, added glucosamine for the osteoarthritis, removed dry food from the house until we got a better handle on BG levels, and got him rechecked in a couple of weeks.

Over the short course this vet had been seeing him, the BG level dropped from 110 to 98 to 88 (as of Friday)--BG level solved for now. Then came the "weight loss food" speech, to which I argued that pretty much all the weight-loss pet foods on the market were loaded with grains and stuff no cat is designed to eat. "That's the point" said the vet, "it all acts as fiber." My question back was, "what if it causes allergies, skin conditions, respiratory ailments, and other health problems as it causes weight loss from malnutrition, which is what you're asking me to do when I feed this food to my cat?"

As usual, I got the song and dance that we can treat those symptoms as they come up--I want to AVOID them by avoiding grains and needless additives in the first place!

The vet and I argued back and forth about the two known ways to treat diabetes, and I took the cat and went home. Later, I called to see if I could get a trial size of this food he insisted I feed my cat--with any luck, my cat won't eat it. I'm still waiting for a reply.

Meanwhile, prior cat mommy diabetic cat experience, along with Paleo diet scientific knowledge tells me I should just do what I know in my gut is correct:

1. Go back to the old vet who helped me see my prior diabetic cats through their lives to the end. (I've already made an appointment for both current cats)

2. Stick with my high-protein cat diet designed by a UC Davis vet over a decade ago.

3. Use the same regimen I used with my LAST 14-lb. diabetic cat, which is my homemade wet food (that includes lots of psyllium) + prescription high protein dry food. With the last diabetic cat, I was able to maintain her weight at 14 lbs. for almost a decade, and ended up doubling her lifespan by going high-protein as opposed to high-fiber + increased insulin to make up for it.

What REALLY hacked me off about this vet was the fact that he refused to draw blood and urine to see what's going on inside the cat--as people, we regularly get this treatment at least once yearly, no? He stabbed an ear vein to test BG levels, but couldn't be bothered to do anything else as far as diagnostics go--for all I know, this cat could have a kidney condition, (which a high-protein diet exacerbates) or a heart condition!

To make matters worse, this cat was said to have gingivitis, but this vet wouldn't let me make an appointment to get teeth cleaned. "I'll tell you when it's time to do it," he said. Gingivitis and a red line around the gumline means THE TIME IS NOW for teeth cleaning, so what was he waiting for? Expensive extractions, that's what.

MY parting words to this now-former vet were "How can you tell if the weight gain is from fat or muscle, and how exactly do excessive carbs build muscle?"

The simple answer is they don't. They create fat, and insulin resistance, which creates hellacious cat care bills for me--sound familiar? Too bad all this guy's interested in is creating hellacious vet bills for me, and preserving the CW status quo.

Paleo for people and animals--it's all the same, only most animals have their innards in a horizontal configuration, with a shorter digestive tract, and have severely-increased sensitivity to NSAIDS and other meds. The veterinary world has to catch up just like the doctor world, and thank god my old vet actually went back to school to get caught up. This new vet never left his office except to go home. Had I known that, I'd have never gone to him in the first place, even though he's a lot closer to my house, and it minimized cat travel-time trauma.

I asked that my current cats' records be faxed over to the old vet's office--we're outta there!!

As for this "overweight" cat's current condition: his unresolved scratching and flaky coat are gone, his disposition is much improved, he now runs and plays with his younger brother-cat, no longer limps, and has some jumping function restored--I'd say it was MUSCLE and not FAT that caused the weight gain.