Weight Loss in Dogs

So, continuing on with our series, of uh technical aspects, of uh arthritis in dogs arthritis in dogs is really a bit of um veterinary medicine. And, it's a bit of lifestyle. So, let's talk about one of the lifestyle issues, and one of those lifestyle issues is making sure that your dog has not stacked on the kilograms. He is being asked to he's a 20 kilogram dog, but he's uh being asked to carry around 30 kilograms of weight. So weight loss is often something that is going to be something your veterinary surgeon will discuss with you, when you. um go to see about getting some medication for helping with the arthritis what I will say about weight loss in dogs is. There are two factors to consider,- one is reducing the calorie intake, and the other one is reducing insulin output, because just like humans one of the things we know now is that, when you are producing large amounts of insulin you basically are stimulating the biochemical pathways that result in fat accumulation. And we know that insulin as a hormone, the fat storage hormone is also very effective at shutting down fat burning because we're all cable whether we're a human or a dog or a horse we're all capable of using two fuel types in our cells,- one is glucose and the other is ketone bodies that come as a result of the fat breakdown. So reducing carb intake is an important the most important way of reducing insulin production. And when we are feeding commercial dog foods even the more expensive better quality ones are still quite high in carbs and that so we really should be transitioning to some sort of a home-based diet, where they are getting a significant amount of meat. Now, that won't be something that you will hear, um very commonly, because there are lots of commercial forces at play. Telling us to just go with the convenience of um using commercial dog foods, but really it's not it's not as good, as um having the uh high protein associated with the meat based diet. High protein meat is high in protein low in carbs and quite good in fat. Okay, i'll get off my hobby horse with respect to a low carb and weight loss in dogs.