Making your New Year’s resolutions? If Fido or Fifi need to lose a few pounds, this new miracle weight loss plan for dogs is just the trick. Jennifer Brady is Honey’s General Manager.
When you are making your New Year’s resolutions, please don’t forget to include any dogs in your family who may be longing to lose a few pounds or drop down a couple of collar sizes. They are by no means alone. According to the latest research, half of British dogs are now either overweight or obese.
Fifty years ago, very few dogs had weight issues. True, since then society as a whole has become more sedentary. But it isn’t lack of exercise that’s really causing the problem. It is the food they are eating. Modern, processed dog food is high in simple carbohydrate, low in protein and full of harmful fats – the perfect recipe if you want to push a dog’s weight up.
I can prove it. Over the last fifteen years Honey’s has provided nutritional advice for hundreds of overweight dogs. As soon as we replace modern, processed food with a more natural, traditional diet the weight simply falls away. This, of course, improves their general health, as dogs who are the correct weight suffer less illness and disease. They are happier, too, and full of joie de vivre.
We developed the diet, which we call the Honey’s Weight Loss Plan, through observation and experiment, but our approach reflects extensive scientific research. What we recommend is higher-, better-quality protein, lower carbohydrate and the right quantity of ‘good’ fat. It can take as little as two weeks for an overweight dog to achieve its target weight on this diet, although we generally suggest that you don’t rush the process and allow between 60 and 90 days, or longer. Independent research, incidentally, has shown that the two main components of the diet leave dogs feeling ‘fuller’ than a wide range of alternative ingredients.
The Honey’s Weight Loss Plan requires very little preparation (literally a couple of minutes a day), the instructions are simple and if you want to prepare it yourself all the ingredients are available from your supermarket or butcher. The main ingredients may surprise you – raw meat, raw bones and fresh vegetables – but when you think about what wolves and dogs eat in the wild, the rationale for the diet becomes apparent.
What’s more, the Honey’s Weight Loss Plan doesn’t involve counting calories. This is because the amount of food you feed your dog is based on his or her weight. Another thing, this diet leads to the loss of unnecessary fat and not valuable muscle mass. For all these reasons and more, it has been endorsed by leading vets as the healthy, enjoyable way to turn a round hound into a dapper dog.
We will be happy to design a specific plan for your dog and to supply all the required food or to show you how to prepare it yourself.
Don’t take my word for it
This is what Dr Richard Allport BVet Med. VetMFHom MRCVS has to say about the Honey’s Weight Loss Plan.
When I qualified as a vet in 1973 and was, therefore, entitled to put the letters MRCVS (Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) after my name, veterinary practice was very different.
Back then, sitting in the waiting room of your local vet, you would have noticed two striking differences compared with today. First, the sales area (had there been one) would not have been packed from floor to ceiling with pet food. Second, there would have been very few overweight, let alone obese, dogs waiting to see the vet.
Nowadays, the number of overweight and obese dogs being treated by vets has reached epidemic levels. The increase in obesity has mirrored the increase in the feeding of high-carbohydrate, low-quality protein, ‘processed’ diets. I don’t believe this can be a coincidence.
Dogs in the seventies were mainly fed on scraps, leftovers, bones and inexpensive cuts of meat from the local butcher. There were few dog treats available and most dogs were taken on plenty of walks. Obesity was extremely rare. Dogs today are commonly fed on kibble, a form of dried food that is high in fats (to give it some taste) and carbohydrates, and low in good-quality protein. Most canned foods are little better, some containing as little as three percent real meat.
If your dog is becoming overweight, and does not have a medical condition that may be causing the weight gain, what can you do about it? I wouldn’t recommend any of the ‘therapeutic’ weight reduction foods you may be offered. These barely differ from the food that is causing the problem. Instead, I would suggest the Honey’s Weight Loss Plan.
The Honey’s Weight Loss Plan works because it is not modern, processed dog food (which is essentially junk food for dogs) and because it reproduces the diet your dog would eat in the wild, only using ‘tame’ ingredients.
Dogs are carnivores. They have evolved to eat prey, such as mice, rabbits and deer. Their digestive system, which is very different from the human digestive system, is more than able to handle raw meat, offal and bones. In fact, dogs thrive on it, and you need have no concerns as to its suitability.
There isn’t a better way for a dog to lose those spare pounds than to switch to the aptly named Honey’s Weight Loss Plan.
Dr Richard Allport can be contacted through the Natural Medicine Centre https://naturalmedicinecentre.co.uk/
By Jennifer Brady
