Best wet food for weight loss?

[pipervali]

Hey all!

My 10 year old girl is obese. She's a very largely built cat, but she's upwards of 20 lbs and as she's getting older I'm getting increasingly concerned about her weight issues. I've had her on Science Diet Perfect Weight dry food for a couple of years, with her getting about a half a cup a day. She does not have a feeder, we give her a portion in the morning and a portion in the evening. She also enjoys wet food. We had been using Fancy Feast for years. About a full can portioned throughout the day as small frequent feedings, sometimes up to a can and a half. Greenies treats here and there, but not generally on a daily basis.

I had switched partially to Weruva and Tiki Cat because of their high protein content, but I'm not seeing any results, in fact I think she may have gained a tiny bit. She LOVES the Weruva pate, and the Tiki Cat is super high quality, but she has to be in the mood for it. My vet doesn't seem super concerned about it, but is encouraging weight loss. There is prescription metabolic Science Diet that he suggested, but she's not a fan of the SD canned formulas, I had tried the weight management version a while back and she refused it more times than not.

Any suggestions on what brand I could potentially have better luck with? I wouldn't mind sticking to Weruva since she likes it so much. I'm just wondering if I'm not being patient enough.

 

[maggie101]

Weruva is high carb, otherwise a good brand. Tiki not much to zero. Dry food she will gain weight from.

Catfooddb.com

 

[cataholic07]

How much are you feeding her a day? Stop any dry food and only feed wet food. Did the vet say what her ideal weight is? You should be feeding her based on how much she should weigh, not her current weight.

 

[LTS3]

Weight loss takes time so have patience Don't rush it or you put your cat at risk for fatty liver disease. It make take a few months or more.

Feed 20 to 25 calories per pound of body weight daily. A 20 lb cat needs roughly 400 to 500 calories daily but some cats may need more or less. Start with that amount and then very slowly over the course of weeks to months decrease the calories until your cat reaches and maintains an ideal body weight. Any canned food is fine but you may need to feed multiple cans daily at first to meet the calorie needs. I think Weruva is pretty low in calories so you'd go through a lot of cans daily. It's not the best budget friendly food to feed for a huge weight loss like your cat needs.

Take a read through this thread for tips: Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight

 

[suzeanna]

If you're trying to figure out a weight loss regimen, I strongly recommend starting a spreadsheet to track daily calories and buying a scale to measure both wet and dry food. Especially for dry food -- a half cup can actually be quite a lot when you measure it on a scale. My ASPCA adoptee was 16 lb when surrendered and 18 lb when we adopted her last August. Following their guidelines, she got up to 18.5 in a month before we saw a great vet who let us know that all cat metabolisms don't necessarily follow the same calories per lb ratio. We slowly lowered her calories by 10-20 calories at a time and weighed her every week, making adjustments every 2-3 weeks if we didn't see progress (or immediately if she gained weight). Tracking any and all treat caloric intake is also very important -- they really add up! She's 15.4 lbs now (9 months later) and her intake is ~130 kcal per day. It is a slow process, and that's okay. Happy to share my spreadsheet if you'd like, feel free to DM me.

Edit: wet food is sooo much better than dry food for weight loss. The only dry food she gets is a 15-kibble snack in the automatic feeder at 3 a.m. I also cut up Greenies into ~6 pieces per treat to give as rewards for catching the laser pointer.

 

[JulietteTruong]

My Juliette spent a few years being chunky too. I had her eating the same Science Hill diet food that you named, also 1/2 cup a day (2 meals of 1/4th cup each), which is according to the printed guidelines. She was miserable! Always hungry. Always begging for food. Her coat got greasy, and her dandruff got worse. I tried to get her to be more active, but cats...her weight didn’t really budge. So I went to 50 wet and 50 dry, but her weight barely went down.

once I switched to all wet, I started to see changes. I stuck to two meals a day, and 3 oz per meal, making sure to keep her calories to about 220 a day. I rotated brands, flavor, textures etc. that’s all.

from that, she was able to shed the weight slowly but consistently! Not only that, she stopped the constant begging, and didn’t act so famished between meals. And her coat improved drastically.

sometimes I’m horrified about the fact that I had her eating that SD kibbles for so long, I can’t help feeling worried that I somehow damage to her health. It’s a useless way to think, I know. .But it’s a work in progress.

 

[pipervali]

Thank you everyone for your replies. It sounds like eliminating the hard food is definitely the first step in any of this. She really enjoys it and is always begging for her bowl to get the twice daily portion, so that's going to be difficult, as she has some behavioral issues related to food. But I can deal with some errant peeing if it gets her healthier.

 

[leeann77]

I just started my cat on a diet a few days ago. I decided to go with Purina Overweight Management prescription food, I just order it at Chewy with a prescription from the vet. After reading reviews, people said their cats preferred the OM over the Science Diet stuff.
Purina tells you how many calories she should be eating based on her current weight. So I’m trying one 5.5 oz can per day plus she gets a decent amount of dry. (I just added up all of the calories to figure out how much dry to supplement). Now my problem is I’m afraid she’s not eating ENOUGH. I thought she’d be starving but it’s a lot of food. I know they can’t lose too much weight per week or it’s dangerous so now I have to figure out how to get her to eat MORE food. She definitely prefers the canned (savory selects) but it’s pretty expensive, about $2 per can so I’m supplementing with the dry that I measure and leave in her bowl all day.
Good luck! I’m basically in the same boat as you lol