Help with Cat Loosing Weight

[Relyt92]

Hello,

We have a cat who’s now 18.2 pounds. DSH female, 2 years old. For the last seven months we’ve tried different ways to help her lose weight, but nothing has been working. We used to feed her the Nulo Kitten dry food, about 320 calories a day. We then changed her to the Nulo weight management dry cat food, and slowly decreased her calorie intake to about 200 calories a day. I’d say for about 5 months now she gets 200 calories a day. But she still hasn’t lost any weight! It was the vet that initially recommended reducing the calorie intake. We just brought her in again last week to get her vaccines up to date, and we talked to the vet again about her weight. He asked how many kcal per cup are in the current food, and we told him it was 431 kcal/cup. He freaked out and said that was way too much. We tried to explain to him that we don’t feed her a cup a day....we measure it out to a little less than half a cup a day (so about 200 calories a day). He then recommended the hills science adult diet dry food with hairball control, because that has 279 kcal/cup. We asked him why does that matter...either way we’d still be measuring her food out to about 200 calories per day. But he still made it sound like changing it would be better for her. I can’t say I agree with him on this topic...unless I’m missing something...it shouldn’t make a difference since we’re still measuring the calories to a specific amount. And on top of that, I’m not a huge fan of hills science, it has more plant based ingredients and less protein it seems.

We feed her three times a day, each day the same times. We never leave the food out all day. We have other cats that she is often playing with. And toys she loves to chase after. So decently active cat. She’s indoors only. None of the other cats weigh more than 12 pounds.

We’re just not sure what else to do at this point besides look for any advice or other food recommendations? We chose Nulo because it seems to be an above average quality dry food that isn’t too crazy expensive. We know wet food tends to be a better option for cats and weight lose. But that always seems much more expensive. We would maybe try dry and wet food. Start off with dry food twice a day and wet food once a day, still making sure to hit about 200 calories a day.

We appreciate any help!

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Something seems amiss. An 18 pound cat cannot sustain their weight on 200 calories per day, even if it is dry. While cats vary, age and activity level making a difference, the 'standard rule of thumb' is about 20-25 calories a day per pound of cat. On that note, 200 calories could sustain a cat of about 10 pounds, on the lower end of that scale. Has the vet done a thorough blood work up, including things like hypothyroidism and/or diabetes?

Having said all that Fancy Feast is a pretty good canned food (especially the pates), and if 200 calories is really what your cat is eating, 2 cans a day would suffice to meet around that amount. Depending on where you are located, and how you would purchase Fancy Feast, for me it runs around 60-66 cents a can.

If your cat is a crazy dry food eater, you could try mixing Fancy Feast with the dry as a starting point - getting her used to the flavor/texture differences. Then, over time reducing the dry and increasing the canned food.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

We had another overweight cat owner post here just the other day whose cat was losing weight at 300 calories per day, then suddently starting gaining, and it turned out someone else in the house was feeding the cat unbeknownst to the cat owner. Could this possibly be happening here? Imean, FeebysOwner is right in that 200 calories per day is frighteningly low! My own pudgy cat has to watch his calories, but our Vet told us never go below 18 calories per pound because it simply wasn't healthy. What finally worked though, was to put him on an all wet food diet. The best thing if you do that is to go with pate foods, because they have lower carbs (normally) than chunky foods. But the lower carbs foods will have higher protein, which will make her feel more full, plus are just better all around for CATS, since they don't need carbs.

Since you have other cats, even though you don't leave food out, is it possible she gets into their bowls during meal times? We actually feed out pudgy guy in a different room and feed the other where we are so we can keep an eye on his bowl

 

[moxiewild]

Thirding comments up there.

1. Increase calories a bit. If your cat is 18 lbs, then 200 kcal/day could very well send her into hepatic lipidosis - and that is more of a concern than losing weight at this exact moment. I would not go any lower than 250-300 (just for the time being).

2. Wet food. More affordable wet foods that are low carb include Friskies pate, Fancy Feast Classics, Tiny Tiger (Chewy exclusive brand), Special Kitty pates (Walmart brand), and some of the Tractor Supply brands (if in the US). You can search the site for more cheap/affordable, low carb wet food, this topic comes up frequently.

3. Interrogate household for any sneaky feeders!!! Men and boys are particularly notorious for sneaking food to pets, and/or overestimating how much to feed (intentionally or not).

- Adjacently related: Ensure everyone is on the same page with feeding. Sometimes people accidentally double feed, and this can happen even if you think you’re generally communicating well. We have a “Did you feed the cat?” magnet that helps us to communicate to one another about it.

4. Separate cats when eating, or monitor them to ensure no one is stealing or playing “musical bowls”. If they are, there are multiple ways to address this.

5. Lab work at the vet (if not done last time)

6. Second opinion from an entirely different vet/clinic if necessary. This is not an attack on your vet - a fresh set of eyes/perspective is always worth pursuing if you aren’t getting answers.

Although to be perfectly honest, I would advise a second opinion anyway simply to double check how many calories she should be consuming right now. As noted, 200 calories for an 18 lb cat is a very concerning deficit (regardless if she’s losing weight or not).

If it were me, I’d personally skip #5 and go straight to #6 to get the calorie deficit sorted out and clarified as soon as possible.You can bring along lab work if it was recently done for the new vet to review, or just have them do it themselves if it hasn’t been done or isn’t recent.

7. Increase exercise, meaning interactive playtime with a human and wand toy. At least one, hard, 20 minute session a day. Try to get him panting, you want him to be really worn out by the end.

This type of exercise is almost always superior than when cats play by themselves or with other cats/dogs. Da bird is an excellent toy for this, and the same company has other great toys like Da Mouse/Cat Catcher if she prefers ground prey.

Questions/Clarifications -

- What was her weight - down to the ounce - before cutting calories?

- (Reiterating here) Has bloodwork been done? Especially to rule out diabetes and other metabolic disorders?

(If you’re not sure about her weight or labs, call your vet and ask that his records be emailed to you)

- What was the goal weight your vet set for her/how much did your vet want her to lose?

- Is she spayed?

- Does she have outdoor access?

- How is she acting on 200 kcal/day? Normal? Hungry? Have you noticed any physical or behavioral changes whatsoever?

 

[Relyt92]

Thank you everyone for your responses. I’m a bit late responding, but we were frequently revisiting this post for responses.

Overall, we did bring her to a second vet. As with the first vet, this one also said that as long as she was slowly getting less calories a day, she should be okay. Which we did. We’ve done blood work and everything looked fine. Besides the weight she’s perfectly healthy.

There’s only two of us here, so there’s no surprise feedings. We did actually start a dry food/wet food diet last week. We have started with at least 80 to 100 calories a day of wet food. And then roughly 100 to 120 calories of dry food. Within the first 8 days, we brought her in to get an accurate reading, and she she’s already down 5 ounces. I can’t say for sure what is helping her lose weight, but it truly seems like the wet food is helping! We chose Nulo wet food and Wellness Core wet food that is much less in carbs and a tiny bit higher in protein. We did see that Friskies Pate, and Fancy feast were cheaper. But looking at their analysis of each brands several flavors, their wet food seems so high in ash content! How is that healthy? And they still seem somewhat high in carbs.

Besides the addition of wet food nothing has changed. We will try to play with her everyday for at least 20 minutes with the several stick/pole toys we have.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

So am I reading this correctly that the 2nd Vet also said it's ok for her to only eat 200 calories per day? Wow! BUT now that you have switched up her food, feeding her the same amount of calories, she is losing weight? I just want to make sure I am interpreting what I am reading correctly. So, that goes to show that the type of calories does matter. Good to know. High protein, low carb is definitely the way to go, which I have been telling people, but now I really need to emphasize it more, using your girl as a perfect example!

Congrats on her losing some weight now. Just don't let it happen too quickly. The goal should be no more than 1 - 2% of her current body weight per week. Naturally, that will change as her body weight changes.