It's So Hard To Find A Balance

[orange&white]

Tangent has always been one to "supervise" others playing from the sidelines, rather than participate in play, even as a kitten. He's a really laid back cat. He has gotten more active since losing 1.5 pounds. I can get him to play with a feather toy for a few minutes. Sometimes. He does walk around the house a little more since the weight loss. Yes, he seems a bit stiff though. I'm afraid the extra weight wasn't very good for his bones/joints. I just started giving him some gelatin this week.

Bummer about your scale adaptor making the shipping scenic tour of the country.

 

[lalagimp]

13 lb 2.2 oz on 6 1/2 oz of food. I don't see any reason to change his feedings.
Stubbs, on the other paw, is now 12 lb 13.6 oz, on what his father says is 5-5 1/2 oz.
So he hasn't even been getting steady calories. I told him whatever you're feeding him, pull it back a half ounce, so he says he'll try him on a steady 5 ounces.
.sigh.
Stubbs is only supposed to be 11.8 lbs and I said ok I'll work with you, as his daddy... 12-12 1/2 lbs...But I want him closer to 12. I had this talk with him like two years ago.
Two years. Not my cat.

It's just one more annoying thing. And it's life. I couldn't just keep it easy and have both my boys on five ounces, or how for years their dry food was only 5 grams apart. Now Tommy has different needs to keep weight up and friggin Burger has needs to go back down.

One cool thing has happened since Tom and Yue got their teeth cleaned: Amalie will eat some canned food now.

So maybe eventually I can put raw in the girls' dish and see what happens there.

 

[lalagimp]

Well, that was interesting.
Stewburger is now 13 lbs, and Tommy is 13 lbs 8.6 oz.
Boyfriend seems to think this is more due to gorging food out of the girls' feeder, so he put their feeder in the kitchen, and put a SureFlap on the kitchen gate.
So I'm giving them one more week before scaling back their food. We'll see what it looks like next Sunday after the environmental change. Ugh. My bub's weight was perfect. Boyfriend also says no more snacks this week. They usually only get snacks every 2-3 days and about 15 calories or less, but ok ok. He really doesn't want to take burger down to 4.5 oz, but we have done this before.

 

[orange&white]

Are you still feeding that batch of turkey/rabbit where you added in the entire turkey skin?

 

[lalagimp]

I am, but I weighed it before I ground it and it was about 12 oz to 24ish lbs of meat so it's still relatively low in fat. I have to make more cat food before next weekend. Only difference I'm making is that I'm 2 lbs of turkey low so I'm putting in some chicken. I never really know how much meat I'm using because I overshoot by about a lb to account for taking the bones out of the poultry. Like right now I have maybe 12.4 lbs of poultry and 12 lbs of ground rabbit.
Dr Pierson said leaving in the fat would give more bang for my buck because I would end up feeding less, possibly, and that would stretch my cost per day.

The girls have been fantastic though. I give them less than 1/2 cup of 540 kcal/cup kibble per day and 1 5.5 oz can of 200 calorie chicken and they regulate AND haven't run into any metabolic issues getting older. Yue is 8, same as Tom, and Amalie is probably around 11.

We've got a little more stress over Stewart than Tom because I'm his co-owner. His dad doesn't think he's fat but he's a little smaller framed than Tom and I can reason with him because all I have to say is "but he has asthma". His symptoms greatly improved when we put him on a diet.

 

[orange&white]

You can definitely feed a lot less by adding poultry skin. That's where I got in a trap with Tangent's diet when it looked like he needed to go below 4 ounces of food a day to keep losing weight. I didn't want to do that because I was worried about him not getting enough protein and just general nutrition. When I remixed his diet with only lean meats and no skin, his mixes still come up 27% fat calories. He's only eating 130 calories, and one ounce of chicken skin is 98 kcals, so I had to cut it out completely.

I am happy that Yue and Amalie are able to regulate so well. It is really tough to find a balance for cats whose metabolisms are a little wonky.

 

[lalagimp]

Tom 13lb 6oz
Stew 12lb 15oz

Negligible.
And that wild chunk of tux cat bit me again while I was trying to get him to hold still on the scale. Gonna run the numbers by boyfriend but I'm pretty sure he's just going to have me wait on a diet change.

Maybe for Tom bc of the 2+ ounce difference. He ate a lot more of the girls' food previously. But, Stew only lost 1 oz so this may all be determined by his waste management.

 

[lalagimp]

Tommy is 13 lb 6 oz and Stewburger right flat 13 lbs. I'd say they are both regulating well. I'm going to let boyfriend decide on his cat. No one is really gaining.

 

[lalagimp]

Yep. His daddy says he can stay at 13 lbs as long as it doesn't climb and we continue to manage his asthma symptoms. It's just weird that Tom can eat that much more food than he does. But the guys can change at any time and we'll have to adjust while it's still easier to do so, so they will get weighed every week. It's in the calendar now.
Child 2 asked since they haven't been gaining, that they could be done with dieting now.
Nope. No way. This is a lifetime thing.

 

[orange&white]

Nope. No way. This is a lifetime thing.

Eeesshh! There's a thought I don't want to think. I hope some day to get Tangent and Farrell on the same diet again instead of a low-cal mix for him and a higher "normal" calorie mix for her. I am already making her recipes a little lower in fat because she's looking a little too "fluffy" for only 11.5 months old. Like your thread title, "It's so hard to find a balance", I sure hope there is a "medium" some time in the future.

 

[lalagimp]

Once you get Tangent's weight where you want him, you can get them on the same diet but with different portions. Tommy and Stewart eat in the same room, on the same stuff, on feeders on the same schedule, just with Tommy getting an extra half ounce on 3 of his portions. I've been watching Tom since 2013 and Stewart since 2014. It seems more recently we've had to make adjustments about every 3 months.

 

[orange&white]

I don't mind feeding them different amounts, in different rooms, or weighing them every week. It would be nice to make one batch of food for them both to eat. I'll try it after the Tan Man gets down to his healthy weight.

 

[lalagimp]

And still the goobs gained weight.
Tom is 13 lb 10.4 oz
Stew is 13 lbs 3 oz

 

[orange&white]

Sounds like you'll either have to feed less, or cut back on the added fat/skin again in your next batch. Also, adding unflavored gelatin to Tangent's food seems to have helped him feel more satisfied and lose some weight. You feed your boys broth already though, don't you? Broth is a good source of gelatin.

 

[lalagimp]

I haven't been adding in the broth since boyfriend took feeding over. How are you adding in the gelatin? Do you end up having to use extra water?

 

[orange&white]

I've been making the gelatin with 16 oz of water (like the regular recipe) and adding that to 32oz of chunky food mix. Tangent likes "soup" so he eats it all. I was initially trying to figure out how to get more protein into him without a lot of extra calories and no additional fat. Gelatin doesn't significantly add to his protein intake, but it is miniscule calories and no fat. Anyway, he seems much more satisfied with 6 ounces of food with gelatin, than just the 4 ounces of food by itself.

I used one box of the Knox packets from the store for a one-month test, and when I decided to continue, I ordered at tub of this:

I've been using 2 slightly rounded teaspoons to one pound of water and mixing it into the food before freezing. When it thaws, it's watery.

 

[orange&white]

Cat litter bill is higher. He pees a lot more.

 

[lalagimp]

Stew 13 lb 2.6 oz
Tom 13 lb 8.2 oz

I was sick last weekend. This is with them being pulled 1/2 oz each. I did not weigh them in the routine today... No one went down for a long, undisturbed (except by me) nap around 2 like I usually weigh them. It's 4:30 and they are waiting for their 5 pm feed.

 

[orange&white]

Looks like they're holding fairly steady. Hope you're feeling better.

 

[lalagimp]

Yeah. I'm glad to see after two weeks they are steady. I was hoping Stew would have lost a few ounces, but a neutral is better than a gain.
Yeah. I ended up being seriously overdue on cleaning the guinea pig pen. I went to do their laundry on Sunday morning and didn't use their dryers... Just came home and hung it up out front of the house to dry. Stayed in bed for 2 days with a fever. All of the cats stayed in bed with me. Baby sitters. One at my ankle, one at my knee, one at my ribs, and ONE DIRECTLY ON TOP OF ME. It was the little one.