So mad at myself at cat's weight gain

saharahoshi

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Long story short, our 1.5 yr old male kitty had some sort of mouth ulcer and wasn't eating his dry food consistently so we had about 4 weeks of vet visits, visiting a dental specialist and now he's fine (sort of, they think it's allergies so we are working on that), but we just came back and found out he's gained 2 lbs in a month, so he went from 12 lbs to 14 lbs, I know that's an absurdly huge number and I take full responsibility, I just can't help but feel like garbage, I thought I was doing the right thing after having one of my very first cats go through hepatitc lipidosis 10 years ago and now I've made him overweight. In my sad defense, we had to give him medicine and so disguising that was a fun fun task.

We just got back from the vet, she seems to think that because the mouth sore is gone he was eating more and now we need to help him lose weight again, not a disease or further issue (he just had bloodwork a month ago), but can anyone empathize? I thought I was doing the right thing and it turned out to be wrong.
 

FeebysOwner

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I wouldn't overly worry, and certainly not about you doing anything wrong. You had to do what you had to do to get meds in your little guy and make sure he was eating. And, right now, other than reducing the amount of food he is eating in a day, you probably shouldn't try changing too much else about his diet if you are still working on trying to determine if his problem is/was related to food allergies. Ideally, when you can resolve that, putting him on mostly canned food will make a difference because canned food is less dense in carbohydrates - and, most of the time much healthier. But, that is for another time when his allergies are under complete control.

For now, start measuring how much he eats in a day, before you proceed. Once you know that, you can start by ever so slightly reducing the amount of food you give him - maybe by no more than 5-10%. For example, if you find he is eating 300 calories a day, reduce the amount you serve him down to no less than 290 calories' worth. Let him get used to the lesser amount - perhaps by a week or so, and then reduce again, and so on and so on. If you want to know his progress as you do this - and you really should - then weigh him weekly. That can be with your own scales - pick him up and weigh the both of you, and then just weigh yourself. If you want to be more accurate, you can buy a pet/baby scale. You can also use the chart below to help you as a guide about his size and body structure. Please note that the chart unfortunately, like many of these charts, does not reflect the typical primordial pouch that most cats have by the time they hit your cat's age. That is the belly fat that hangs down right in front of their back legs - and cats have that whether or not they are overweight.

Btw, for what it is worth, when Feeby (now 16+yo) found me at 2ish yo, she was emaciated and I let her eat whatever she wanted. I just let it go on way too long and at one point in time she weighed over 17 pounds. So, it does happen!!!

Body-Condition-Feline-Chart.jpg
 
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