Tangent - Raw Food Weight Loss Program

orange&white

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Scattered through a few threads, I've mentioned that I have a 12.5 year old cat named Tangent on a diet.  I wanted to start a thread for him to track his progress (or lack of progress) as he loses weight.

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History:  Tangent's brother, Cosine, had some eating disorders and was too thin.  In early 2013, I stopped feeding raw food exclusively and started offering canned and kibble to try to keep Cosine's weight up.  Between 2013 and September 2016 when Cosine crossed the bridge, Tangent got quite chunky from the free-feeding, particularly from kibble. 

He was 16.5 pounds of chunky in September.  His healthy weight is 13-13.5 pounds.  I immediately removed the kibble and Tangent lost 1.5 pounds in 2 weeks eating all the canned food he wanted, and then quickly hit plateau at 15 pounds.  I started cutting his calories, but at December 29th he was still at 15 pounds.

In January, I transitioned him back to the all-raw diet he had eaten from 2008-2012 and into 2013 - the last time he could eat all he wanted and looked healthy and muscular.  The first 30-days on raw, he got down to 14 pounds (January 25th).

February 3rd, I brought a new kitten home and Tangent went off his food.  I brought home several types of canned, plus a bag of kibble
 to get him eating "anything" and laid out a kitty smorgasbord buffet.  He started eating on the fourth day after I syringe-fed him egg yolks on the day before he started eating again and got his full appetite back.  For two weeks I let him eat anything he wanted, and his weight bounced back up to 15.4 pounds by the next weigh-in March 5th.

End History

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Current:

Early March I bought a very accurate scale that weighs food and pets to from 1/10 ounce up to 55 lbs and started keeping weekly records.
 Tangent WeightOunces Food% of Body Weight
03/05/1715.405.632.28
03/12/1715.385.642.29
03/19/1715.405.602.27
03/26/1715.385.272.14
04/02/1715.285.152.11
04/09/1715.53    
Tangent is still at a plateau though I cut his food back a little on March 26th.  I'm going to keep him on 2.0% - 2.15% of his body weight for another couple weeks, then will cut his ounces per day back a little if his weight doesn't come down a bit.

I think he has gained some muscle mass from being a little more active with the kitten.  His belly, which was "full of butter" in September, now had quite a bit of loose skin (his "swag"), but still too much fat.  I like to think of excess weight in terms of sticks of butter in 1/4 pounds...so I imagine him with about 8 sticks of butter duct-taped on him and making him carry that around (or 2 - 1lb boxes, one on each side in a saddle-bag).  Except, of course, the "butter" is really soft-spread on his insides and needs to go.  For lean muscle-mass though, I think he has picked up one or two boneless beef ribs...all protein. 


Like I said, I'm not asking for advice on "how to diet", but would appreciate any comments or observations...and mainly would like to have a cheering section for Tangent as we go along through his diet process.

Thank you to anyone who took time to read this long post. 
 
 
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lalagimp

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I'm not sure what your raw is comprised of but we had to play with it. I did 5 oz of Nature's Variety chicken and then I did Dr Pierson's with 20% of the skin, plus the optional eggs and somewhere between the two that blew it all to hell. The boys started gaining. Tom is supposed to stay at 13 lbs. He was almost 14 so I pulled him back to 4.5 oz per day instead of the 5 he was getting, and I changed it to no skin, no eggs. Within 2 months he was back to 13 lbs so he's getting 5 oz again, but I've only done the new formula for 2 batches so he's getting weighed again next month to see if I need to bump him up to 5.5 oz or not as his maintenance. 
A half oz is probably around 30-50 calories.
I know when my bubba has to lose he needs to stay around 230 I figure.

 
 
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orange&white

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I'm using an 80/10/5/5 ratio with the supplements from Dr. Pierson's recipe added, rotating through chicken, pork and beef.  I always include chicken hearts for extra taurine and some gizzards for dental.

Tangent had a somewhat disappointing weigh-in yesterday, but I was feeding an all chicken mix (with skin) last week - which is the fattiest, highest calorie mix.  That will run out tomorrow and I'll be making a lower-fat pork mix.  With the chicken mix, I tried to give the growing kitten more of the skin, and give Tangent less.

I haven't put any equations together to calculate calories in my mixes, so I'm going by ounces of food and percent of body weight.  If I can't get results that way, I may need to look up calories in each ingredient and add a column to my recipe spreadsheet.

I also sort of think weekly weigh-ins I'm doing are overkill, since some Sunday's he gets weighed before eating anything, sometimes after eating...and then there's the variability in "how much pee and poop" is in him when I weigh him or if he's recently "relieved".  lol  Anyway, my own weight varies 6 pounds during a year...but is somewhat consistent year-to-year.

Thank you for your input.  I appreciate it!
 

cindycrna

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We just adopted a 2 year old kitty, Oliver to be a buddy to my 6 month old hellion, Lewis.  Both are very active but Lewis is still growing an needs extra calories. Oliver could stand to lose 1 pound. We do Stella and Chewy's freeze dried raw and I had always had out Blue Wilderness as he is a growing boy. Now, I seclude Lewis an additional couple of times a day to feed him extra. My goal is to take up the free feed kibble but a weight loss diet for one and a growing kitten diet for the other is a balancing act!  O&W, how are you feeding your kitten? Separately? 
 
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orange&white

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Yes.  The kitten is a feral who got into our warehouse at work.  She is still living in my master bedroom/bathroom while I figure out how to introduce her to the dog.

She eats in my bathroom and my senior cat eats in the kitchen.  Even after integrating all the furry-butt kids, I'm going to keep feeding them in different rooms.

Tangent got fat because his skinny brother refused to eat anything in a separate room.  I feel awful that I let him get heavy, but I was more afraid his brother would go off food and starve to death.
 

cindycrna

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Yes.  The kitten is a feral who got into our warehouse at work.  She is still living in my master bedroom/bathroom while I figure out how to introduce her to the dog.

She eats in my bathroom and my senior cat eats in the kitchen.  Even after integrating all the furry-butt kids, I'm going to keep feeding them in different rooms.

Tangent got fat because his skinny brother refused to eat anything in a separate room.  I feel awful that I let him get heavy, but I was more afraid his brother would go off food and starve to death.
It's tough when everyone has different food requirement!
 

pogo16

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does Tangent beg for food? Pogo went from 10.5 to 10.7 pounds. I'm trying to keep him lean due to arthritis, but he keeps begging and it breaks my heart!

he's a glutton but I also wonder if he's hungry!

How do I tell the difference?
 
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orange&white

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I was giving Tangent 3-4 small meals a day, thinking that would keep him from begging.  Nope.  He was begging all the time.  I changed his schedule to two large meals about 12 hours apart and he's better.  I think having a large meal is more filling and satisfying to him, at least for several hours.

When he meows for food, I pick him up and snuggled him, try to entice him to play with a string toy, or take him back to visit the kitten (as long as her food plate is empty).  He has decided that I'm too stupid to realize that he is meowing for food.  Now, most of the time, he just sits quietly by his empty saucer and looks up at me with a forlorn expression.
 
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orange&white

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Tangent's Sunday weigh-in results:

He weighed 15.5 pounds today (1/2 of 1 ounce less than last Sunday).
He ate 5.04 ounces of food per day (average) compared to previous week 5.16 ounces.
Food as a % of body weight this week 2.03%; previous week 2.11%

Last week I was feeding a pretty fatty all-chicken mix Sunday-Tuesday and rotated to a pork mix Wednesday through this morning's breakfast. I've made enough beef mix to start this evening which should last the whole week without changing mixes. It's fattier than the pork mix, but less fatty than the all-chicken.

Nothing to cheer about, but at least the see-saw is "down" this week instead of "up".
 
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orange&white

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Sunday weigh-in. :frown:

Tangent is at 15.56 lbs today, one ounce more than last Sunday, and no weight loss since I started keeping weekly track. :frustrated:

I've cut him back to 5 ounces of food, right at 2% of his body weight over the past 2 weeks and was hoping to see some results. I'm afraid that feeding him less than 2% of his weight will result in too little nutrients and he'll lose muscle mass.

Anyway, I was asking on another thread about using pre-ground 80/20 turkey, and decided to go ahead and make a low-calorie turkey mix to feed him a few meals this week. I may have to start making his food in separate recipes from the kitten's food to cut back on fat content.

Regardless of recipe, I don't understand how cutting back on the quantity of food doesn't result in some weight loss over a two week period. :argh:
 

lalagimp

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I'm doing 5 oz for Tom for maintenance right now. When I needed him to drop I put him on 4.5oz . I'm going to weigh him in a week or two and see if he doesn't need 5.5oz, but he's go so much curious energy. We just start giggling at his antics and wonder if we get another ten years with him.
 

lalagimp

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Wow I am saying the same things I said a few weeks ago. I guess that's my reassuring go-to. He's crazy and still got his muscle. I understand we worry about what's best for the kids.
 
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orange&white

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I'm doing 5 oz for Tom for maintenance right now. When I needed him to drop I put him on 4.5oz . I'm going to weigh him in a week or two and see if he doesn't need 5.5oz, but he's go so much curious energy. We just start giggling at his antics and wonder if we get another ten years with him.
If I recall, your Tom is 13 or 14 pounds at a healthy weight? 14 pounds is my initial target weight for Tangent, although as a young cat he looked best at 13 pounds. Hmmm...2% of a 14 pound cat would be 4.5 ounces, so I could cut him back a little. I think I'll try the lower cal turkey mix 3 meals this week and cut him back to maybe 4.75 ounces next week if we're still on the plateau.
 
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orange&white

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Wow I am saying the same things I said a few weeks ago. I guess that's my reassuring go-to. He's crazy and still got his muscle. I understand we worry about what's best for the kids.
I do think that cats on a raw diet maintain muscle mass versus cats eating processed foods who start losing muscle as they age and their bodies can no longer process the carb load. So I think Tangent has perhaps gained some muscle over a few months back on raw, plus playing with the new kitten has re-energized him compared to the "slug cat" that he was. (...or I could just be trying to rationalize why my diet plan seems to be failing... :confused:)
 
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orange&white

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I always look forward to the Sunday weigh-in, until it happens. :(

Tangent just weighed in at 15.59, very slightly up from last week.

Lowered his food to 4.7 ounces on average, or 1.88% of his body weight. I also made him a "special" batch of low-cal turkey mix, which he ate one meal Sun/Tues/Thurs/Sat, or four meals out of fourteen. :dunno:
 
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orange&white

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Sunday weight-in: Tangent at 15.59, exactly the same as last Sunday. The cats were eating pork and chicken mix last week.

Lowered his food to 4.51 ounces on average, so we've gone from 5.63 ounces of food a day in March, when I bought the accurate scale, to more than an ounce of food less per day, and he is weighing slightly more than he did.

I crunched numbers on calories per ounce for the meats that I feed and am going to lower the calories from fat in the food mix. Yesterday I made an all-chicken mix for this week, but for boneless meats, I increased the hearts and gizzards to a 50/50 ratio with the boneless chicken thighs with skin. Gizzards are the lowest fat meat I could find, so they are almost all protein. (The nutrition data for hearts surprisingly indicates they have a high level of fat, which I find very hard to believe.)

So....this week I'll keep Tangent on 4.5 ounces of food, but with a lower calorie mix.

I feel like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.
 
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orange&white

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:banana1: Sunday weigh-in! :banana2:

Tangent lost 3 ounces since last Sunday! :woohoo:

lalagimp lalagimp ... your input helped me get over worrying that feeding him less than 2% of his current body weight wouldn't be enough food for basic nutrition. If he were at his target 14 pounds, I wouldn't worry about feeding him 2% of a 14 pound cat's body weight. :thanks:

He ate 4.3 ounces of food per day average last week, and weighed in at 15.4 pounds today. I also increased the amount of chicken gizzards in the cat mix I made last weekend. Gizzards were the lowest fat meat I could find, so the calories per ounce were lower.

Ok, no one burst my bubble. :nono: I know that is not his lowest weight ever, but as least he didn't gain or stay the same for another week.

Maybe we've turned a corner! :dance:
 
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orange&white

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Maybe we didn't turn a corner after all.

Today's weigh-in: Tangent gained 1/2 ounce on average 4.5 ounces of food per day. Weight 15.44 pounds.

This week, back to 4.3 ounces per day. We had a little luck with that the previous week. Not sure why I went back to 4.5 oz, except old age and forgetfulness.
 

lalagimp

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I wouldn't even get stressed about a .5 oz+ because maybe you're just missing out on a bowel movement or something. If it's a few ounces I'd toss a tea towel at it as well this def ain't working.
 
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