Timothy's Weight Loss Thread

jarn

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I have been reading Mickey's and it's inspirational, but as it is 35 pages long and quite old and I didn't want to distract from Mickey I thought I'd start one for the cat I adopted (last Thursday, so today is day 7) and who weighs 23.4lbs.

He gained weight in the shelter. When I weighed him after he ate at home after a few days with us, he weighed 23.59lbs (we weigh in kgs, I converted). 10.7kg.

But then we took him back to the vet because we were concerned about how he was eating, and he weighed 23.4lbs (10.6kg), so I think his higher weight (he weighed 23.4lbs at the vet the day I brought him home as well) was due to just having ate.

He is big enough he's not much for playing, but we have a bell toy he kind of chases with his paws while lying down. I'm getting him used to a harness so that I can take him into the hallways and stairwells of our building for exercise and maybe eventually outside? I'm not loving how secure his harness is at the moment though.

We are feeding him wet food, though he's very interested in kibble (grain free, but I know kibble is not best for weight loss, our vets want us to feed wet and that matches everything I've researched), so now we are feeding our other two guys more wet and just putting kibble down when we can keep it away from Timothy.

He's getting a mix of President's Choice wet food (cans vary from around ~90-110cal, depending on the formula) which is grain free, and Go! Petcurean Fit and Free wet food (also grain free and recommended by a friend whose cat has lost weight on it) which seems to be a bit more calorie dense.

We are having trouble getting him to eat a full meal at one sitting. He's very flighty about what he eats. We were concerned about hepatic lipidosis (why he went back to the vet on Monday), but his weight was stable, he looked great, and his bloodwork was fine. So false alarm.

The first vet we saw at the practice calculated his daily calorie needs for weight loss at 329!!!! So you see why we were concerned he wasn't getting enough, as I think he's probably eating around 150-200 calories a day, though it's difficult to say for sure as he never finishes his food.

We did try him on The Honest Kitchen dehydrated raw - not fan, but as he settles in, I'll try it again - and I have some Stella and Chewy freeze dried raw stuff I haven't tried him with yet. Who would think such an obese cat is a picky eater (except for kibble apparently, though that's new over the last couple of days).

I've read some stuff from Dr. Pierson, which was good, and have been googling how to get a cat to lose weight. Based on online stuff, I'm guessing he should be eating ~250 calories for weight loss (assuming he should weigh 14lbs - probably less, but he is also a BIG cat even if he wasn't overweight, so I figured 14lbs until he gets closer to that weight and then we can see how much he needs to lose.

But using the formula of 14*13.6+70=260.4cal. He's not eating that. I noticed Mickey ate a lot less and didn't seem to get sick (unless I missed it in that huge thread). We'll see. I think he's still adjusting to a wet food diet.

He was brought into the shelter in mid-May after his owner died and they don't know how long he was alone for. He'll be 9 in October and was neutered at the start of June. The second, more established vet we saw at our clinic (the other I think is filling in for vacations, she's not a regular vet) was shocked that an unneutered cat could gain that much weight.

So! Timothy's weight loss thread! I figure I'll weigh him in every few days, once I'm in the habit (right now I'm tired from him cuddling all night (aww) and on autopilot in the morning and just head to the kitchen to feed the cats.
 

Cat Sidhe

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Hi @jarn!

I just wanted to let you know that I´ll be cheering for Timothy!! :woohoo: I´m pretty sure he´ll get in shape soon!
Please keep us updated and post some pics if you can!
 

mrsgreenjeens

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Mickey's thread is definitely inspirational. You know it can be done!!!!! I did read Mickey's thread (in real time), and I don't recall him getting sick. Certainly he never got Hepatic Lipidosis. His foster mom did a wonderful job with him. (She's still around here on TCS if you ever need to start up a conversation with her.)

I'll be anxious to hear how Timothy progresses. I'm sure there will be oodles of us who follow along, just like with Mickey. BTW, we'll want pictures :camera:
 
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jarn

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Thanks guys! I weighed him today after work and he was 22.93lbs, or 10.4kg. But different scale, so I'm not going to fuss about that dramatic weight loss in two days!

I need to figure out pictures, but here's a link to a pic on Instagram that shows how tubby he is: (I hope links are okay)

I tried him on the Stella and Chewy's, I think it's salmon and chicken. He ate some, it was mixed in with wet food, and he still hasn't finished it (we take it away or the other cats will eat it; I just brought it out again and he snacked a bit, but didn't eat a lot). He really doesn't eat a lot, but REALLY wants kibble! He'd gorge on that if I let him.

Am I making a mistake by not giving him any kibble? I just figured when he was filling up on temptations because he wouldn't eat kibble, and I was worried about HL so I was giving him anything he'd eat, and he stayed steady, that it would be okay not to let him have kibble now that he's interested in it. It's grain-free kibble, but I know it won't be as good for weight loss.
 

kittensx4

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Thanks guys! I weighed him today after work and he was 22.93lbs, or 10.4kg. But different scale, so I'm not going to fuss about that dramatic weight loss in two days!

I need to figure out pictures, but here's a link to a pic on Instagram that shows how tubby he is: (I hope links are okay)

I tried him on the Stella and Chewy's, I think it's salmon and chicken. He ate some, it was mixed in with wet food, and he still hasn't finished it (we take it away or the other cats will eat it; I just brought it out again and he snacked a bit, but didn't eat a lot). He really doesn't eat a lot, but REALLY wants kibble! He'd gorge on that if I let him.

Am I making a mistake by not giving him any kibble? I just figured when he was filling up on temptations because he wouldn't eat kibble, and I was worried about HL so I was giving him anything he'd eat, and he stayed steady, that it would be okay not to let him have kibble now that he's interested in it. It's grain-free kibble, but I know it won't be as good for weight loss.
Oh my goodness. When I first seen your post I about died that someone else has a cat named Timothy. I have a tiger with the same name, though we usually call him Timmy. Then, I lost it again when I seen this pic because another one if my cats, Runt is overweight at 17.5 lbs and I just started the weight loss battle myself, but OMG looks at this pic of my Runt. Spitting image of your Timothy!!! I am unfortunately battling allergies along with weight. It's tough. Best of luck. I will be following along!
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IMG_20150905_220219708.jpg
 

orange&white

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Hi jarn! :hellocomputer: Welcome to TCS!

You're in good company here. A lot of us here have our cats on a diet, or have already successfully gotten them down to a healthy weight.

Poor Timothy! His owner really let his weight get out of hand. He's very lucky to have you! :lovecat:

My Tangent topped out at 16.5 pounds when I started his diet in September. It's been slow-going, but he's down to a little over 15 pounds after 10 long months. I worry, like you do, about him only eating around 160 calories a day, but as I have slowly reduced calories he seems to be stubbornly holding onto his weight. :headscratch:

Anyway, I'll be rooting for you and Timothy and following his diet thread!
 
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jarn

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Oh my goodness. When I first seen your post I about died that someone else has a cat named Timothy. I have a tiger with the same name, though we usually call him Timmy. Then, I lost it again when I seen this pic because another one if my cats, Runt is overweight at 17.5 lbs and I just started the weight loss battle myself, but OMG looks at this pic of my Runt. Spitting image of your Timothy!!! I am unfortunately battling allergies along with weight. It's tough. Best of luck. I will be following along!View attachment 189050 View attachment 189051
Oh allergies are tough. My mom's cat Mitu (RIP) was allergic to most hypoallergenic food so it was a nightmare.

Thanks all for the kind words! You guys give me hope!
 

mrsgreenjeens

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[QUOTE
Am I making a mistake by not giving him any kibble? I just figured when he was filling up on temptations because he wouldn't eat kibble, and I was worried about HL so I was giving him anything he'd eat, and he stayed steady, that it would be okay not to let him have kibble now that he's interested in it. It's grain-free kibble, but I know it won't be as good for weight loss.[/QUOTE]

As long as he's getting enough calories to equal the 260 per day with wet and freeze dried, he should be ok without any kibble. If he doesn't eat enough of what he is being served,then you may need to add in some kibble. Better the grain-free kibble than Temptations.

Are you rehydrating the Stella and Chewy? Mine prefer it dry, but I hate to give it to them that way :sigh:. I've found, though, that after I rehydrate it if I crumble up one little nugget over the top, they are more prone to dig in :wink:. Maybe that would help.
 
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jarn

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He's not getting 260 from wet and freeze-fried - maybe 150-200? Difficult to say as he's never finishing what we put down in front of him. We gave him a bit of kibble this morning. I don't want him to lose weight TOO quickly!

I am rehydrating the Stella and Chewy, but today I waited less than a minute so that it was crunchier and overall I'd say he liked it better. One of our vets (who I'm FB friends with) so the pic of him by his bowl and thought maybe it was too narrow for him and that his whiskers would be touching the sides which I guess they don't like so we're trying different bowls. I hope that will encourage him to eat more too!
 

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That's twice you've mentioned not being able to tell how many calories he's eating. You could pick up a kitchen food scale perhaps.

I weigh Tangent's meals to the 1/10th ounce and keep a chart of quantity and calories. My kitten tends not to finish her meals, so I weigh what I put down and then weigh what I pick up so I can tell how much actually "left the plate".

Those equations to "guess" how many calories a cat needs to eat per day are only good for a starting point in my experience, not the number an individual cat will need to gain, lose or maintain weight. You do not want Timmy to lose too fast, but you will need to figure out how many calories he is actually eating and track the weekly average calories alongside weekly weigh-ins, so that you will know for sure if he needs more or less food.
 
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jarn

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That's twice you've mentioned not being able to tell how many calories he's eating. You could pick up a kitchen food scale perhaps.

I weigh Tangent's meals to the 1/10th ounce and keep a chart of quantity and calories. My kitten tends not to finish her meals, so I weigh what I put down and then weigh what I pick up so I can tell how much actually "left the plate".

Those equations to "guess" how many calories a cat needs to eat per day are only good for a starting point in my experience, not the number an individual cat will need to gain, lose or maintain weight. You do not want Timmy to lose too fast, but you will need to figure out how many calories he is actually eating and track the weekly average calories alongside weekly weigh-ins, so that you will know for sure if he needs more or less food.
We have a kitchen scale. I've been weighing his Stella and Chewy's (wet food I've been tracking how much of a can he's getting), the issue is that I've not thought to weight what he hasn't eaten. We hang onto the uneaten food for a few hours to try to get him to finish it (we reheat it for extra smell) but even still he doesn't finish it. That's a good idea! Thanks!
 
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jarn

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Timothy is down to 10.1kg! I hope he's not losing too fast. He has been eating more kibble, but I'm thinking we'll stop feeding Esme and Lear kibble as much as possible so Timothy is going to have to get used to wet food/raw sooner rather than later. He did decently at dinner tonight!

Tomorrow we go to the cottage for the afternoon/evening for our niece's birthday, so we'll leave down some kibble for the cats. Hoping he doesn't scarf down everyone's!
 

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That's 22.25 pounds, down from 22.93 mid-week. That's over 1/2 pound in a few days. I'd say that is "generally" a little too fast, but only if he continues to drop weight that quickly.

I'd shoot for not more than 1 pound per month, and I'm more comfortable with 1/2 pound per month.

Instead of weighing my Tangent only on Sunday, out of curiosity, I weighed him several times through the course of this past week. His weight bounced around within 1/4 pound range, up and down. So your data point is a marker, and definitely one in a positive direction! You just don't want him losing at that rapid pace once you have several data points to form a trend line.
 
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jarn

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Our vet said 1lb/month at first, then 1/2lb as he got smaller.

I agree it's probably too fast, but he's bright and seems healthy. I've been taking him out into the hallway and having him walk back to our apartment, which I don't think he loves, but yeah.

We started feeding him near Esme and Lear and he seems to like that better. He really is a social guy. He's eating more that way. He ALMOST finished 1/3rd of a can of wet this morning! Pretty good for him!

Toby (my husband) is weighing out their food but is thinking our kitchen scale isn't super accurate as he's getting different total weights splitting a can into thirds for the three cats then the total weight of the can is supposed to be.

But I think we're getting there, and will have hopefully more conservative weight loss from here on out.

I was reading about the kind of kibble we've been giving the cats - grain-free, but something like 30% carbs!!!! All potato, sheesh. So I'd like to start feeding everyone wet, though it's super expensive, so we'll see. Lear and Esme definitely prefer it.

But we'll leave down some kibble when we're away today with the dogs so that all three cats have something to eat.

Timothy is currently lying with his head in Toby's shoes. He really likes our shoes. I'm guessing the smell.

Here's Timothy walking in the hallway!

 

orange&white

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He looks thinner from the front-view. You caught his good side! :p He is very handsome.

That's what I was thinking, too. One big drop in weight between weigh-ins is not much to be alarmed over. The long-term trend is the one to watch. Tangent's weight jumps around which could just be from weighing him before or after pee/poop.

That's a great way to get him some exercise!
 

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I have been reading Mickey's and it's inspirational, but as it is 35 pages long and quite old and I didn't want to distract from Mickey I thought I'd start one for the cat I adopted (last Thursday, so today is day 7) and who weighs 23.4lbs.
Hi! I'm glad you found Mickey's story helpful. It is good that you started a new thread. You'll get responses tailored to your situation this way.

But using the formula of 14*13.6+70=260.4cal. He's not eating that. I noticed Mickey ate a lot less and didn't seem to get sick (unless I missed it in that huge thread).
No, Mickey never got sick. I was surprised at how low, calorie wise, I needed to go keep him losing. I just kept slowly lowering the calories until he started losing consistently. Once I found the magic number, if I recall correctly, I was able to stick to it for the duration of his weight loss. It was so little food in comparison to what what he was used to though that I split it up into as many meals through out the day as I could manage to try to keep him from getting hungry. Since I work that was 4 meals a day at the start. Later I believe I went to 3 meals.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have either here or in a private message.
 

mschauer

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Timothy is currently lying with his head in Toby's shoes. He really likes our shoes. I'm guessing the smell.
One of my cats is shoe obsessed. It always seems so weird to me. :lol:

Your boy is very handsome!
 
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jarn

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Hi! I'm glad you found Mickey's story helpful. It is good that you started a new thread. You'll get responses tailored to your situation this way.



No, Mickey never got sick. I was surprised at how low, calorie wise, I needed to go keep him losing. I just kept slowly lowering the calories until he started losing consistently. Once I found the magic number, if I recall correctly, I was able to stick to it for the duration of his weight loss. It was so little food in comparison to what what he was used to though that I split it up into as many meals through out the day as I could manage to try to keep him from getting hungry. Since I work that was 4 meals a day at the start. Later I believe I went to 3 meals.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have either here or in a private message.
Thanks so much, all of you. Yes, I've been surprised at how little Timothy eats - though that may be changing.

Sunday we were out most of the day (niece's 8th birthday at a cottage 2 hours away) so we took the dogs, and left down kibble for the cats.

Monday I weighed Timothy and he weighed 10.3kg - but keeping in mind what orange&white orange&white said, I didn't fuss - we'll see what he weighs the end of this week. We picked up a luggage scale and will weigh him in his carrier (which I haven't done yet) so there may be new weights as it's a new scale.

Yesterday was my mom's 73rd birthday, so I ran home after work, put down some kibble (yech), took the dogs out - Timothy was waiting to get out of the kitchen, so I let him out - no more access to kibble! It broke my heart to leave him though, my husband, who works retail and has varying shifts, was working 9-5, so he'd been home alone with the other cats and dogs and the expression on his face when I was leaving - aww, poor guy - anyways, we got home and gave him some wet and he wasn't that interested.

He ate about 90-100 calories of wet this morning though! I was shocked (my husband gave him some more after I fed him this morning, not sure how much). We're going to have to stop that though, if he's starting to eat wet, I don't think unlimited wet is good either.

We'll try to weigh him tonight probably.

In other news, Timothy managed to groom Lear's tail this morning (progress! Lear has not been the friendliest) and has come into the bathroom when one of the dogs has been in there with me - wow!

Right now our biggest problem with Timothy is he wakes up Toby every night for pets, headbutting him, which wakes me up. So we're tired. It's worse for Toby though, he can't sleep with things lying against him, so he pets Timothy a bit and then pretends to go to sleep, but Timothy just curls up against his back, purring. SO MUCH AWWWW!!!!! Toby has started moving Timothy to his feet.

We haven't gone out in the hallway recently - as you guys could probably see, it's under renovation, and they've ripped up the carpet but not put the new one in yet - so yeah, it's fine, but as the hallway still weirds him out a bit, I figure to minimize exposure to the bizarro hallway.

Sorry for the late reply!!!! Thanks guys!
 

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Tommy was 21 lbs and did his weight loss on kibble. He was given 13.1 lbs as his goal due to his measurements.
His calories were set for 220-230 per day.
He lost the 8 lbs in 3 years.

Now he's on wet food. Homemade with raw. He's got tons of energy so now we're actually putting a little weight on him because he got down to 12 lbs so we're feeding 7 oz per day and gaining 2-3 oz per week.

Our harnesses we use are from Etsy. Pugs2Persians by Pugs2Persians
I ordered Tom's in a large and over time we just kept tightening it, and tightening it, and tightening it.

We actually had to do weight loss with Stewart too, but he only had 4 lbs to lose so it took only 1 1/2 years. His goal was 11.8 lbs but his daddy likes to keep him between 12-12 1/2. It REALLY helped his asthma vs 16.x lbs.

You'll get there. You can supplement his calories with freeze dried treats if he'll eat them.
The 5.5 oz cans are roughly 200 calories.
 

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Thanks for the update! You've got his top weight from the shelter at 10.7, so 10.3 is still progress!

Keep up the good work. Hopefully when Timothy gets settled in a bit more, you all can work out a routine where he lets Toby sleep. Maybe a little playing/petting session right before bed?
 
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