[Kikie]

Hi all

First of all, I am amazed that there's a section in which I can post this. I thought I was insane for wanting to write it on this board!

So, I adopted a cat a few months back, and thanks to my ex who fed her constantly despite my warnings, she became on the chubby side. She weighs 11 lbs. I would appreciate advice on cat diet as I read some articles today and I'm scared to harm her health by having her lose too fast. She's less active with those extra pounds. So anyone with success in cat weight loss is welcome to leave some words to help me out

Thank you!

P.S. while i'm at it, she has a bit of a biting problem since I adopted her. It got better, but she still tries to bite me (playfully, so not hard) but if possible I'd like to get her to stop that too. She is declawed on 4 paws, about 2 years old. The weight problem is the bigger issue though. Thanks for any input!

[drixnot]

I adopted a cat in April and she was already fat... i just bought her high quality weight control cat food and she lost the weight on her own. I didn't limit her food except for a strict rule of no people food for the kitty.

If you want to get her to be more active.. put her food and water bowl on something that makes her jump to get at them.... separate places. Like maybe build little shelves for it.

[CanadianMomma]

I have a 9 year old cat, she's been mine since she was a kitten but at one point I had to move back home and she stayed with some friend's of mine. She got spayed around the same time and by the time I moved out on my own again and she came back to live with me she had gained a ton of weight.

I have another cat who is underweight. We have to leave food out at all times so the skinny one can eat, but that means the fat one never lost her weight. Over the years I've tried everything to get her more active and to lose the weight. Recently we bought high quality all protein dry food for her. I haven't seen her so hyper since she was a kitten and she's losing the weight finally. Poor thing has a tummy flap now, but it doesn't seem to bother her much.

Honestly I think for some cats the high amount of cheap carbs in their foods do as much damage to them as the carbs in our foods do to us. Cats are meant to live on mostly protein.

[TheVikingNinja]

If you get any advice let me know. We rescued a Maine Coon mix and though they are pretty massive cats to begin with I can't get her weight down!!
I feed her literally 1/3 of what she ate when we got her. (Slowly tapering down of course) She used to have a whole can and as much hard food as she wanted. Now she has 1/2 a can a day and about 1/2 cup of hard food a day. These cats need to eat more than normal cats, but according to research she should be dropping weight like no tomorrow. She last weighed in at 18lbs leading me to believe she must have been 20 at her highest. I just want to see her belly go away, I don't know how much that would be.
It worries me when we play with her with a wand I bought a few months back she'll be good for 10mins then lose interest and go to sleep. All the cats I ever knew could play with those for hours (or until the owner got sick of it lol)
She's 8 so I have her on a mix of senior wet food and indoor dry food. I don't think this slowing down is due to age at all though, I just read the senior has more nutrients for things like weight gain.
All of us are trying to get healthy, but it is really frustrating!!! My boyfriend is starting his diet in the fall after all his vacation time is up (he doesn't want to worry about dieting when off of work so I understand) but it seems next to impossible at times.

[Kikie]

Thank you for the advice! I will buy her some food with no carbs if I can find it and hope it does the trick

[tessendicott]

Let me preface this by saying I am a vet assistant who has taken feline nutrition courses. What you need to do is to find a food, (doesn't have to be weight control, but that isn't a bad idea) that has a lower kcal/cup range than what you've been feeding. The ideal weight for a cat is to be able to feel the ribs, but not see them, and their ribs need to be easily felt. I don't think lowering the carbs is necessarily going to have a huge impact, unless the lower k/cals per cup food is just naturally lower in carbs.

I suggest using Blue or Nutro if you can go that route as far as price range. Nutro offers lite foods for weight loss. Also in the pet food world (I just learned this) "Lite" means there is a lower calorie content per cup, "Light" just means the actually food pellets are lighter in weight. Might not be a bad idea to ask your veterinarian what a good weight range would be for your cat as well. Animals lose weight like we do, slowly but surely. Sometimes it can take months for a pound to come off, just like us. There will be directions on the side of the bag for how much you should feed per day and you should split that up into three meals if that's possible for your schedule!

I hope this helps!