Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight

Add my congrats on the continued weight loss!

And awwww............. he's just such a sweetie! I wonder if he'll still be your foster when he can fit through that door - I'd love to see that picture! :heart2:

And I'm with otto - SO lovely to hear about him enjoying grooming! :rub:

He just always makes me go "awwww..........." !! :lol3:

I am so happy he's still losing weight.  I feel like I've been away for a while and missed a ton of Mickey updates but it looks like I only missed on. he he 

He really looks good. That's so awesome that your friend wants to adopt him.  Hopefully it's sooner than later.:-)

Congrats!

Originally Posted by mschauer

I'm beginning to think the calorie information provided by manufacturers is useless. I just looked at Nature's Variety Raw Chicken Formula and they say it is 65 calories an oz! What?!!! How can that possibly be?? I just looked again and they claim *all* their raw foods are 65 calories an oz!

Click to expand...

It's been a couple months since you posted this, but I ran across it and it made me wonder-- I feed a variety of N.V. Raw, and how can all the different ones be the same exact calorie contents, when they have different protein/fat/carb amounts???  I then found this link, which calculates that the chicken actually has closer to 40-44 calories per ounce.  It doesn't calculate the other varieties.  I bet the fattier meats like lamb are higher than that.... I wonder if N.V. averaged all the formulas and then listed that number across the board?

http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/pet-food-calorie-mis-information.html

I judt found this thread and have been engrossed with it since, just read the entire thing.

As LDG knows I have a fat cat Krissy.

Months back I put her and my other cat Simone on an all canned diet. She started off losing a bit of weight but that has stopped completely.

She is not as big as Mickey (was) but as soon as I saw his pictures I was so touched. You have done a remarkable job with him, and he must feel like a new cat already.

It's encouraging me once again to tackle this problem with my Krissy, who is now 10 1/2 yrs old and about 5+ lbs overweight.

I can't bare the thought of her life being cut short because of my negligence on what it takes to get her to a healthy weight.

I will be following your progress with great interest from here on!

Krysta said:

Originally Posted by mschauer

I'm beginning to think the calorie information provided by manufacturers is useless. I just looked at Nature's Variety Raw Chicken Formula and they say it is 65 calories an oz! What?!!! How can that possibly be?? I just looked again and they claim *all* their raw foods are 65 calories an oz!

Click to expand...

It's been a couple months since you posted this, but I ran across it and it made me wonder-- I feed a variety of N.V. Raw, and how can all the different ones be the same exact calorie contents, when they have different protein/fat/carb amounts???  I then found this link, which calculates that the chicken actually has closer to 40-44 calories per ounce.  It doesn't calculate the other varieties.  I bet the fattier meats like lamb are higher than that.... I wonder if N.V. averaged all the formulas and then listed that number across the board?

http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/pet-food-calorie-mis-information.html

Click to expand...

Well, let me start off by saying that I am *not* a fan of  www.truthaboutpetfood.com. I think the label "misleading" can often be legitimately applied to the information found there.

While I agree that my experience has been that the published calorie information for some cat foods has been difficult to understand, even as an estimate, I don't agree with the strong suggestion in that article that the pet food industry uses modified Atwater factors for some nefarious reason. 

The Atwater factors of 4-9-4 to *estimate* the calorie content of *human foods* based on protein, fat and carbohydrate content were established in 1902. They still work today as a fairly good *estimate* of calorie content. But, in the intervening decades it has been well established that the use of modified Atwater factors can result in a more accurate *estimation* of calorie content. The modified factors take into account the bioavailability of a particular food for a particular animal species. The article implies that the human food industry uses only the base Atwater factors of 4-9-4. This is simply not true. The USDA nutrient database which contains nutrient profiles for thousands of foods also includes modified Atwater factors for most foods that take into account the bioavailability of that food for humans. The modifed Atwater factors in that database for asparagus for example are 2.4-8.4-3.6. 

The AAFCO has suggested that pet food manufacturers use modified Atwater factors of 3.5- 8.5-3.5 to reflect the general bioavailability  for cats and dogs of the ingredients typically used in pet foods. 

In the above I have emphasized that the Atwater factors are only meant to *estimate* the calorie content of a food. The actual, exact energy value of any food for any animal is going to be dependent on both the animal species and the individual animal.

Something else misleading about that article is that it uses values from the label guaranteed analysis in calculations without pointing out that those values are not exact values but rather are minimum or maximum values. And they don't point out that since the carbohydrate content of foods isn't included in the guaranteed analysis they are using a method to estimate it. In other words, the actual protein, fat and carbohydrate content for those foods could differ quite a bit from what are used in the calculations.

So, while I agree the published calorie information for some cat foods seems, on the surface at least, to be wildly inaccurate, I don't agree with the implication in the article that the pet food industry is trying to mislead the public by using modified Atwater factors. In fact, I have found the calorie information provided with most of the cat foods I've looked appear to be reasonable and consistent. The ones that aren't seem to be the exception not the rule. 

catwoman707 said:

I judt found this thread and have been engrossed with it since, just read the entire thing.

As LDG knows I have a fat cat Krissy.

Months back I put her and my other cat Simone on an all canned diet. She started off losing a bit of weight but that has stopped completely.

She is not as big as Mickey (was) but as soon as I saw his pictures I was so touched. You have done a remarkable job with him, and he must feel like a new cat already.

It's encouraging me once again to tackle this problem with my Krissy, who is now 10 1/2 yrs old and about 5+ lbs overweight.

I can't bare the thought of her life being cut short because of my negligence on what it takes to get her to a healthy weight.

I will be following your progress with great interest from here on!

Click to expand...

Thank you for your kind words! I'm sure Mickey must be feeling *so* much better. He is certainly much more active now than he was when I got him!

Update - week 21

Mickey weighted in at 22:5 (lbsz) this week for a one week loss of 5 oz and a total loss of 4:9.

You read that right! 5 oz! Yea! 

I'm not sure why he lost more this week than he has been lately. He is on a 100% raw diet now and it could be the calorie content of the total diet is a little lower than what I think. One of the raw foods I'm using is my homemade and it could be my estimate of it's calorie content (based on modifed Atwater factors btw) might be a bit off. Also, in the interest of convenience, I rounded the food amounts I give him to the nearest 1/2 oz. The result being that he might be getting a few calories less than what I intend. I'll keep an eye on how hungry he seems to be and increase the amount a bit if he seems too hungry. 

Behavior wise he has started chasing my only other boy kitty, Toby. I'm not really sure why. Toby doesn't take it as fun and I can't tell for sure if Mickey does. Mickey isn't showing any overt aggression towards Toby. Toby can be quite a pest. He likes to come up to all the other cats and bop them on the head for absolutely no reason. If could be he has done that to Mickey and that is what has started the chasing. Most of the time the two of them seem just fine with each other. 

Oh he's feeling frisky!

Wow - 5 ounces! Basically 4.5 pounds so far?

Wow!  That's a big loss. Congrats!  Mickey's gonna be at a good weight in no time :-)

LDG said:

Oh he's feeling frisky!

Wow - 5 ounces! Basically 4.5 pounds so far?

Click to expand...

Yup, 4 1/2 lbs. 

wolcar said:

Wow!  That's a big loss. Congrats!  Mickey's gonna be at a good weight in no time :-)

Click to expand...

Thanks!   It's astounding how big he still is though even after losing 4 1/2 lbs! 5 months steadily losing weight and he's still huge! 

He's getting so close to a manageable weight. My Ulysses at his heaviest of 18.7 was able to groom his rear and do all normal cat things; although, the frame of my cat seems larger than Mickey's.  Now that Mickey's smaller and doing more things hopefully the weight will come off more easily just from being slightly  more active.

He looks so much better than his original photos. It's just fantastic!

Ohmygosh, 4 1/2 pounds is such a difference. I bet he is feeling so much better.
I'm predicting now that you are over your first hump and his increased exercise will carry him through another 2-4lbs loss without food change. That's how it was with Grim, I've hardly had to decrease food very often once he got over a hump. His were at 18lbs, 16lbs and now 13lbs.
Go Mickey!

Update - week 22

I almost forgot to post an update! Probably because it is kinda disappointing. Mickey only lost 1 oz last week. Sigh. So's he's at 22:4 (lbsz) now for a total of 4:10 lost.

Maybe next week will be better. 

Awww....

But at least there was still a loss!

LDG said:

Awww....

But at least there was still a loss!

Click to expand...

   .  I think we need more pictures of that cutie pie though. 

He's still losing, though :-)

I second the pictures!!

Update - week 23

Mickey weighted in at 21:15 (lbz) on Saturday for a 1 week loss of 5 oz and a total loss of 4:15.

So why 5 oz this week and only 1 oz last week? Same food, same quantity, much greater loss. I don't think he has was more active this week although he could have been. The weather has been cooler this week and that usually makes all the kitties feistier. Oh, well, doesn't matter. I'm just happy it wasn't another 1 oz week. That would be *so* disappointing.

But, 5 oz deserves a banana dance! 
He looks almost like a normal size cat here doesn't he?


Until you see a more normal size kitty that doesn't overflow the same lap.


He looks a little cranky here. Really he's just sleepy.

Congrats!  Glad he is losing weight.  Such a pretty boy ;-)