my catty is a fatty! Need advice to help him lose weight!

My very sedentary 12 year old tabby weighs 22 pounds.  I have been cutting back on his food over the last year to try to help him lose weight, and we have not been able to see any progress.

He has been eating 2/3 cup of kibble and one 3 ounce fancy feast per day.  I am wanting to change him to all canned food to get rid of all that extra stuff that is probably helping him pack on his weight.

When I read the recommendations based on his weight on the packaging, it looks like way too much food.  We have been doing one can of friskies (6 ounces) and one can of fancy feast (3 ounces) per day and we are worried that we might be cutting him back too much.  He acts very hungry in the 3 hours leading up to his evening meal time but, with his previous diet, he ALSO acted very hungry in the hours leading up to his feeding time so it is hard to tell the difference!  He loves two things in life: eating and being petted.  He does act more hungry now, though, and so we wondering if that is just a normal part of getting a new diet (we have only been doing this for a week) since I know that whenever I am dieting, I am more hungry at first, or is it a sign that we need to maybe give him 1 more 3 ounce can.

Thanks for any advice!

Jill

I was reading over what I wrote and I think I could have phrased the first part better.  His previous diet was kibble plus fancy feast, and for the past week, we have only been doing fancy feast (3 ounces) plus friskies (six ounces) with no kibble

Hi and welcome to TCS! It is terrific that you are trying to get his weight down. Are you weighing him every week? A good safe weight loss is 1-2% of body weight per week. You don't want him to lose faster than that. If he is not losing on the amount of food you are giving him, then you need to gradually reduce his calories until you do start seeing weight loss. Higher animal protein/moderate fat/low to no carb foods are better for cats and will help cats feel more satiated. If you are feeding the Fancy Feast classic pates and Friskies pates, they do fit into this category. The other varieties are all much higher in carbs which you do not want.

While the general rule of thumb is 20 calories per pound of ideal weight per day for adult indoor neutered cats, this rule is hard to apply to obese cats. I have two resources for you to read up that may help you figure out a good strategy. One is http://www.catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity. This site also has great info written by a vet on feline nutrition in general. It also has a chart of common cat foods available in the US broken down by protein/fat/carbs. It's a great resource if you are looking into other foods.

Another good resource that has a lot of information as well is this thread. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245236/mickey-my-27-lbs-foster-and-his-journey-back-to-a-healthy-weight  I think you will find a lot of similarities and some helpful tips there. Good luck and please do keep up posted on his progress and any more questions you might run into.

Thank you so much! I will go check out those links right now.

Interactive toys help! I can't remember if that was in Mickey's thread or not. The Office Depot laser pointer is the most fun I can have from my chair.

I added more water to my cats' food hoping to make them feel more full. In any case, they got more water.

Great idea! Thanks! He used to love to play as a kitten.

It might help his hunger to split his daily rations into more meals. Like, give half a can of Friskies at 2 separate meals, and the can of FF at another, to make 3 meals a day. Or even split the amount into 4-5 meals if possible. Keeping his blood sugar steady may keep him from feeling so hungry.

we read the articles that vball91 posted and did the math and discovered that we were cutting his calories by too much so we have made that adjustment.  He seemed happy to get the extra food!

I think we will try splitting up the meals more, that seems like a good idea.  Before, we had been feeding him twice a day and I think he might be less grouchy with his new diet if the calories are spread over more meals.

Thanks for all of your advice!

Jill