Concerned about calories

I'm confused about the amount of calories my cats need daily. I read here in the forums to multiply 20 with their weight in lbs, but it seems like a lot of calories. For example, my 18 lb cat: 20 x 18 = 360 calories needed per day. But I have been feeding him only around 157 calories per day and he seems okay. Should I be feeding him more? I usually split a 5.5 oz can three ways for my three cats, a 3 oz pouch split three ways in the afternoon, and a 5.8 oz can split three ways at night. Too little?

I feed them Innova 5.5 oz in the morning (198 calories per can), Wellness Healthy Indulgences 3 oz pouch in the afternoon (73 calories), and Royal Canin urinary so 5.8 oz at night (200 calories). So add them up, it equals 471 calories in all. Split three ways, it's about 157 calories per cat.

I'm just worried about Buddha losing weight to quickly. He's 18 lb 5 oz so I cut back the food for him. I need a baby scale!

The general rule of thumb is 20 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. You are correct though that this number does not seem to work well for really heavy cats. You mention in another thread that your cat should weigh 15 pounds, so that would be a closer estimate. Also remember that this number needs to be adjusted for age, metabolism, activity level, etc.

When trying to help cats lose weight, a safe measure is 1-2% of weight loss per week. Because of the risk of hepatic lipidosis, losing weight too quickly is not safe. So yes, you do need a scale.

Thank you for your advice!

Can anyone recommend a scale that they use that is easy with cats and is accurate? Any particular one that you use?

The Salter baby scale is used by some here, but it's expensive. Some have had luck using a regular scale and weighing themselves before and after holding kitty, but that never worked for me. I ended up using a pretty inexpensive postal scale that I already had. I had to put her in a box, but it worked pretty accurately. A TARE function is useful for that.

Haha I can imagine someone taking that out of context. "Why is that woman shipping her kitty?"

LOL. I didn't even think of that.

Oh yeah, cats can have VERY different rates of metabolism. I don't know how many calories they eat, as I feed homemade. But I have an overweight cat that was a REAL struggle to get his weight down just a pound to 14.5 pounds to 13.5 pounds. In fact, cutting calories only took us so far, and we got to the point where I just could NOT feed him less food. This is our thread: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/246983/billys-weight-loss-journey-well-maybe

I have a 7 pound cat, an 8 pound cat, two cats that weigh around 11.5 pounds, two that weigh about 12.5 pounds, and two that are overweight: Chumley and Billy at 13.5 pounds. Billy's weight is stuck there, and unless we go back to the food amount swapping at each meal time, it's likely to stay there.

Here is how much they eat at each meal then in parentheses, the total amount per day (3 meals a day):

7 pound: 1 ounce (3 ounces)
8 pound: 7/8 ounce (2.6 ounces)
11 pound: 1.5 ounces (4.5 ounces)
11.5 pound: 1.2 ounces (3.6 ounces)
12.5 pound: 1.375 ounces (4.125 ounces)
13.5 pound: 1.2 ounces (3.6 ounces) - this is Billy
13.5 pound: 1.375 ounces (4.125 ounces)

The vet really doesn't want me to reduce Billy's total food intake at this point. I could take him down to 3 ounces a day, as that didn't seem to hurt him: but it didn't help him lose weight, either.

When on dry and canned, I remember driving myself nuts trying to figure out how much food they *should* be eating a day (in terms of calories), because we were dropping the dry and moving to canned. If I'd have used that 20 calories a day measure, they'd all be beach balls. Well, at least some of them would be. Mine really only needed about 15 calories per pound of IDEAL weight per cat.

FYI, while it's best to have them lose at the rate of 1 - 2% per week, according to Dr. Pierson (http://www.catinfo.org), if they are eating at least 50% of their IDEAL weight in calories daily, you don't run the risk of hepatic lipidosis.