Overweight Cat - looking for canned food recommendations

My cat Pixie is overweight, so much that she can't clean her rear end anymore.  She went to the vet today for a nail trim, back-end clean up and to make sure that she didn't have any infection or anal gland blockages.  She got the all clear, but I need to help her to lose the extra weight.  She is currently almost 14 pounds, vet says she should be about 10.  The vet wants her to eat a prescription diabetes diet for the high protein, low carb and fat content.  I'm not thrilled about this diet but will feed it for a while to get a little jump start on the weight loss. I don't want to feed this to her long-term.

Pixie currently eats Merrick's Purrfect Bistro chicken pate and duck pate.  She gets about a can and a half a day, but she also snitches some of my other cats' food:  prescription kidney diet that my CKD cat eats, and a few bits of Wellness Core kibble from my kibble addict.  Pixie has gained about a half pound since she saw the vet in July.

I'm looking for recommendations for a high protein, low carb food for Pixie.  I thought that's what I was getting with the Merrick's foods, but maybe not?  I've seen the food charts on catinfo.org, but have a hard time interpreting them.  I can't manage a raw diet right now, so I'm looking for commercial options.   She was eating Wellness Core turkey/duck canned but no longer likes it since being introduced to the Merrick's.  Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I feed my cat wellness grain free cubed turkey dinner but she's a young cat so I dunno if it keeps her weight in check except she is small for her age. my older cat is on Now! grain free adult cat food and she's lost 3 pounds on it so far but I think it's because I also restrict how much she eats with an automatic feeder and switched my other cats to wet food and raw so my older cat wouldn't eat their food too.

The foods you are feeding are not too bad on the protein/carb mix. I think you are just feeding too much. For weight loss, you have to control the calorie intake. Most adult indoor neutered cats need about 20 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. So for your cat, that would be about 200 calories. I would gradually decrease the amount of food you are giving her and stopping access to the other cats' foods. It's the only way you are going to get her to lose weight. Just be aware that weight loss must be done slowly in order to be safe and avoid fatty liver disease. Safe weight loss is 1-2% a week, so weighing her weekly would be a good thing.

If you want to try other foods, Tiki Cat chicken varieties are very high in animal protein, low fat, very low carb.

Thank you!  I ordered a scale and it should be arriving today, so Pixie will be getting weighed every few days.  I also just ordered a bunch of the Merrick's food online, and I'd hate to have to send it back.  I have tried a couple of the Tiki Cat chicken flavors and she liked those, so maybe I'll start rotating them in for a little variety. My vet is not happy that I want to avoid the "prescription" food, but it's just so full of junk and expensive!  Plus, I don't want my CKD cat to nosh on it ... he's a snitcher too.

Weruva and B.F.F. are very similar to Tiki Cat, and are lower in carbs and calories. For these three brands, a lot of their flavors are fish, so I would try to stick with poultry flavors. Fish would be okay maybe two meals a week, IMO. Halo is pretty low in fat and calories, but they contain chunks of vegetables, which are debatable.

If you want to keep her current foods in the rotation, then you may just need to feed less of them, like @vball91 said. I think pates are better (usually higher in protein, lower in carbs), but they're also sometimes higher in calories and fat, so she would need less of these. When I was keeping track of my one cat to help him gain weight, I created a spreadsheet of his foods with DMB calculations. The same could be done for Pixie so that you can see how things add up, and adjust the amount based on the analysis.

I don't know how old Pixie is, but activity level is also important. If she's an older, relatively lazy cat, then she may not need as many calories. If my one senior lazy cat got 200 calories a day, he would expand rapidly.     If she's still energetic and active, then more play sessions may be helpful.

Thanks, GoHolistic!  We've tried Weruva and BFF and they were well received.  I do try to avoid fish ingredients as a general rule.  Pixie will eat pretty much anything I put in front of her, thankfully, but that's also part of the problem.  She wants to eat EVERYTHING...she's certain that whatever the other cats are eating is much better than what's in her bowl.      She is five years old and still playful, but I have two VERY energetic males who are complete toy hogs.  If they start to play, she will back off.  I have to take her to a separate room to get any real play time with her, and then she loses interest quickly.

A spreadsheet is an excellent idea.  I will try that to help keep track.

I feed my cats the canned Merrick as part of their diet.  My neutered male cats who weigh about 9 pounds at a healthy lean weight,  eat just around 200 calories a day but they are very active cats who run and play a lot.

I think your cat could probably do fine if you stop her eating the other cat's food  and keep her on the canned Merrick if she likes it --- but  possibly feed theirGrammy's Pot Pie some of the time if she likes that,  which  I think may be lower calorie than the paté style. Then if needed, cut down a little on the amount of the Merrick.   Many cats do fine on one can.      Actually many spayed older cats who are not very active only need around  150 kcal / day.  Some small females need even a bit less.    If Pixie is so obese at 14 pounds , it sounds like her healthy weight may be  around 8 or even 7 pounds?   so she may actually need less   

  But as vball91 says,   you do need to be careful when helping a fat cat to lose weight ,  and make sure they don't lose it too fast.  so I agree with the suggestion to get a scale that weighs in small amounts  - grams or fractions of an ounce - and weigh her once or twice a week.   Safest is probably to lose only 1% of body weight per week.  but definitely try to keep it under 2%. 

Weruva Paw Lickin' Chicken is also high protein/ pretty low fat & low carb.  

IMO there is not really a strong reason to switch to a prescription diabetes diet.  Most of them are not really low carb anyway.  The only one of the major prescription diet brands that IS low carb is the CANNED version of Purina DM,  but there are non-prescription options that are just as low in carbs.    I do like the DM for being higher in protein and lower in fat than some of the premium commercial foods.   but it's mostly liver  and I do think cats need more muscle meat too.  Cats often seem to agree;  many of them seem to get tired of the DM after a while.    You could get some canned DM as part of the rotation if you want,  but I think you could do fine with the Merrick. 

I maintained a (very) diabetic cat with chronic pancreatitis  and a history of DKA,  for 6 years , feeding commercial foods and when he died it was not due to diabetes but cancer.

  ( Personally  for a cat with kidney disease, I would rather focus on the phosphorus and the quality of the protein,  than limit the protein as much as some of those prescription kidney diets,  and vets at our clinic no longer recommend foods like k/d --or at least not until end stage kidney disease -- due to effects like anemia and muscle wasting, and they're often not very appetizing to cats .  But I know there are differing opinons about that,  and anyway that is not the question you asked.   But what DOES apply is that those are very high carb foods and not what a pre-diabetic cat should be eating .  )

Thank you Maewkaew.  I'm going to try and help Pixie lose the weight without going to the prescription food.  I just got the scale I ordered (a Salter baby scale), so I'll be able to monitor Pixie's weight carefully at home without the stress of hauling her to the vet for weigh-ins.  Interestingly, when we had her spayed, the vet was amazed at the amount of fat cells she had in her abdomen, and this was when she was under a year old, very slim and very active.  He told us we would need to watch her to make sure she did not become overweight.  Since then, she's always been a little on the chunky side, but in the last six months has gotten much heavier.  I haven't been as attentive to her lately as I should have been because one of my other cats had bladder stones in the spring, surgery to remove them and then the CKD diagnosis.  While I've been focused on him, I've been neglecting my sweet Pixie-girl.

(And I have mixed feelings about the prescription renal diet as well...so many differing opinions there, it's hard to know the right path.)

What size cans? I thought Merrick only comes in 3-oz cans, so a can-and-a-half of that would only be 4 1/2 ounces, and probably only about 120 calories. . .and I wouldn't want to advise you to go lower than that! But (I just Googled and saw that they do come in larger cans) if you mean the 5.5-oz cans, yeah, 1 1/2 is probably too much.

I have the 5.5 oz cans and was feeding about 1-1/2 cans a day, plus whatever she snitched off the other cats' plates.  I started cutting her portion back today and am watching her like a hawk to prevent theft.  I'm working on getting her used to the scale...she was so squirmy on in last night that I couldn't get a good reading.