Conflicting Numbers- how much to feed?

So I am back again with a new question. I am doing calculations for amount of food based on the  2%- 4% of body weight and also by 15-25 cal per lb of cat. I am coming up with widely different amounts and I don't know which to go by.

      Here are the specifics-  I have started feeding raw using alnutrin w/ calcium with pork or turkey. I used their website's Nutrient Calculator to figure how many calories are in an ounce of the food I have mixed up. According to their numbers each ounce had a mere 28 calories ( 3 lbs meat, 1 1/3 cup water, 20 g alnutrin). That means, using 25 calories per lb I should be feeding my cat (a little overweight at 11 lbs, so I use 10 lbs to calculate) about 9 oz a day. But, according to the 4% calculations she should only get about 6 1/2 oz. That is almost a 50% difference! 

    Is the Alnutrin Nutrient Calculator (http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/RecipeBasicnonmetric.htm) accurate? We are trying to get Bub to loose weight so we very strictly control her food intake. I don't want to feed her too little and make her sick, but I also don't want to over feed her so she gains a lot of weight before we settle on how much to feed her. We aren't so worried about how much we feed the two kittens because we are still free feeding dry for them. 

What do you all think? 9 oz or 6 1/2 oz?

I never could really figure out that calculator, but isn't there a big difference between pork and turkey in the calorie department?  When feeding raw, I never go by calories, I go by % only.  My 13 lb guy only eats 3.75 oz per day!  Granted, he's at the very lowest amount our Vet feels is safe, and i DO give him some freeze dried raw treats aside from that, but I would think 9 oz is a HUGE portion....even 6 1/2 sounds like a lot, especially if she's a little overweight. 

You didn't mention her age.  Is she an adult?  Obviously kittens need more food, but if you're saying she's overweight, I'm thinking adult, not too active, am I right?  I would think you would want to feed at the maximum probably 3% of her optimum weight, or 4.8 ounces.  Then see how she does.  Do you have a scale to monitor her weight?  If not, even weighing yourself then picking her up and weighing again is a good way to judge (better than nothing) whether or not she moving in the right direction.  At 3%, she might even GAIN weight

    Bub is about a year and a half (the vet figured she was about a year back in October). She went from just over 4 lbs (skin and bones) when she had the kittens in July to almost 11 lbs by December (I know- it was crazy and it happened really fast). I think part of it was that she was fixed in mid October and we were still  free feeding her with the kittens. Since December we have moved the kibble so only the kittens can get at it and we have been carefully controlling Bub's portions. Our cats are indoor only and we try to get her (and the kids) up and playing vigorously at least 25 minutes a day; they also play with each other quite a bit. We weigh everyone every Sunday with our kitchen scale and our big plastic mixing bowl. Bub is the only one who doesn't like to sit still in the bowl to get weighed, but we can usually get a 3 to 4 oz range for her.  

    According to what I can find online we have been feeding her around 225 calories a day  split between two wet meals and a bedtime kibble snack. I think I like your 'math'. It matches up more with most of what I've been reading- that nutrient calculator just threw me off I guess. I think we'll start on the higher side because Bub loves her food... she literally comes running every time we get near to the food dish area. We call her run the 'sausage shuffle'   

    We have been doing the first week of raw as a mixed canned-raw week to get them used to the idea. I think next week we are are going to graduate to all raw and change the bedtime snack to raw as well. We'll try for something around 5 oz., maybe two 2 oz meals and a 1 oz snack, and see how much she weighs next Sunday!

Thank you MrsGreenJeens!

Actually, MrsGreenJeens, can I ask what recipe you feed your cat? 

Yes, as MrsGreenJeens indicated, there can be a big difference in amount of fat in pork versus turkey, and that plays into calorie counting.
I use a percentage, not calories. I fed prey model raw, around 3.2 oz of meat (plus liver/bone/kidney), plus (too many) freeze dried treats. Based on her weight, she should be getting around 3.4 oz of meat, I figure the FDT makes up the difference.
Sorry if I missed this, but what treats do you feed her now--FDT are crunchy and might be a change of pace from the other treats.

I had looked online and found that the turkey and the cut of pork we used were about the same calorie-wise (it struck me as odd too).

We have the pounce moist treats, but we actually don't feed them very many treats. Normally, they each get about 1 a week, when we do their nails or when we weigh them.  If we are going nuts they get about 4 a week. We did get Simply Nourish freeze dried shrimp from Petsmart yesterday They LOVED those last night! 

I think I am going to call (email) the alnutrin company and ask them their take on my confusion... because I also want ask them how to take most of the water out of the recipe since we add a lot of water to their dishes at each meal.  I seems silly to add the water, which makes it take up more space in the freezer,  when we plan on adding more at meal-time anyway. I tried to figure it out with their calculator, but I don't really like the numbers it is spitting out; when I decrease the percentage of water it also significantly decreases the amount of alnutrin. 

pisces7386 said:

 
Actually, MrsGreenJeens, can I ask what recipe you feed your cat? 

Click to expand...

I now feed Frankenprey also, so no recipe.  I used to use Alnutrin without calcium, and ordered my ground whole carcasses from Hare Today.  I never bothered with their calculator.  I just mixed the Alnutrin in "some" water (maybe a cup?) to mix into 3 - 4 pounds of the ground animal (whatever I was preparing at that particular time), worked it up like meat loaf, then packed it all up into small glad ware tubs.  Those stacked nicely in the freezer.  Then when I defrosted them, I added more water, added egg yolk lecithin and Krill Oil.