Fat Kitty - Need Advice

I've posted here before about trying to help my overweight cat Pixie lose weight.  She is 6 years old and currently weighs about 13.5 pounds; she weighed over 14 pounds last June.  She has a small frame and the vet says she should weigh around 10 pounds. She got down to 12 pounds at one point, but is now back up to 13.5 pounds and weight loss has stalled. I've read Dr. Pierson's site and am trying to follow her directions for weight loss. 

Pixie is eating only wet food except for the few bites of kibble she snitches occasionally from one of my other cats.  I am feeding her Merrick's Purrfect Bistro chicken pate and duck pate.  She gets about 3/4 of a 5 ounce can in the morning and the same amount at night.  She gets a quarter of a can initially, then small servings spread out over a couple of hours for the rest of her portion.  If I put it all down at once, she scarfs it down then begs for more.   

Pixie acts like she is starving all the time.  If another cat gets fed, she feels like she needs to eat too and even jumps up out of a sound sleep to come beg for food. I have another cat who has chronic kidney disease and he gets fed as much as he wants, whenever he wants it, trying to get him to gain weight.  This makes keeping Pixie away a bit of a challenge.  She only gets treats when I get her on the scale to weigh her, so one or two crunchies, once or twice a week.  I try to engage her in play with a feather toy, and she plays for a minute, but then loses interest quickly. 

Any suggestions for behavioral modification, feeding changes, exercise, etc?  My vet wants to put her on a prescription diet but I am reluctant to do that. I have been considering a slow-feed bowl but don't know if they work for cats.  And they seem to all be designed for dogs. 

Have you helped your cat lose weight?  What worked for you?  Any suggestions would be appreciated!

A few tips:

The Merrick Purrfect Bistro is a high in carbs. I don't know about the duck, but the chicken is around 20% carbs when you're aiming for 10% or less.

Try putting a billiard bill in Pixie's dish to slow down the eating.

Since you mention the vet, have you inquired about the huge appetite?

Argh, I thought that was a good food.  Will need to rethink that and start testing foods again. I know she likes Tiki Cat and Soulistic chicken flavors.

When she saw the vet last, she was free-fed kibble, so we never noticed the big appetite.  I need to check that out as well.  Thanks.

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf   I don't know if you have seen this chart or not.  It lists the protein, carb, and fat percentages of most of the foods sold in the U.S.   You want to go by the dry matter percentages.

Also you can safely go as low as 15 calories per pound of ideal weight per day.  The calories are usually listed on the foods website.

So she's getting 7.5 oz a day? That sounds like too much food as most cats eat about 5.5-6 oz a day. Do you know how many calories that is? I would definitely aim for 150 calories a day of a low carb food and 1-2% a week weight loss.

Thanks Denice.  Yes, I've used that chart in the past.  I think I made the mistake of assuming that the Purrfect Bistro flavors were similar to the BG options.  My fault for not reading the labels.  I was just looking at the chart now to see where the Soulistic flavors that Pixie likes land in the P/F/C ranges.  Terrible, of course!  She likes the shreds in pumpkin soup, very high carbs.  So back to the drawing board with taste testing.

I'm not sure I understand the 15 cal/pound of ideal weight.  Pixie's ideal weight is 10 pounds.  That would be 150 calories/day, correct?  That seems very low. 

VBall: The chicken pate has 185 cal/can and the turkey has 156 cal/can.  So feeding a can and a half a day, that's *gasp* 277 and 234 calories.  I alternate the flavors, but still - yikes!

I thought I saw on Dr. Pierson's site that I was supposed to feed 20 calories per pound.  So if she weighed 13 lbs then she would need 260 calories/day.  Oh my, now I'm confused.

The 20 calories a day is to maintain weight for a kitty that is at the ideal weight rather than for weight loss.  At least that's the way I understand it.  The 15 calories per pound per day is a safety threshold as far as developing fatty liver which can develop if a kitty tries to use their own body fat too quickly.