Help! Severely overweight cat!

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cee22

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We have four cats, and three out of the four are overweight. Two of them are a little "plump" as our vet describes them, and they're ok but could stand to lost 2lbs or so, but one of them (his name is Socrates) is 20lbs. I think he's an adorable fat cat but it's getting to the point where it's not funny or cute anymore and I'm worried about his future health.

He lost a tiny bit of weight when our vet had us try the Science Diet weight loss cat food, but I've read and heard that Science Diet isn't even that great and it's just something vet offices want you to buy.

The problem is, our cats LOVE junk food. Love. I've tried buying them Wellness Core and other healthier types of food and they won't eat it. They only like Meow Mix dry food which is super unhealthy. Also, they like canned food as a treat but they refuse to eat it as their meals and usually lick the gravy and leave most of the food on the plate, which annoys me!!

I have no idea what to do and when we ask our vet, I don't feel her suggestions are very helpful. I want advice! Like what's the best type of food to give, how often to feed, how much to feed, etc. Is there a way to transition cats to wet food from dry food? Our cats will not eat wet food for the most part.

Also, "better" cat food is a lot of money, and I am but a lowly college student. I wouldn't mind budgeting for a pricier food if it keeps my cats healthier and helps Socrates lose weight, BUT I don't want to waste money either.

Somebody please! Any advice is greatly appreciated! Any tips on best brands, how much to feed, how often, etc. Thank you
 
misterwhiskers

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When it comes to introducing new foods, you don't want to shock your cat into refusal. Try putting a little out next to their other food, then after a week, mix them together.

Don't let a cat lose more than a pound a month.

Meow mix is cheap, but it's filled with coloring and corn. I'm not sure what your budget allows, but I recently picked up Goodlife dry at Walmart (also available online). It has no corn, and runs about $12 for a 6 pound bag. The bigger the bag, the better the savings. My cat is addicted to his kibble, but I have slowly been getting him to eat it. Last Friday, he emptied the bowl! He also is shedding less, and no longer has eye boogers, like he was getting eatting only a corn gluten-rich dry kibble.

Dry kibble is calorie dense. Realistically, a cat can live on 1/2 cup a day (for weight loss), but I've been giving my cat about 1/2-2/3 cup a day, less if he gets canned. He is chubby too, needs to lose about 2 pounds tops. Already I can feel his ribs again, and he is more active!

Don't free feed.... It encourages cats to eat out of boredom. Oh, Robin whines and cries, but it won't kill him if there's no food down for a few hours, and probably is good for him too.

When it comes to canned, don't feed the gravy kind. Pates are better, anyway. Grain free is better but if your budget is like mine you'll be happily surprised by Friskies. My cat loves their poultry platter. If your budget Is a little better, Purina Beyond seems a decent grain free canned. There are some really expensive foods out there, but if your cat refuses to eat them, they might as well not exist. I've tried the SD, Blue Buffalo, bunches of expensive dry foods at $16 for 3 pounds, that Robin would not touch. The Goodlife seems a reasonable middle ground, esp since he's actually eating it.

No treats unless they are 100% healthy. My cat recently won a contest here, and part if the prize was 2 bags of Bravo cat treats. I had to smear a little hairball goo on a few to get him to eat them, but wow, he loves them now!! 100% freeze dried chicken. I'll never rely on corn gluten treats again. All those carbs just are unnatural for a cat, but more than that it just seems the corn gluten is AWEFUL stuff.

For your very heavy cat, I do recommend a vet visit just to rule out any health issues. At 20 pounds, you will need to be careful not to shock his system with a severe and fast weight loss. You'll also find that after introducing them slowly to healthier foods, they will be much more less picky about what they eat, once you restrict their food. I never used to measure my cats dry, and honestly, I think he was eating 1 1/2 cups a day...what a shock to find he really only needed at most 3/4 cup a day. If he eats 1/2 can of canned a day, I can drop that to about 1/3 cup of dry. It sure isn't much...Id like to get him to eat canned exclusively, that literally might take years but I think it will be a good thing. Dry food+fixed male cats is a bad mix.

Can I ask how much you feed your cats currently?
 
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cee22

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misterwhiskers said:
When it comes to introducing new foods, you don't want to shock your cat into refusal. Try putting a little out next to their other food, then after a week, mix them together.

Don't let a cat lose more than a pound a month.

Meow mix is cheap, but it's filled with coloring and corn. I'm not sure what your budget allows, but I recently picked up Goodlife dry at Walmart (also available online). It has no corn, and runs about $12 for a 6 pound bag. The bigger the bag, the better the savings. My cat is addicted to his kibble, but I have slowly been getting him to eat it. Last Friday, he emptied the bowl! He also is shedding less, and no longer has eye boogers, like he was getting eatting only a corn gluten-rich dry kibble.

Dry kibble is calorie dense. Realistically, a cat can live on 1/2 cup a day (for weight loss), but I've been giving my cat about 1/2-2/3 cup a day, less if he gets canned. He is chubby too, needs to lose about 2 pounds tops. Already I can feel his ribs again, and he is more active!

Don't free feed.... It encourages cats to eat out of boredom. Oh, Robin whines and cries, but it won't kill him if there's no food down for a few hours, and probably is good for him too.

When it comes to canned, don't feed the gravy kind. Pates are better, anyway. Grain free is better but if your budget is like mine you'll be happily surprised by Friskies. My cat loves their poultry platter. If your budget Is a little better, Purina Beyond seems a decent grain free canned. There are some really expensive foods out there, but if your cat refuses to eat them, they might as well not exist. I've tried the SD, Blue Buffalo, bunches of expensive dry foods at $16 for 3 pounds, that Robin would not touch. The Goodlife seems a reasonable middle ground, esp since he's actually eating it.

No treats unless they are 100% healthy. My cat recently won a contest here, and part if the prize was 2 bags of Bravo cat treats. I had to smear a little hairball goo on a few to get him to eat them, but wow, he loves them now!! 100% freeze dried chicken. I'll never rely on corn gluten treats again. All those carbs just are unnatural for a cat, but more than that it just seems the corn gluten is AWEFUL stuff.

For your very heavy cat, I do recommend a vet visit just to rule out any health issues. At 20 pounds, you will need to be careful not to shock his system with a severe and fast weight loss. You'll also find that after introducing them slowly to healthier foods, they will be much more less picky about what they eat, once you restrict their food. I never used to measure my cats dry, and honestly, I think he was eating 1 1/2 cups a day...what a shock to find he really only needed at most 3/4 cup a day. If he eats 1/2 can of canned a day, I can drop that to about 1/3 cup of dry. It sure isn't much...Id like to get him to eat canned exclusively, that literally might take years but I think it will be a good thing. Dry food+fixed male cats is a bad mix.

Can I ask how much you feed your cats currently?
Click to expand...
Yes, that's the thing as well - I don't want him to lose a drastic amount of weight because I read that's bad for them and potentially life threatening so I want it to be a gradual process.

Also, they all HATE the pate canned foods! I don't understand why! They won't touch the stuff! I've tried mushing it up for them. I don't know if it's the texture or what, but they snub it! I would love to get them on an exclusively canned diet but they won't even barely touch the stuff so I'm not sure what to do.

I hate the meow mix. I know to read the ingredient list and make sure the first ingredient is meat - when the fat cat was an only child I fed him Wellness Core, but the tabby we took in was raised on meow mix and the fat kitty grew to love it, and now they all love it. The first ingredient is yellow corn or something horrible, but when I tried to go back to Wellness Core none of them would touch it! They're fat and addicted to junk food and I need to break their addictions.

I do feed them each 3/4 cups of food a day. I have a 1/4 measuring cup and I scoop out 1/4 cup of food 3 times a day, so I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong. I know they eat off of each other's plates so I don't truly know how much food everyone's getting. I've recently started trying to take the plates away after 20 minutes or so...

Someone told me to feed them twice a day and to take away the plates after 15 minutes. I'm just worried that would be too much of a shock for the fat boy. I don't want to shock his system. I just want a place to start, to see SOME form of improvement. I'm going to take him to the vet at the end of the month and see if she has any other ideas as well.
 
misterwhiskers

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3/4 cup is maintence for indoor, inactive cats that weight around 13-16 pounds. If your smaller cats are around there, you'll need to restrict to about 1/2 cup. However, I personally suspect it's not just the amount of the food, but the quality of the ingredients. If you think about it, switching (slowly) to a dry with a better bunch of ingredients (aka no corn), and feeding them 1/2 c a day is really not going to cost all that much more.

As for canned, my advise is to run the can under hot water for a few minutes to warm it up. My cat was THE pickiest canned food eater, and to an extent still is. If he eats 1/3 if a 5.5 oz can that's a lot for him. He will eat the canned if given a choice between his new dry and canned. He's not going hungry lol.

Yea, I've heard about the 15 minute rule too, but it can be a shock if they aren't used to it.

They make freeze dried raw you can add to your cats food, to up the protein-to-carb balance. I'm not 100% sure of the brand. I've done a lot of reading and my belief is the quality of the food affects weight, too. When I first got Robin, he ate a lot of cooked chicken breast because he literally refused everything else...after I found a dry food he'd touch, it's like he ate less, but gained weight. I'm convinced the corn meal and gluten is responsible.

One good bit of advice I got early on was don't switch up the canned food too often in your desire to encourage them to eat canned food. Cats are creatures of habit. . If there is ANY pate food they remotely like, even in tiny amounts, stick with that brand. But by bit I've stuck with that, slowly expanding through the 3 years I've had Robin. I'll tell you what, if your cats like gravy gave you tried Friskies turkey cutlets (?) dinner? Because Robin is a "gravy licker" too--and to my utter disbelief, he actually eats the solid in this turkey canned food. Not always lol (must keep his Siamese reputation intact haha), but heck he's eaten half a can several times.

The reason I like the Goodlife dry is because the main ingredients are chicken, chicken meal, brown rice, chicken by product, and Brewers rice (which I'm not happy with entirely but still it beats corn gluten!). Most other dry foods, their first ingredient is corn or corn gluten...sometimes the first two ingredients!

It's going to take time because your cats are going to follow each other's leads and be picky, but switching them to a better dry, at least, is really going to help them.
 
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cee22

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misterwhiskers said:
3/4 cup is maintence for indoor, inactive cats that weight around 13-16 pounds. If your smaller cats are around there, you'll need to restrict to about 1/2 cup. However, I personally suspect it's not just the amount of the food, but the quality of the ingredients. If you think about it, switching (slowly) to a dry with a better bunch of ingredients (aka no corn), and feeding them 1/2 c a day is really not going to cost all that much more.

As for canned, my advise is to run the can under hot water for a few minutes to warm it up. My cat was THE pickiest canned food eater, and to an extent still is. If he eats 1/3 if a 5.5 oz can that's a lot for him. He will eat the canned if given a choice between his new dry and canned. He's not going hungry lol.

Yea, I've heard about the 15 minute rule too, but it can be a shock if they aren't used to it.

They make freeze dried raw you can add to your cats food, to up the protein-to-carb balance. I'm not 100% sure of the brand. I've done a lot of reading and my belief is the quality of the food affects weight, too. When I first got Robin, he ate a lot of cooked chicken breast because he literally refused everything else...after I found a dry food he'd touch, it's like he ate less, but gained weight. I'm convinced the corn meal and gluten is responsible.

One good bit of advice I got early on was don't switch up the canned food too often in your desire to encourage them to eat canned food. Cats are creatures of habit. . If there is ANY pate food they remotely like, even in tiny amounts, stick with that brand. But by bit I've stuck with that, slowly expanding through the 3 years I've had Robin. I'll tell you what, if your cats like gravy gave you tried Friskies turkey cutlets (?) dinner? Because Robin is a "gravy licker" too--and to my utter disbelief, he actually eats the solid in this turkey canned food. Not always lol (must keep his Siamese reputation intact haha), but heck he's eaten half a can several times.

The reason I like the Goodlife dry is because the main ingredients are chicken, chicken meal, brown rice, chicken by product, and Brewers rice (which I'm not happy with entirely but still it beats corn gluten!). Most other dry foods, their first ingredient is corn or corn gluten...sometimes the first two ingredients!

It's going to take time because your cats are going to follow each other's leads and be picky, but switching them to a better dry, at least, is really going to help them.
Click to expand...
Thank you!!! I bought the Friskies cans today and a more high quality dry food for now. It's almost dinner time for them so I'm going to try to mix their Meow Mix dry food with the better dry food for now since I don't want to completely shock them. I read that my fatty should lose like .75lbs a month so I'm going to start keeping track of his weight.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to weigh them?
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