Help with weight loss?

My 10yr old kitty is 11.4 lbs, and my vet says she should be 9.2. She gave me Purina OM and suggested some exercises. Unfortunately I live in a dorm room so there is limited room for her to run around. I've started placing her food on a chair so she has to jump up to eat. When she's willing, we play chase.
I'm currently running out of the Purina OM, and it's very expensive. I've tried to get her used to a harness so I can take her on walks, but she's terrified of them. I'm also trying to figure out how to give her more vertical play space, but it's difficult in such a small space, plus when I go home for breaks my poor kitty has to stay in the basement bathroom most of the time (she's my emotional support animal and it was part of the deal for me to get her). She can run around the basement if I'm down there with her, and there's plenty of room and vertical play space there and I'm gonna give her as much time to run around as possible.

Any advice would be helpful. It's very important that she lose weight because she has osteoarthritis. Are there cheaper weight loss foods I can give her or ways to get her to exercise more? I think she has lost some weight but I don't currently have access to a scale. I'll be able to weigh her next week, but I'm almost positive she hasn't lost very much. I'd appreciate any advice

There are many threads here on TCS on weight loss if you search for them. Here's one recent one: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/315331/overweight-cat

Diet and exercise is important.You don't really need the expensive prescription food for weight loss. Any commercial brand of cat food will help as long as you are feeding the appropriate amount of calories, generally 20 to 25 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. Your 11 lb cat needs roughly 275 calories daily to maintain body weight. To reach 9 pounds, you need to slowly decrease calories to about 225 or so. Dry foods are too calorie dense per cup. Canned foods are much lower in calories. Something like Fancy Feast Classic / Gourmet or Friskies would be suitable if you don't have the budget for a higher quality brand.

Fishing pole and other interactive toys are great for exercise

Thank you for the link! I went looking but didn't manage to find much.

I've been feeding her dry food, but giving her the amount my vet recommended based on caloric intake, and now that I'm running out of the Purina I've been looking at the calorie content of her old food and doing the math. I know I should get her on a diet that's as low in carbs as possible, but at the moment wet food is rather impractical. I monitor her water intake though, and she drinks plenty, so I'm not worried about dehydration.
I have fishing pole toys, and we play with them sometimes, but she's often uninterested and won't get much exercise for days at a time.

luna tuna

Yes, decreasing calorie intake can help cats lose weight. But there are weight loss foods out there that are cheap and effective.

Many people have had success with Nutro MAX cat indoor weight control for adult cats. You can get a 16lb bag for around the same price as a 6lb bag of Purina OM (when the Nurto MAX is not on sale like it is now. Right now it costs even less than the 6lb bag of Pirina OM). It's on sale right now at petco.com and shipping is free when you order online.

Here is a link to it:

http://m.petco.com/shop/en/petcosto...REV6ug0x2nu1DkPpk9jG_pbn-zlRj5PbOKhoCFKjw_wcB

They also make weight loss wet food. It's about $24 for a case of 24 5.5 oz cans, which is half the price of 24 5.5 oz cans of Purina OM. But it's still a bit pricy compared to cheap wet foods like Friskies and Fancy Feast (but obviously much better quality).

I found it on Amazon.

Link to this food on Amazon:

raina21
Thank you so much! Everything on this site suggests wet food, and I understand why, but living in a dorm room makes feeding her wet food extremely impractical. The only way to get it at a semi decent price is to buy in bulk and I have no room to store it.

I do wonder about the amount of grains in this food. It doesn't give carbohydrate values in the guaranteed analysis, the second ingredient is rice, and the third is corn meal.

luna tuna


Ingredients for Purina OM dry food for cats (with grains bolded):

Corn gluten meal, wheat gluten, soybean meal, poultry by-product meal, oat fiber, soy protein isolate, brewers rice, fish meal, powdered cellulose, animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols (form of Vitamin E), phosphoric acid, animal liver flavor, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, salt, choline chloride, L-Lysine monohydrochloride, Vitamin E supplement, taurine, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), manganese sulfate, niacin, Vitamin A supplement, calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate, copper sulfate, riboflavin supplement, Vitamin B-12 supplement, pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, Vitamin D-3 supplement, calcium iodate, biotin, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), sodium selenite.



Ingredients list for Nutro MAX weight management for adults dry food (with grains bolded):


Chicken Meal, Ground Rice, Wheat Flour, Corn Gluten Meal, Rice Flour, Poultry Fat (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols, A Source Of Vitamin E), Dried Plain Beet Pulp, Natural Flavors, Chicken, Tomato Pomace, Oat Fiber, Soybean Oil (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols, A Source Of Vitamin E), Yeast Culture, Potassium Chloride, Salt, Choline Chloride, Barley Malt, Dl-Methionine, Taurine, Zinc Sulfate, Dried Cranberry, Ferrous Sulfate, Sunflower Oil (Preserved With Mixed Tocopherols, A Source Of Vitamin E), Vitamin E Supplement, Inosotol, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, L-Carnitine, Ascorbic Acid (Source Of Vitamin C), Manganous Oxide, Riboflavin Supplement (Source Of Vitamin B2), Potassium Iodide, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Source Of Vitamin B6), Thiamine Mononitrate (Source Of Vitamin B1), Dried Blueberry, Biotin, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfate Complex (Source Of Vitamin K Activity), Folic Acid, Sodium Selenite.



Personally I would go for the Nutro MAX since they do use all natural ingredients. And it has all the essential vitamins in forms that are easier to absorb than typical supplenents. Also they don't use chicken/poultry byproducts (which consist of basically the "extra" parts of the chicken like chicken heads, feet and intestines).

Plus purina OM has about the same amount of grains in it, the first ingredient is corn gluten meal, it has artificial ingredients, and it uses meat/poultry byproducts. It is also much more expensive.

I didn't intend to buy Purina OM, it's way too expensive. In the Nutro MAX, however, you missed barley malt, and there is also beet pulp, tomato, and cranberry. All things cats wouldn't eat in the wild. Plus, all natural doesn't mean healthy. Actually, "all natural" foods are kind of gimmicks. I'm not saying the Nutro MAX is bad food necessarily, but I'm leaning more towards keeping her on her old food.

In other news, we went for a (mostly) successful walk today, so hopefully I'll get her to exercise more too.

luna tuna said:

@Raina21
Thank you so much! Everything on this site suggests wet food, and I understand why, but living in a dorm room makes feeding her wet food extremely impractical. The only way to get it at a semi decent price is to buy in bulk and I have no room to store it.

Click to expand...

No room under the bed to store cans in one of those underbed storage boxes? Can you raise the bed up with bed risers or something? When I lived in a college dorm, I could loft my bed up halfway or add another set of headboard/ footboard things to raise the bed nearly to the ceiling.

Canned food does smell but if your cat eats it up right away, there really won't be a smell. A few small meals daily helps keep tummies happy and can help with weight loss. A programmable timed feeder works great if you can't get back to your dorm during the day to feed the cat. To keep the smell down, freeze canned food into serving sized chunk (do you have a min ifrdge with freezer?) and pop the frozen food into the feeder.

Non-perfume type odor absorbers like charcoal can help keep odors down, too.

Carb content isn't listed on pet food labels. You have to rely on charts like this one: http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf The only dry food chart that is similar is very old so the info is likely out of date http://binkyspage.tripod.com/dryfood.html

For calories in dry food, this chart is pretty recent: http://www.petobesityprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Cat_Dry_Food.pdf

We can raise our beds halfway or loft them fully. My roommate's bed is lofted, which doesn't mean there's storage space under the bed, it's an area she uses. Her desk is there. We both store things under my bed. My roommate puts up with a lot and I simply cannot ask her to give up more space than she already has. That includes filling the tiny freezer with cat food. Once we move to an apartment, I will probably switch her to wet food.
I do feed her small portions throughout the day and she