Cat not getting enough calories?

So my cat, Strider, has been eating exclusively canned food (switching from Wellness grain-free to Wild Calling) for his two meals per day, breakfast and dinner. A 5.5-oz can is roughly 200 calories, depending on the protein. He is currently 19 lbs and on a diet, so I calculated that he should be getting about 350 calories a day, or a can and a half each day. I feed him half a can in the morning and evening (any more and he just won't eat it all), but even with the half can for a meal, he often leaves a little bit behind. So he's probably getting right at 200 calories or less on an average day. Should I switch to three meals a day to make sure he is getting enough calories?

I'm not good at all at calorie counts and diets but I do think it's generally good to feed more than two meals a day: we feed our cats five meals a day and it works well for them for health and weight reasons. (I know feeding that many meals doesn't work well for many people, though, because of work; I can do it because I work at home!)

I might also suggest rotating between two or more brands: some cats (like ours!) get bored with their food easily and then just don't eat as well as they should.

It might also be helpful if you could mention what Strider's weight goal is. There are other Cat Site members (like @LTS3) who are very good with diet numbers and ideas.

Try three meals a day to see if he eats all the food. Most cats do better with more than two strict meals a day. One of my cats gets fed 4 times a day. Some cats just kind of pick at food and wll only eat a certain amount at meal time. Sometimes cats will leave food in the bowl and will come back hours later to finish.

200 calories for a 19 pound cat isn't a lot so fatty liver disease is a potential concern. Most cats who don't get enough calories daily tend to scream for more food all the time. Does your cat scream and act hungry or does he seem like his normal self?

Thank you. I can feed more frequently since I also work from home. I think his ideal weight would be 3-4 lbs lighter, so I could probably increase it to 400 calories a day if I divide it into four meals and go from there as he loses the weight. He walks away from his food dish with some food left in the bowl, and otherwise he acts like his normal self. He is always up to eat more (there's a reason he got fat!), but he's definitely not acting like he's starving or is having behavioral issues from being hungry.

I fed him breakfast and dinner, and then I gave him a later meal tonight. He ate even less of that meal but he still ate. I think he just reaches a full limit and then walks away, but if I feed more often, he'll probably be able to get to the right amount of calories. Does it matter how often they should be fed or an ideal spacing between meals? This was about two hours after his dinner.

It sounds like Strider eats like our Ireland does: she eats until she's had enough and then walks away. We can't leave her food and let her graze (which would be her preference, I'm sure) because our other cat, Edwina, who loves to eat, would finish everything.

We feed the cats at around 7 a.m. (meal), 10 a.m. (smaller meal), 3:30 p.m. (snack), 6:30 p.m. (snack), 8 p.m. (meal), and 10:30 p.m. (smaller meal). Oops, I guess it's six times a day, including snacks. (Wow!) I don't know if that's ideal in terms of spacing or amounts of food but it works pretty well for our two. (There's a modified four-times-a-day version for when I'm traveling with feeding at something like 7, 8:30, 6:30, and 9:30.)

We came up with this feeding schedule because Edwina has a tendency to eat too much too fast and then vomit; she's also been known to vomit bile if her stomach gets too empty. And Ireland would probably shrink to nothing if she were only fed twice a day!

I hope you're able to find a good schedule for feeding Strider. The great thing about working from home is it's easy to monitor their eating and see what will work best.

Strider said:

 
Thank you. I can feed more frequently since I also work from home. I think his ideal weight would be 3-4 lbs lighter, so I could probably increase it to 400 calories a day if I divide it into four meals and go from there as he loses the weight. He walks away from his food dish with some food left in the bowl, and otherwise he acts like his normal self. He is always up to eat more (there's a reason he got fat!), but he's definitely not acting like he's starving or is having behavioral issues from being hungry.

I fed him breakfast and dinner, and then I gave him a later meal tonight. He ate even less of that meal but he still ate. I think he just reaches a full limit and then walks away, but if I feed more often, he'll probably be able to get to the right amount of calories. Does it matter how often they should be fed or an ideal spacing between meals? This was about two hours after his dinner.

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No just schedule meals for whatever times works best for you and your cat. My cats get breakfast and dinner. One cat gets a snack about 3 hours after dinner. I'd feed him more dinner but he won't eat any more than one NV medallion with some raw/premix. Both get a snack before bedtime.

Maybe you can feed a little less canned for each meal so that there isn't anything leftover. High quality foods like Wild Calling seem to be more filling so a cat might not eat as much as a lesser quality food.