My kitty needs to diet... suggestions please?!?

I've been worried about my cat, Cricket, for about 2 years now. He's put on a great deal of weight and really needs to be on a diet. I know it's my fault...I should have noticed this and taken steps much sooner. The first reason I believe he's gotten fat is because I used to have a second cat, Shadow, who passed away from a brain disease about two years ago. He and Cricket used to play all the time, but after he was gone, Cricket became very sedentary. Also, I am on a low, fixed income and couldn't afford really good cat food...hence he grew up on a diet of Kit n Kaboodle. I had a bad 2016 and, unfortunately, Cricket came second to all of my health concerns. But now, in this family, it's all about him.

I recently took him to the vet and had a very bad experience. She accused me of animal abuse and had me in tears. In the end, she said he seemed perfectly healthy, but that I needed to put him on a starvation diet immediately. She didn't recommend any particular food and the only other advice she gave was to "play with him more."

I read pages and pages online about obese cats and putting cats on a diet. What I learned (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that cats should not lose in excess of a half pound a month for health reasons. I also read that I should either feed my cat at the weight I want him to be or feed him for a weight about 2 pounds below his current weight and adjust it downward as he loses weight. I'm not sure which I should be doing, but my cat weighed in at 28.5 pounds. I've had him on 320 calories a day and now he's down to 27.2, a loss of over a pound in just two months. I've had him on Weruva canned cat food and, because he really loves dry, crunchy food, one to two tablespoons of Orijen dry cat & kitten food each day. And I forgot to mention that he's 6-years old.

It's time to reorder cat food, but before I do so I wanted to get some advice. First, am I feeding him enough calories? Second, are there better foods I should be giving him instead of Weruva and Orijen?

I will do and sacrifice everything for my cat. He is my best friend and he's what keeps me going on most days.

Sorry for the long post and THANK YOU to all who reply with suggestions for me.

You are correct that starvation diets are extremely bad for cats.

I did a quick search on "vet" and "nutrition" in your city and got a hit on a hospital for cats in your city. The site states that they give nutritional counselling and conduct information sessions  about nutrition. I'm assuming that they will be more understanding of your kitty's situation and may be able to come up with a concrete plan for you. 

Hopefully, people will answer your specific questions but meanwhile:

This article gives an in depth overview of the subject.  

Also, here is an article with a few tips. 

[Article] Obesity  in Cats

Has the vet given you an ideal weight for your cat?  The reason for slow weight loss in a cat is a condition called hepatic lipidosis or fatty liver.  The rule of thumb is to go no lower than 15 calories per pound of  ideal weight.  If it isn't on the can, which it rarely is, you can usually find the calorie count on the food's web site.

I would keep working on getting him on as much wet food as possible.  In general dry food has more carbs which means more calories.  

Maybe you should try feeding your lesser amounts but more meals maybe eat 4-5 times but the amount of food is getting lesser and lesser.

I forgot to add.. If you repost in the nutrition sub-thread you will probably get more replies.

This is a really common problem, if you placed some keywords in the search field at the top of the page you can scroll through other people's q&as