Am I not feeding cat on a diet enough?

[Charity355]

Hey everyone I have recently put a cat I am sitting while the owners are out of town. They will be gone for a long while. We are putting him on a diet cause he is very obese. He is 20 pounds. It has been about a month maybe. We started at a full cup twice a day and we just reduced the amount to half a cup twice a day. He just started throwing it up. Did we reduce it too fast is this maybe why he’s been throwing it up because he is not being fed enough? Owners feed him meow mix and I know you are supposed to go by the calories but the way it is put on the bag is confusing.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi! A typical rule of thumb is to do a gradual reduction in food - perhaps no more than 10% at a time, more ideal would be 5%. This lets the cat more easily adapt to the change both physically and mentally. Weight monitoring in between reductions is helpful to know as well, because you really don't want a cat to lose weight too fast.

Not knowing the calories and just using your measurement reference, you have reduced his food by 50% all at once. It is possible that could be causing him to throw up as his stomach is used to more food than what he is getting now. What does the bag say in terms of how much food and how many calories that relates to?

Although cats' caloric needs vary by their metabolism, age, and activity level, a basic guideline is that a cat needs about 20-25 calories per pound of body weight to sustain their weight. That would mean he might have been eating somewhere between 400 and 500 calories given he weighs 20 pounds. That is all just a rough baseline. If he were eating 400 calories, then the first reduction to his food would have been to reduce it by 20 to 40 calories. Another general guideline is to keep a cat's weight loss to no more than 1 pound a month.

Putting a cat on a diet is a marathon, not a sprint. And monitoring his body condition is about as important as his weight. Here is a body condition chart that you can use in addition to weighing him.

 

[Shawna87]

Oh no poor baby. I completely understand how hard it can been to keep a food obsessed cat a healthy weight. My girl would eat till she couldn’t stand if I let her! I found it definitely helps to feed the amount of calories that’s recommended for an overweight cat until they’re a healthy weight. You can usually look at the back of the bag or can and it will say how much calories is in it per measurement they use. I checked the calories for you in Meow mix and per cup it’s 310 as you can see in the photo below it says 310 kcal/8oz cup.

It’s important to slowly cut back on food when a cats on a diet. You could also consider feeding him a different food that uses less fillers. Maybe even add some wet food to his diet.

I attached a chart below that has helped my cat lose weight. Of course there’s a lot more that factors in regarding how much calories to feed but the chart is a good start.

 

[IndyJones]

I would get him off the meow mix an onto a high animal protiene low carb food. Meow mix is notoriously bad. It is basicaly flavored cornflakes and chemicals.

He is hungry because he isn't getting the right protiene from animal products.

Canned food would be ideal since it is genneraly low carb.

 

[Charity355]

I would get him off the meow mix an onto a high animal protiene low carb food. Meow mix is notoriously bad. It is basicaly flavored cornflakes and chemicals.

He is hungry because he isn't getting the right protiene from animal products.

Canned food would be ideal since it is genneraly low carb.

I would like to switch him from meow mix I have seen that as well. I used to feed my own cats that but have since switched. However that’s what the owners want to feed him:/ I’m wondering if he’s better off being free fed with it (even though hes very overweight) or if I should continue with his diet (even if he’ll be hungry).