I brought in a mother cat and 4 kittens last August. After she was done nursing them, she weighed 12.5 lbs. By Dec when she was spayed she weighed 16 lbs. In April at the vet she weighed 22.2 lbs and was put on the Hill's Prescription Metabolic canned food. Her blood tests and thyroid tests were all normal. No signs of diabetes. I stopped free feeding (I have 12 cats total) I watch every calorie she takes in and don't let her have more than 300kcal/day. Today she still weighs 22 lbs and I'm very frustrated at no weight loss after 3 months of strict dieting. She is not active. What else can I do? Thanks in advance.
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Obese cat won't lose weight
- Thread starter sharkow53
- Start Date
Hi, welcome!
Can you start by having her follow you around the room a couple times while you're holding her food dish? Also if you have stairs, put the food dish on the second stair so she has to climb a bit - you want to start gently, but after a week or two, have her follow you out of the feeding area and back, and have the dish on the third stair... and on like that.
I think exercise is going to be the only thing that will start the actual decrease, (at least the gaining has stopped). She needs to lose the weight very slowly otherwise it will be unsafe for her health. I can't tell, are you weighing her at home? If you aren't already, you could start a log so you can see how things look for her.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #3
yes, exactly - hang in there with this!
Cats should lose weight very slowly. Our vet thought one pound a year was plenty. We did have to cut her calorie intake to around 200 a day, because she will not exercise probably due to her arthritis. However, she did lose one pound in a year. The amount of calories will differ per cat and the cat's size and exercise. Our cat was at 12 pounds, but she is a small cat at her best weight.
Edit to add - when she was willing and happy to run up and down the stairs she could eat a LOT more without gaining weight.
Edit to add - when she was willing and happy to run up and down the stairs she could eat a LOT more without gaining weight.
Here's an older thread that you might find helpful and/or interesting.
Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight
Mickey, my 27 lbs foster and his journey back to a healthy weight
If you're not already feeding wet, switch to wet and only serve snack size servings of dry food. Also, go to scheduled feedings. This is what helped my girl lose weight.
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Hi. A cat that overweight won’t be active because it causes to much strain on their joints. So don’t try to encourage activity at this time.
I am not a vet and I hate to tell you to not listen to your vet. The following is my views and what I think and have figured out to logically make sense to me.
When I think about how cats are supposed to eat, I try to think of it as what were they designed to eat. If you look at cats since they were first noted as being on earth, millions of years ago, and living with people 12.000 years that we know of. The body design of the cat has not changed much. Even with specific breeds of cats, cats are still cats for the most part.
A cat not living with people would most likely sleep, wake up, stretch, and hunt. Sometimes their hunts would be unsuccessful and sometimes a hunt may reward them with a mouse or bug or lizard meal. Maybe a small bird if they got lucky. They would carry their meal up a tree or some other place they felt safe, they would eat most likely the entire thing, groom themselves and nap. They would wake up in a couple of hours or more depending on the meal size and start the entire process over again. This would happen many times during a 24-hour period.
So basically, these cats naturally would be expending energy, sleeping, and eating small meat meals. Cat food unfortunately prescription diets included have things in them cats would not normally eat. If you look at the first ingredients on the canned food prescription diet your cat has been prescribed, you have pork, (I have never seen a cat take down a pig) and you have chicken (ok, that’s believable) and then you have corn meal and many other things a cat wouldn’t eat, and it has allot of carbohydrates. I can’t find the nutritional count anywhere on their site, but it is high in carbohydrates for canned food. All dry cat food is very high in carbohydrates, Higher than canned. Not all canned cat food is high in carbohydrates. There is a website catinfo.org that has a very large list of canned foods and the nutritional content of the foods. I would suggest that you look there for some information and recommendations on food.
Some cats can eat carbohydrates and not be very affected by them. Other cats become obese and suffer intestinal problems. Provided your cat is healthy otherwise, I firmly believe that if you just switch to a very low to no carbohydrate canned good quality cat food, and feed small portions several times a day, your cat will lose weight. You won’t have to be counting calories or anything other than feeding a small portion of the food as many times a day as you can and hopefully on some sort of schedule.
One other important thing to mention is that anytime you have an obese cat, you have a much higher chance of them getting something called hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) if they stop eating. So, it is vital that this cat eats something every day.
Hope some of this helps.
I am not a vet and I hate to tell you to not listen to your vet. The following is my views and what I think and have figured out to logically make sense to me.
When I think about how cats are supposed to eat, I try to think of it as what were they designed to eat. If you look at cats since they were first noted as being on earth, millions of years ago, and living with people 12.000 years that we know of. The body design of the cat has not changed much. Even with specific breeds of cats, cats are still cats for the most part.
A cat not living with people would most likely sleep, wake up, stretch, and hunt. Sometimes their hunts would be unsuccessful and sometimes a hunt may reward them with a mouse or bug or lizard meal. Maybe a small bird if they got lucky. They would carry their meal up a tree or some other place they felt safe, they would eat most likely the entire thing, groom themselves and nap. They would wake up in a couple of hours or more depending on the meal size and start the entire process over again. This would happen many times during a 24-hour period.
So basically, these cats naturally would be expending energy, sleeping, and eating small meat meals. Cat food unfortunately prescription diets included have things in them cats would not normally eat. If you look at the first ingredients on the canned food prescription diet your cat has been prescribed, you have pork, (I have never seen a cat take down a pig) and you have chicken (ok, that’s believable) and then you have corn meal and many other things a cat wouldn’t eat, and it has allot of carbohydrates. I can’t find the nutritional count anywhere on their site, but it is high in carbohydrates for canned food. All dry cat food is very high in carbohydrates, Higher than canned. Not all canned cat food is high in carbohydrates. There is a website catinfo.org that has a very large list of canned foods and the nutritional content of the foods. I would suggest that you look there for some information and recommendations on food.
Some cats can eat carbohydrates and not be very affected by them. Other cats become obese and suffer intestinal problems. Provided your cat is healthy otherwise, I firmly believe that if you just switch to a very low to no carbohydrate canned good quality cat food, and feed small portions several times a day, your cat will lose weight. You won’t have to be counting calories or anything other than feeding a small portion of the food as many times a day as you can and hopefully on some sort of schedule.
One other important thing to mention is that anytime you have an obese cat, you have a much higher chance of them getting something called hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) if they stop eating. So, it is vital that this cat eats something every day.
Hope some of this helps.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #9
Thank you all! Sassy hasn't lost even an ounce in 4 months on the Metabolic canned diet. I'm going to change foods and lower her calorie intake. I saw in the Mickey thread that he only had 230 cal/day and he weighed 27 lbs. Sassy is 22.2lbs and eating 260-300 cal/day.
If you don't have a scales you like, you might consider buying a postage scales. You can put a large enough plate for Sassy to sit in comfortably on the scales, then turn the scales on. The scales will not consider the weight of the plate or platter as the case maybe. The postage scales will give you the choice of pounds and ounces, or Kg and grams. I think that's right. The scales come with instructions.
There is a good chance that your vet's scales will give a slightly different weight than your scales. I'd suggest weighing her right before you take her in to be weighed, then you'll know how to compare the weights.
There is a good chance that your vet's scales will give a slightly different weight than your scales. I'd suggest weighing her right before you take her in to be weighed, then you'll know how to compare the weights.
Based on the fact that she'll chase a laser now and then, I would strongly recommend to see if you can get her to be more active by having her follow you for a short distance while holding her food dish, then gradually for longer little walks.
Decreasing calories can create a health risk with cats, unless you've spoken with your vet.
I will tell you what worked with my girl, Callie. First of all, I had to realize that I was the one responsible for her weight. I was the one who had to learn to say NO when she came and begged for food. I realized she was bored more than hungry. We switched to a grain-free wet food and dry food. I went to scheduled feedings. She got fed wet food AM & PM (approx 12 hrs apart), then she got a small serving of crunchies around noon (I used to go home at lunch and eat/feed her). Then she got a small serving of dry food around bedtime. Once she started loosing weight and having a bit more energy, I invested in interactive toys/wand toys and played with her every night. Her favorite thing was chasing a fleece ribbon toy under a small mat or piece of packing paper. The important thing was getting her moving and I had to be a part of that process. It was slow and steady progress, but we did it and she didn't hate me for not giving into her food cravings. Any time she came and pestered me for food and it wasn't time for her to eat, I'd engage her with a toy.
Personally, I strongly advise against reducing calories by any more than 5-10% at a time. That means monitoring weight by the week and giving each food adjustment a few weeks before adjusting again, even if the weight change isn't much. This isn't just better on the cat from a health standpoint, it helps them to mentally adapt to less food over time.
First, what is the variance between 260 and 300 calories a day due to? That is a fairly big variance. And one reason why not only monitoring daily calories but looking at weekly averages is helpful A cat that is eating 260 calories a day should really only be reduced initially to no less than 234 calories. Whereas one that is eating 300 calories could have their intake reduced to no less than 270. So, working with a weekly average, you would be looking at somewhere between 234 to 270 per day. That is a steep enough reduction for a cat to adapt to, if you think about it - 26 to 30 calories a day, if you go with a 10% reduction!!!!
Metabolism also plays a factor, and it seems unfortunately for cats as much as humans, metabolism is slower with being overweight. So, it should pick up - over time, as she loses weight.
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Please check out cat info.org
You don’t need to and shouldn’t reduce calories, just reduce or better yet, eliminate carbohydrates from her diet.
I stand by what I said about being very careful with exercise in a cat that size.
You don’t need to and shouldn’t reduce calories, just reduce or better yet, eliminate carbohydrates from her diet.
I stand by what I said about being very careful with exercise in a cat that size.
SG gets the lean Blackwood food, there is another who gets the regular. Since there has been some question of the current formula of Dr. Esley's, due to new suppliers (okay, since the pandemic) I decided to try using the regular form of her cat food as her treat. She LOVED it! So there you are. If your cat doesn't like the new Dr. Esley's formula, there is still kibble for treats.
For Nobel, I never counted his calories. I focused on movement. And this is the same advice I gave my friend when she adopted a literal Garfield cat. Original vet wanted me to reduce his food but he was already only eating 17lbs worth (his lean weight). He needed grain free, as grains made him pack the poundage and so the weight loss food was not suitable.
Food through movement. You could place 3 or 4 dishes or lick mats around a room and she has to walk to them. Bonus points if you have some stairs she has to go up before food.
If she chases a laser pointer one or two laps, EXCELLENT .
Can you get her rolling over flopping around after a toy? If yes, AMAZING. Work that excitement up until you get that one bolt of energy that makes them run off a single time.
Food through movement has my friend's cat down 2 lbs too. Sometimes, the only motivator is the thing you need.
Treats? Toss 'em for a chase or put in a ball.
As you increase enrichment too, it encourages movement.
And yes, the key is slow, slow, slow. Nobel was on weight loss most of his life. Lost 1lb a year from 25 lbs to 16 as I made some big mistakes with him when I was young.
Food through movement. You could place 3 or 4 dishes or lick mats around a room and she has to walk to them. Bonus points if you have some stairs she has to go up before food.
If she chases a laser pointer one or two laps, EXCELLENT .
Can you get her rolling over flopping around after a toy? If yes, AMAZING. Work that excitement up until you get that one bolt of energy that makes them run off a single time.
Food through movement has my friend's cat down 2 lbs too. Sometimes, the only motivator is the thing you need.
Treats? Toss 'em for a chase or put in a ball.
As you increase enrichment too, it encourages movement.
And yes, the key is slow, slow, slow. Nobel was on weight loss most of his life. Lost 1lb a year from 25 lbs to 16 as I made some big mistakes with him when I was young.
You're getting some great advice and suggestions in this thread 
The bottom line is that you, with conversations with your vet of course, need to determine whether or not she can handle a little bit of movement.
The calories however need to be handled at least as carefully because overweight cats' entire digestive systems aren't functioning right, and too little food can create a worse situation with her liver.
The bottom line is that you, with conversations with your vet of course, need to determine whether or not she can handle a little bit of movement.
The calories however need to be handled at least as carefully because overweight cats' entire digestive systems aren't functioning right, and too little food can create a worse situation with her liver.
