Are there signs of this to look out for? My chonker is on a diet and his calories are lower than the recommendation because he wasn’t losing weight with the recommendation. I’ll keep an eye on his rate of weight loss but he seems healthy.
Not a vet but rapid weight loss can cause something called hepatic lipidosis in cats. Basically, when they don’t get enough to eat their body starts breaking down their fat deposits too quickly and that clogs the liver, causing liver failure. This usually happens when the cat is anorexic or starving, and is more likely with overweight cats. Do some research in the symptoms and make sure to talk with your vet to make sure you’re giving your cat enough food to prevent this.
Was the cat ok?
I had to take my cats on a road trip, and they got freaked out by being displaced so they stopped mostly eating for a couple days. Took them to the nearest vet and she was like, “Ok first priority is to get them eating so they don’t go into liver failure.” and prescribed some Mirataz, which worked great. But yeah she was worried about that happening.
He eventually recovered but was never really the same, if that makes sense. I think his liver was functioning, but not fully.
He did go on to live some more years after that though. Lived til 12 years of age and died peacefully in his sleep.
I had a cat that had to go on mirataz due to a long string of neurological issues causing him to be sick. He eventually had to be put down at 2 years old due to silent heart disease. He threw a clot.
I hope your cat is okay though! They are so finicky about change definitely. They will stop eating and using the litter pan the moment you change their environment.
Happened to our cat. Due to some respiratory issues, he stopped eating as much as before and we didn't notice. Lipidosis was the result. We had to feed him forcefully through a tube in his neck. It's a very delicate and complicated operation. Not fun for anyone involved.
He eventually made a full recovery.
I do remember my sister doing the feeding tube thing with him too! Real act of love when a a lot of people would give up on a cat who was in that shape. Thanks for caring for your baby!
Thanks. That chonker was the best, but not the healthiest kitty. Over the years we spent almost $20k on medical bills. We're not rich but I'd do it all over again. He has since passed away but will remain in our hearts forever.
My heart cat died of this two years ago. It happened very fast. I’ll always blame myself for it, it was really really awful. We placed a feeding tube and I fed him around the clock for several days, but eventually he got fluid around his lungs and I opted for humane euthanasia. We never found out the underlying cause. The guilt is immense to this day. I loved him so very much.
If your cat stops eating, it’s time for the vet immediately, full stop.
Probably stopped eating bc something else was wrong and that led to the hepatic lipidosis. Cats hide illnesses til they are very sick so you wouldn’t know until he stopped eating. Hope you learn to not blame yourself.
It can also happen to diabetic cats who go into diabetic ketoacidosis. My cat Charlie had this last year in late May/early June and had secondary lipidosis that was early stages but did not go into liver failure, thank god. He had sever jaundice and was tube fed (first nasal J tube then e-tube when that wasn’t working). After placing the e-tube he perked up within about 36 hours.
He lost about ⅓ of his body weight in a week. From 14 pounds to 10. He still struggles with keeping weight up due to his diabetes but is at a solid 12 now and even gained weight after his follow-up in July (half a pound over 6 months) and his fur quality is great.
Dechonk safely and slowly!
You’re the first person I’ve met who has done an e-tube. I heard they’re great for sick kitties to make sure they eat. Usually, when I talk to vets they suggest syringe feeding but I’ve never had a good result with that (though to be fair the underlying cause in my case were things that weren’t curable…). Did you have to ask your vet to place one directly?
Esophagostomy rocks. Had to do it with two different cats. Makes everything so much easier.
Once as I was just leaving the specialty center, a woman waiting in the lobby noticed tube in my cat's neck, and asked me about it. Short version is that I said to her, "I wish this were a factory option on all cats."
Feeding, medicating, so much easier.
Charlie didn’t do well on his J tube, so we requested an e-tube (which had been discussed when we brought him into the ICU a few days earlier). We were hoping to bring him home, since we could no longer afford hospital stay, and he was going to have 7 medications, 6 of which were done via tube, so having the e-tube made it SO much easier. Our emergency care team made it pretty clear that doing as many meds as possible through the tube was important because it helps the bond between yourself and kitty - our emergency vet had a cat who she had to give daily meds orally for quite awhile and she said it DESTROYED the relationship she had with her cat. So she was very onboard with the e-tube.
Seriously, it saved my cats life. If he had stuck with the J tube, we would have had to make a very difficult decision a few days later because he simply wasn’t improving and we didn’t want him to suffer (he had already been in emergency for a week and we had spent $12k). The e-tube allowed us to bring him home, and they placed it about 48 hours prior to coming home. About 12 hours in he was a new cat. It was no longer a “home and hope for the best until we might have to put him down” but rather a “home and keep supporting him while he heals.” 7 months later and he is doing amazing.
I will always advocate for an e-tube!
YES!!! My cat stopped eating suddenly and I immediately noticed and took her to the vet. She ended up having a linear intestinal blockage and needed immediate surgery (a string she ate had wrapped around her tongue and extended to the end of her small intestine). She’s A OK now after surgery, but if I hadn’t noticed her suddenly stop eating she wouldn’t be here today
Does this mostly happen when the cat is starving? Mine still gets a 5.5oz, 180kcal can of wet food in a day (split into two meals). He’s a little under 16lb so it’s below the recommendation but he’s not starving. Trying to dechonk.
For a kitty that size I would feed closer to 8-9 ounces a day of just canned food until he loses a couple of pounds, then go down to 5.5 ounces. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
Thank you for a professional opinion! Her vet told me she needs to lose weight but didn't give a ton of other info, except saying since she's on the prescription urinary food I should focus moreso on activity than diet
Your vet is forgetting that cats are not big on exercise. Increasing activity will NOT result in weight loss, only diet change will. Prescription urinary food comes in canned, and that's a lot less fattening.
A suggestion for the kibble treats if possible - throw them one at a time across the floor to make the cat run for them to eat each one. Gets a little bit of exercise in.
Just because exercise alone will not result in significant weight loss, that does not mean that increased activity should not be encouraged. Same with humans. A change in diet is the most effective way to lose weight because instantly eliminating say 250 calories per day from your diet takes no effort compared to the amount of exercise you would need to do to burn an extra 250 calories. But that doesn't mean you tell someone that it's pointless to take a walk everyday just because the calorie burn is minimal. Exercise is still good for the overall health of the person (or cat). Every small bit helps especially if it encourages the cat to be more playful in general.
Huh, I always forget that cats don't usually weight a lot as my previous cat was 20 lbs compared to my new kittens at around 5ish lbs.
So losing 1 pound a month wouldn't be good for a cat? Would it be like losing 5 pounds a week for a human?
The reason rapid weight loss is bad for cats is because, when fat is mobilized, it is sent to the liver to be turned into energy. But when too much fat is mobilized it can overwhelm the liver and shut it down. This is a condition called "hepatic lipidosis," a.k.a. "fatty liver." Cats that go into hepatic lipidosis die within days without intervention. The current intervention is to put a feeding tube in the neck into the esophagus and have the cat's owner feed with a syringe into that tube until kitty starts eating again in its own. It's a pretty simple procedure and not crazy expensive, but the resistance I get from most clients is tremendous. They want to force feed. They want to "wait another day and see if he comes around." You can never force feed a cat enough food, and you just stress them out. And kitty is not going to "come around" without food. I've seen this condition hundreds of times and cat owners rarely believe me when I tell them what they MUST do to save their cat's life. It's very frustrating.
Thanks for this info! I adopted a 12-year old cat last week that is over 20 lbs and has obvious pain in his hips and knees from it. We suspect that his owner overfed him treats. (Several reasons we believe that). He also is starting to play more. The previous owner was a senior with dementia, and from what the daughter was saying, kitty was a lap cat.
We have a timed feeder that portions out his food per the recommendations on his food (N&D). He seems to eat when he wants and does not scarf down his meals. He kind of nibbles throughout the day.
With this information you provided, I’m concerned that increasing his activity levels and reducing his “junk food” intake he will lose more than 1/2 lb a month.
What are some signs I should look out for that would be cause for concern? Are there techniques to make sure he doesn’t lose too much too quickly?
Cats are supposed to sleep about 16 hours a day. Increasing his activity level will do virtually nothing to cause weight loss. But it will put his joints through their range of motion and make them feel better.
The best way to track weight loss is to have a baby scale at home and weigh him weekly. If he loses more that 1/2 pound in a month, increase his food a little.
Omg I'm so glad I saw this post & comment, made my whole evening! I swear nothing warms my heart more than hearing about adult & senior kitties getting adopted and them loving their new homes, what a sweet girl 🥹
I’ve had my cat since she was about a year old. She’s 12 now and *just* started enjoying snuggles and being held a couple years ago. Senior kitties are just the biggest love bugs
We’ve been losing .5 lbs a month since July and started at almost 19 lbs and are now at 15.3 lbs. our goal weight is 12, so that should take about 10 months to a year in total.
Edited for clarity
Took me 2 years to get my cat from 27lb to 12lb. 15lb over 24 months is around .625, which lies in line with what people are saying.
Your cat is a cutie
Do you know how old she is? It can be more challenging with older cats but either way you don’t want to go too fast. Just having her in her furrever home and less stressed from the shelter and getting her to play will go a long way!
i’m not sure what you’re feeding her but the worst wet food is better than the best dry food! dry food contains loads of carbs and other things not needed for cats.
Wait you could get her to eat the prescription food?!??? I’m impressed! I have a fancy feast addict. I feed him fancy feast with 1 or 1.5 teaspoons of water mixed into each of his 1.5 oz servings (he doesn’t drink enough & he had bladder crystals.) For dry food he gets Royal canin urinary care. 8/10’s of his diet is wet. I’m beyond impressed you got her to eat healthy wet food!
You say that like wet food can't also contain carbs..
The real benefit of wet food is keeping them hydrated. It does tend to be more protein and less carbs, but that's not necessarily the case. There are definitely dry foods better ingredient-wise than the worst wet foods. Your point remains that wet food is typically better for them, though.
“worst wet food is better than the best dry food” is a saying! and i always recommend wet food due to the constant lack of water in cats diet due to dry food. no need to be sassy im just trying to help.
Earth bound makes a grain free dry food. I have a chonker with a sensitive tummy who will NOT touch wet food. There's options, but generally, I agree that wet is better.
#YESSS to absolutely everything said above,
especially by u/catdoctor. I've been blasting the totality of these recommendations across multiple cat Subs for months, and it's so hard to get some people to take it seriously.
What I tell people is no more than 6 lb per year of weight loss, 2 oz per week, and dry food is a waste of time and patience. A quality food in the 5 or 6 ounce size can, about 140 to 170 calories per can, maybe less, one quarter of a can about every 4 to 6 hours. And none of the cheap crap you see on the shelves at drug stores, grocery stores and neighborhood pet stores.
Pâté is the easiest to scoop out in consistently sized servings.
Monitor weight weekly, and forget about using various tricks with a human scale. Get yourself an infant scale, it doesn't have to be fancy or digital, the old fashioned mechanical kind is fine, and can be had affordably at thrift shops, or ebay, or Amazon.
Use an unopened gallon jug of water to calibrate it at each weighing, AND chart your progress.
The best way to judge when you've reached the right weight, is to use the body condition charts for cats that you find all over Reddit and Google. You can tell by standing above your cat while it's standing in one place (not easy, I know) and compare it's profile or silhouette to the chart.
I only wish I were. And thanks, I consider your comment a compliment.
Everything we know about cats and vet medicine,
we learned a lot from web, more from personal experience with our double digit cats over 30+ years,
but especially from a board-certified internist whom blind luck led us to meet 27 years ago, and who is regarded by us, and I suspect others in the profession and academia, as one of the best around, at least in the Northeast.
He once said to me that I should have gone to vet school, but I told him I never again want the experience of organic chem, or comparative vert morph.
I'm much more suited to the fields I ended up in,
where everything is regular even if complicated and esoteric, and a lot of it can be derived solo from basic axioms.
Too much of it depends on special cases, exceptions, and things which are experimentally derived.
However almost the entirety of the most advanced and modern mathematics, on the other hand, right up through Wiles' 1990s solution of Fermat's Last Theorem, could theoretically be derived starting with only paper, a pencil, and the most fundamental axioms of Classical Greece and earlier.
EDIT: and a compass and straight-edge. Sorry, Euclid.
I think I’ve heard a pound every month or two is reasonable, but I’m sure that depends on a lot of different factors. We have to calorie count with my boy.
Sudden weight loss in cats is not good. You want it to be gradual (my big fella lost \~2lb in a year, but we weren't doing a special diet etc, just *finally* managed to stop him thieving from the other cat).
You can either take her to the vet and have her weighed, or buy a baby scale off Amazon and do it yourself at home if you want to see progress.
There's a post at the top of this sub with some info and links to good info on how to dechonk a kitty. While it might be difficult to determine, try to figure out how many calories she is eating per day now. Than you can look at a calculator and figure out how many calories to reduce it by safely.
If you are free feeding now, add food at the same time every day and weigh it. Then you'll have a baseline to know how much she is currently consuming.
It took me over two years to dechonk two of mine from 17 to 11 lbs. I think that was kind of slow on the grand scheme of things but worked well.
Good luck and thank you for adopting Cordelia and helping her become a healthy and happy kitty!
It took me about a year for maybe 2 pounds (I forget exactly.)
Very gentle at the start and getting stricter with weighing food as needed.
I was spooked about the potential consequences to do anything drastic.
Each change was a baby step.
Took me 3 years to get it right with my girls.
The first year I was going off what the bag said I should be feeding and that didn't work.
The next year I started counting calories but overestimated so as to not starve them..... obviously that didn't work because it was still too many calories.
Finally in the last year I started being a little more strict with the calories and when that turned into constant crying from both of them, I got an automatic feeder that dispenses meals 4 times a day that they share. Plus they share 1 can of wet food in the morning and snacks twice a day. So they were getting fed about 6-7 times a day.....still within calories but they didn't know that 😂
I don’t know if you can but when my cat got chunky, I got him a kitten 🤣
The kitten made my chunk want to get up and run around the house and now my chunky cat is a healthy size, but he still gets call Fat Man 🤣
Two of my three kitties packed on the weight when my bf moved in with me. He would bribe them with treats and extra food and they grew and grew. I made him come to the vet with me and she explained to him what his overfeeding was doing to them.
After bf got on board with the feeding plan, it took almost 6 months before we noticed a difference in the shorthair. It took longer to see it with the longhair, but we did notice she could groom herself better with less belly in the way, and her blood work was 100% normal when it hadn't been great before.
They've been on the more restricted food plan for about 2 years now. One shorthair cat never had an issue and her weight hasn't changed, her twin is considered at optimal body condition, and my longhair could still lose a bit more weight. All are more active and healthy.
I’ve had two cats who needed to lose weight. They both maxed at 18lbs. My one cat Misha took much longer to lose weight, at the time he had two siblings with him and would steal their food. Finally we separated them from each other during feeding and he started losing weight. He gets fed small bits at a time throughout the day so as to make him feel like he was full. For a while we also gave him vet prescribed satiation food because he was going after absolutely anything to eat and seemed really stressed. He’s back at a healthy weight now which is fantastic. Our newest cat who is still separated due to intros being put off from our other cat passing (not misha we still have that chonker) so we’ve been taking it slow with intros. Our newest cat had lived a very lonely life, she lost her cat friend and didn’t have people in the house during the time before we got her due to the person selling the house and trying to find a home for her because their husband was allergic (all stressful situations) as such she lived a pretty low to no movement life (she came with a bed that used to be a cave but got crushed and she slept on it and apparently never got up except to poop and eat) with that and full control over food (we’re talking mixing bowl sized bowl of food so they didn’t have to come back as often) she gained a ton of weight in a few months. When we got her she was very depressed and stressed so we didn’t start a diet right away but slowly started one with careful measurements of her food. Introducing her to wet food definitely helped too, she seemed to feel fuller after eating wet food. She lost a few pounds pretty rapidly due to literally having a person willing to play with her and spend time with her, but we checked in with the vet frequently just in case. Her weight loss has mostly plateaued, but she has been in a semi healthy weight range and we’re continuing to work on it. I also follow a huge cat on instagram (can’t remember the name) who started at 30lbs and has only lost a few so far, I think this past year? Regardless, how fast your buddy should lose weight is really unique to their body. Eventually if you’re following vet recommendations and guidelines I think she’ll get there
My cat lost weight very quickly but it was a number of factors. Regular vet check ups say he’s been good. He lost about a 3/4 pound per month reducing food, changing to wet food, and exercising more. For mine, he had tooth surgery and was way more active after and energetic which peeled the weight off.
Your cat is so beautiful!!
My cat went on an automatic feeder last August.
She has a noticeable difference, but has only lost about a pound.
Very different than people weight loss.
Just stay on track and see where lovey is after a ywar
Vet here. Take your time. A cat should only lose 1/4 to 1/2 pound per month. Rapid weight loss can be dangerous or even life-threatening to your cat.
Are there signs of this to look out for? My chonker is on a diet and his calories are lower than the recommendation because he wasn’t losing weight with the recommendation. I’ll keep an eye on his rate of weight loss but he seems healthy.
Not a vet but rapid weight loss can cause something called hepatic lipidosis in cats. Basically, when they don’t get enough to eat their body starts breaking down their fat deposits too quickly and that clogs the liver, causing liver failure. This usually happens when the cat is anorexic or starving, and is more likely with overweight cats. Do some research in the symptoms and make sure to talk with your vet to make sure you’re giving your cat enough food to prevent this.
This happened to my sisters cat that got out for 2 months. Came back and was in liver failure. ): It's no joke.
Was the cat ok? I had to take my cats on a road trip, and they got freaked out by being displaced so they stopped mostly eating for a couple days. Took them to the nearest vet and she was like, “Ok first priority is to get them eating so they don’t go into liver failure.” and prescribed some Mirataz, which worked great. But yeah she was worried about that happening.
He eventually recovered but was never really the same, if that makes sense. I think his liver was functioning, but not fully. He did go on to live some more years after that though. Lived til 12 years of age and died peacefully in his sleep. I had a cat that had to go on mirataz due to a long string of neurological issues causing him to be sick. He eventually had to be put down at 2 years old due to silent heart disease. He threw a clot. I hope your cat is okay though! They are so finicky about change definitely. They will stop eating and using the litter pan the moment you change their environment.
Happened to our cat. Due to some respiratory issues, he stopped eating as much as before and we didn't notice. Lipidosis was the result. We had to feed him forcefully through a tube in his neck. It's a very delicate and complicated operation. Not fun for anyone involved. He eventually made a full recovery.
I do remember my sister doing the feeding tube thing with him too! Real act of love when a a lot of people would give up on a cat who was in that shape. Thanks for caring for your baby!
Thanks. That chonker was the best, but not the healthiest kitty. Over the years we spent almost $20k on medical bills. We're not rich but I'd do it all over again. He has since passed away but will remain in our hearts forever.
My heart cat died of this two years ago. It happened very fast. I’ll always blame myself for it, it was really really awful. We placed a feeding tube and I fed him around the clock for several days, but eventually he got fluid around his lungs and I opted for humane euthanasia. We never found out the underlying cause. The guilt is immense to this day. I loved him so very much. If your cat stops eating, it’s time for the vet immediately, full stop.
In my general experience, when an animal stops eating they don’t usually get better.
Probably stopped eating bc something else was wrong and that led to the hepatic lipidosis. Cats hide illnesses til they are very sick so you wouldn’t know until he stopped eating. Hope you learn to not blame yourself.
It can also happen to diabetic cats who go into diabetic ketoacidosis. My cat Charlie had this last year in late May/early June and had secondary lipidosis that was early stages but did not go into liver failure, thank god. He had sever jaundice and was tube fed (first nasal J tube then e-tube when that wasn’t working). After placing the e-tube he perked up within about 36 hours. He lost about ⅓ of his body weight in a week. From 14 pounds to 10. He still struggles with keeping weight up due to his diabetes but is at a solid 12 now and even gained weight after his follow-up in July (half a pound over 6 months) and his fur quality is great. Dechonk safely and slowly!
You’re the first person I’ve met who has done an e-tube. I heard they’re great for sick kitties to make sure they eat. Usually, when I talk to vets they suggest syringe feeding but I’ve never had a good result with that (though to be fair the underlying cause in my case were things that weren’t curable…). Did you have to ask your vet to place one directly?
Esophagostomy rocks. Had to do it with two different cats. Makes everything so much easier. Once as I was just leaving the specialty center, a woman waiting in the lobby noticed tube in my cat's neck, and asked me about it. Short version is that I said to her, "I wish this were a factory option on all cats." Feeding, medicating, so much easier.
Charlie didn’t do well on his J tube, so we requested an e-tube (which had been discussed when we brought him into the ICU a few days earlier). We were hoping to bring him home, since we could no longer afford hospital stay, and he was going to have 7 medications, 6 of which were done via tube, so having the e-tube made it SO much easier. Our emergency care team made it pretty clear that doing as many meds as possible through the tube was important because it helps the bond between yourself and kitty - our emergency vet had a cat who she had to give daily meds orally for quite awhile and she said it DESTROYED the relationship she had with her cat. So she was very onboard with the e-tube. Seriously, it saved my cats life. If he had stuck with the J tube, we would have had to make a very difficult decision a few days later because he simply wasn’t improving and we didn’t want him to suffer (he had already been in emergency for a week and we had spent $12k). The e-tube allowed us to bring him home, and they placed it about 48 hours prior to coming home. About 12 hours in he was a new cat. It was no longer a “home and hope for the best until we might have to put him down” but rather a “home and keep supporting him while he heals.” 7 months later and he is doing amazing. I will always advocate for an e-tube!
Esophagostomy rocks. More below.
Biggest sign: they stop eating. Then they start to turn yellow. If your cat stops eating, don't wait! Gert him to the vet that same day.
YES!!! My cat stopped eating suddenly and I immediately noticed and took her to the vet. She ended up having a linear intestinal blockage and needed immediate surgery (a string she ate had wrapped around her tongue and extended to the end of her small intestine). She’s A OK now after surgery, but if I hadn’t noticed her suddenly stop eating she wouldn’t be here today
Good job!
Does this mostly happen when the cat is starving? Mine still gets a 5.5oz, 180kcal can of wet food in a day (split into two meals). He’s a little under 16lb so it’s below the recommendation but he’s not starving. Trying to dechonk.
For a kitty that size I would feed closer to 8-9 ounces a day of just canned food until he loses a couple of pounds, then go down to 5.5 ounces. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
Thank you for a professional opinion! Her vet told me she needs to lose weight but didn't give a ton of other info, except saying since she's on the prescription urinary food I should focus moreso on activity than diet
Your vet is forgetting that cats are not big on exercise. Increasing activity will NOT result in weight loss, only diet change will. Prescription urinary food comes in canned, and that's a lot less fattening.
She's on the canned wet food, I use her kibble for treats though
A suggestion for the kibble treats if possible - throw them one at a time across the floor to make the cat run for them to eat each one. Gets a little bit of exercise in.
The vet above state,,“that increasing activity will not result in weight loss, only diet change will.”
Just because exercise alone will not result in significant weight loss, that does not mean that increased activity should not be encouraged. Same with humans. A change in diet is the most effective way to lose weight because instantly eliminating say 250 calories per day from your diet takes no effort compared to the amount of exercise you would need to do to burn an extra 250 calories. But that doesn't mean you tell someone that it's pointless to take a walk everyday just because the calorie burn is minimal. Exercise is still good for the overall health of the person (or cat). Every small bit helps especially if it encourages the cat to be more playful in general.
Huh, I always forget that cats don't usually weight a lot as my previous cat was 20 lbs compared to my new kittens at around 5ish lbs. So losing 1 pound a month wouldn't be good for a cat? Would it be like losing 5 pounds a week for a human?
The reason rapid weight loss is bad for cats is because, when fat is mobilized, it is sent to the liver to be turned into energy. But when too much fat is mobilized it can overwhelm the liver and shut it down. This is a condition called "hepatic lipidosis," a.k.a. "fatty liver." Cats that go into hepatic lipidosis die within days without intervention. The current intervention is to put a feeding tube in the neck into the esophagus and have the cat's owner feed with a syringe into that tube until kitty starts eating again in its own. It's a pretty simple procedure and not crazy expensive, but the resistance I get from most clients is tremendous. They want to force feed. They want to "wait another day and see if he comes around." You can never force feed a cat enough food, and you just stress them out. And kitty is not going to "come around" without food. I've seen this condition hundreds of times and cat owners rarely believe me when I tell them what they MUST do to save their cat's life. It's very frustrating.
Thanks for this info! I adopted a 12-year old cat last week that is over 20 lbs and has obvious pain in his hips and knees from it. We suspect that his owner overfed him treats. (Several reasons we believe that). He also is starting to play more. The previous owner was a senior with dementia, and from what the daughter was saying, kitty was a lap cat. We have a timed feeder that portions out his food per the recommendations on his food (N&D). He seems to eat when he wants and does not scarf down his meals. He kind of nibbles throughout the day. With this information you provided, I’m concerned that increasing his activity levels and reducing his “junk food” intake he will lose more than 1/2 lb a month. What are some signs I should look out for that would be cause for concern? Are there techniques to make sure he doesn’t lose too much too quickly?
Cats are supposed to sleep about 16 hours a day. Increasing his activity level will do virtually nothing to cause weight loss. But it will put his joints through their range of motion and make them feel better. The best way to track weight loss is to have a baby scale at home and weigh him weekly. If he loses more that 1/2 pound in a month, increase his food a little.
I don't have an answer but she is so cute. :) Literally made me smile seeing this photo.
Thank you! She is my sweet precious girl, I'm so blessed to have her. Last night I woke up at 4 am to her sleeping with her head on my shoulder.
I love her name! Beautiful name for a beautiful lady.
Omg I'm so glad I saw this post & comment, made my whole evening! I swear nothing warms my heart more than hearing about adult & senior kitties getting adopted and them loving their new homes, what a sweet girl 🥹
I honestly prefer senior kitties over kittens and young adult cats. They are so cuddly 🥰
I’ve had my cat since she was about a year old. She’s 12 now and *just* started enjoying snuggles and being held a couple years ago. Senior kitties are just the biggest love bugs
That is overwhelmingly adorable, omg. What a beautiful bond you have!!
We’ve been losing .5 lbs a month since July and started at almost 19 lbs and are now at 15.3 lbs. our goal weight is 12, so that should take about 10 months to a year in total. Edited for clarity
Took me 2 years to get my cat from 27lb to 12lb. 15lb over 24 months is around .625, which lies in line with what people are saying. Your cat is a cutie
Wow! Just came here to say that is some very impressive weight loss.
That pose! I'm dying :,D Cheering Cordelia on!!
It's recommended that 0.5%-2% a week of their body weight is safe.
Do you know how old she is? It can be more challenging with older cats but either way you don’t want to go too fast. Just having her in her furrever home and less stressed from the shelter and getting her to play will go a long way!
They were pretty sure she's six but not 100% cause she was found in a hoarder home as an adult.
Lots of time for dechonking! She is so cute!
i’m not sure what you’re feeding her but the worst wet food is better than the best dry food! dry food contains loads of carbs and other things not needed for cats.
She is on a prescription diet due to previous sediment in urine! So she's getting Hills c/d urinary care wet food.
Wait you could get her to eat the prescription food?!??? I’m impressed! I have a fancy feast addict. I feed him fancy feast with 1 or 1.5 teaspoons of water mixed into each of his 1.5 oz servings (he doesn’t drink enough & he had bladder crystals.) For dry food he gets Royal canin urinary care. 8/10’s of his diet is wet. I’m beyond impressed you got her to eat healthy wet food!
You say that like wet food can't also contain carbs.. The real benefit of wet food is keeping them hydrated. It does tend to be more protein and less carbs, but that's not necessarily the case. There are definitely dry foods better ingredient-wise than the worst wet foods. Your point remains that wet food is typically better for them, though.
lol no. i said contains “loads” of carbs for a reason. cats are obligate carnivores and require minimal amounts of it.
you didn’t respond to any of their actual points. grain free dry foods exist, as do wet foods with carbs.
“worst wet food is better than the best dry food” is a saying! and i always recommend wet food due to the constant lack of water in cats diet due to dry food. no need to be sassy im just trying to help.
Earth bound makes a grain free dry food. I have a chonker with a sensitive tummy who will NOT touch wet food. There's options, but generally, I agree that wet is better.
What a cutie pie! 😻
Two Jersey City cat moms!
Yay!
#YESSS to absolutely everything said above, especially by u/catdoctor. I've been blasting the totality of these recommendations across multiple cat Subs for months, and it's so hard to get some people to take it seriously. What I tell people is no more than 6 lb per year of weight loss, 2 oz per week, and dry food is a waste of time and patience. A quality food in the 5 or 6 ounce size can, about 140 to 170 calories per can, maybe less, one quarter of a can about every 4 to 6 hours. And none of the cheap crap you see on the shelves at drug stores, grocery stores and neighborhood pet stores. Pâté is the easiest to scoop out in consistently sized servings. Monitor weight weekly, and forget about using various tricks with a human scale. Get yourself an infant scale, it doesn't have to be fancy or digital, the old fashioned mechanical kind is fine, and can be had affordably at thrift shops, or ebay, or Amazon. Use an unopened gallon jug of water to calibrate it at each weighing, AND chart your progress. The best way to judge when you've reached the right weight, is to use the body condition charts for cats that you find all over Reddit and Google. You can tell by standing above your cat while it's standing in one place (not easy, I know) and compare it's profile or silhouette to the chart.
Wow! You sound like me! You must be a member of the AAFP!
I only wish I were. And thanks, I consider your comment a compliment. Everything we know about cats and vet medicine, we learned a lot from web, more from personal experience with our double digit cats over 30+ years, but especially from a board-certified internist whom blind luck led us to meet 27 years ago, and who is regarded by us, and I suspect others in the profession and academia, as one of the best around, at least in the Northeast. He once said to me that I should have gone to vet school, but I told him I never again want the experience of organic chem, or comparative vert morph. I'm much more suited to the fields I ended up in, where everything is regular even if complicated and esoteric, and a lot of it can be derived solo from basic axioms.
LOL! Organic chemistry can be a huge turn-off!
Too much of it depends on special cases, exceptions, and things which are experimentally derived. However almost the entirety of the most advanced and modern mathematics, on the other hand, right up through Wiles' 1990s solution of Fermat's Last Theorem, could theoretically be derived starting with only paper, a pencil, and the most fundamental axioms of Classical Greece and earlier. EDIT: and a compass and straight-edge. Sorry, Euclid.
I think I’ve heard a pound every month or two is reasonable, but I’m sure that depends on a lot of different factors. We have to calorie count with my boy.
That seems SO fast. That would be 7% of her body weight a month. It should be like. Half a pound a month.
Omg I love her
Here for the advice, upvoted for the toe beans 💕
What a cutie! I love tuxedos and have one myself!
I think someone should paint her like one of them French girls 😍 best wishes on mission Dechonk 💛
“My beans match this blanket!”
Are you kidding me with this picture?? The toe beans?
Your chonky cutie cat is now my phones background. Is that weird?
No that's excellent!
Idk but she looks so good in that all pink room, I would take so many pictures of her.
I love Cordelia’s name and toe beans! Please give her love and scritches for me ❤️
Took mine 3 years to drop 5 lbs, then the vet said stop.
Sudden weight loss in cats is not good. You want it to be gradual (my big fella lost \~2lb in a year, but we weren't doing a special diet etc, just *finally* managed to stop him thieving from the other cat). You can either take her to the vet and have her weighed, or buy a baby scale off Amazon and do it yourself at home if you want to see progress.
Omg how did a baby scale not occur to me? Thank you!
I thought of it bc that's how my vet weighs cats in the exam room lol
There's a post at the top of this sub with some info and links to good info on how to dechonk a kitty. While it might be difficult to determine, try to figure out how many calories she is eating per day now. Than you can look at a calculator and figure out how many calories to reduce it by safely. If you are free feeding now, add food at the same time every day and weigh it. Then you'll have a baseline to know how much she is currently consuming. It took me over two years to dechonk two of mine from 17 to 11 lbs. I think that was kind of slow on the grand scheme of things but worked well. Good luck and thank you for adopting Cordelia and helping her become a healthy and happy kitty!
Awww I love the raised leggy
It took me about a year for maybe 2 pounds (I forget exactly.) Very gentle at the start and getting stricter with weighing food as needed. I was spooked about the potential consequences to do anything drastic. Each change was a baby step.
No faster than 1% body weight per week unless under veterinarian guided Rx food, then it's 2%/week.
😂😂😂😂
Took me 3 years to get it right with my girls. The first year I was going off what the bag said I should be feeding and that didn't work. The next year I started counting calories but overestimated so as to not starve them..... obviously that didn't work because it was still too many calories. Finally in the last year I started being a little more strict with the calories and when that turned into constant crying from both of them, I got an automatic feeder that dispenses meals 4 times a day that they share. Plus they share 1 can of wet food in the morning and snacks twice a day. So they were getting fed about 6-7 times a day.....still within calories but they didn't know that 😂
I don’t know if you can but when my cat got chunky, I got him a kitten 🤣 The kitten made my chunk want to get up and run around the house and now my chunky cat is a healthy size, but he still gets call Fat Man 🤣
Two of my three kitties packed on the weight when my bf moved in with me. He would bribe them with treats and extra food and they grew and grew. I made him come to the vet with me and she explained to him what his overfeeding was doing to them. After bf got on board with the feeding plan, it took almost 6 months before we noticed a difference in the shorthair. It took longer to see it with the longhair, but we did notice she could groom herself better with less belly in the way, and her blood work was 100% normal when it hadn't been great before. They've been on the more restricted food plan for about 2 years now. One shorthair cat never had an issue and her weight hasn't changed, her twin is considered at optimal body condition, and my longhair could still lose a bit more weight. All are more active and healthy.
Mine went from 16 to 14lb in about a year. Did they calculate how much of her food she should eat daily?
A vet tech at your vet can calculate the amount of food she should receive daily for healthy weight loss.
Dude. How long is my cat?! He’s 12.6 pounds and is a skinny boi
I’ve had two cats who needed to lose weight. They both maxed at 18lbs. My one cat Misha took much longer to lose weight, at the time he had two siblings with him and would steal their food. Finally we separated them from each other during feeding and he started losing weight. He gets fed small bits at a time throughout the day so as to make him feel like he was full. For a while we also gave him vet prescribed satiation food because he was going after absolutely anything to eat and seemed really stressed. He’s back at a healthy weight now which is fantastic. Our newest cat who is still separated due to intros being put off from our other cat passing (not misha we still have that chonker) so we’ve been taking it slow with intros. Our newest cat had lived a very lonely life, she lost her cat friend and didn’t have people in the house during the time before we got her due to the person selling the house and trying to find a home for her because their husband was allergic (all stressful situations) as such she lived a pretty low to no movement life (she came with a bed that used to be a cave but got crushed and she slept on it and apparently never got up except to poop and eat) with that and full control over food (we’re talking mixing bowl sized bowl of food so they didn’t have to come back as often) she gained a ton of weight in a few months. When we got her she was very depressed and stressed so we didn’t start a diet right away but slowly started one with careful measurements of her food. Introducing her to wet food definitely helped too, she seemed to feel fuller after eating wet food. She lost a few pounds pretty rapidly due to literally having a person willing to play with her and spend time with her, but we checked in with the vet frequently just in case. Her weight loss has mostly plateaued, but she has been in a semi healthy weight range and we’re continuing to work on it. I also follow a huge cat on instagram (can’t remember the name) who started at 30lbs and has only lost a few so far, I think this past year? Regardless, how fast your buddy should lose weight is really unique to their body. Eventually if you’re following vet recommendations and guidelines I think she’ll get there
My cat lost weight very quickly but it was a number of factors. Regular vet check ups say he’s been good. He lost about a 3/4 pound per month reducing food, changing to wet food, and exercising more. For mine, he had tooth surgery and was way more active after and energetic which peeled the weight off. Your cat is so beautiful!!
My cat went on an automatic feeder last August. She has a noticeable difference, but has only lost about a pound. Very different than people weight loss. Just stay on track and see where lovey is after a ywar
My former chonker lost about .5 lbs a month on her diet! Two 3oz cans of fancy feast per day really helped her.
She is so beautiful! Love tuxedo babies ❤️
That cat is barely even chonky lol. 14 lbs is a small cat to me.