My chunky girl is on a diet

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My girl Luna (we call her Moon) is 2 years old, spayed and weighed 5.4kg at her last vet check.

Her primordial pouch is huge, almost hitting the floor but she’s not overly obese elsewhere.

I’ve decided she’s going on a diet.

I looked up cat diet calculators and 3x pouches a day seems to be a good amount for weight loss. So she’ll get 1x untamed in the morning, 1x Felix pouch in the afternoon and 1x Felix pouch at night.

Will this help? She’s a fiend 😆 she steals cornflakes, honey Cheerios, butter and ritz crackers if I don’t keep my eyes on her at all times in the kitchen.

I can give no real advice as I’m no vet and my own cats are raw fed so too different to compare. But I can admire the beauty of your Luna- she’s gorgeous. One of mine has a tendency toward greed- he found out what the butter dish held and set about breaking 4 just to eat the butter 😂

We have 2 kittens and 1 is mental. If there is food and you turn your back, he'll have it, but is very active and thin.

We also have a10 year old cat that has always been large and she only gets 2 pouches a day and biscuits. The vet said to put enough biscuits in the bowl that it only just covers the bottom. That is what we do and still she is big. I think cats, like humans will be who they will be. If your cat is happy and has a good life, be happy with her.

3 pouches sounds a lot for diet portions unless she is very active. It feels like a maintenance amount at that size/weight.
My 18mo pair spend a large portion of their day out hunting in the fields and have a pouch of Whiskas, 2 bowls of Wild Freedom biscuits (amount to barely cover the bottom of the bowl) and 1/2 tin Untamed each a day. They aren't massively keen on the Untamed and prefer biscuits or Whiskas to it, but I don't want them eating too much Whiskas or dry food, so that's the compromise. I'm fairly sure their diet is also supplemented with mice. They are both healthy weights at around 4kg.
15yo DCat has 1 pouch of Whiskas and 1 tin of Untamed a day. She is very lazy and a homebody (always has been!), 5.5kg and overweight. The reduced intake as a result of Whiskas pouches' shrinkflation didn't cause weight loss either. I would ideally cut her food further but the faff with partially empty packets of wet food is a PITA.

She’s beautiful ….

in my experience I have a fat boy who I’ve been trying to put on a Diet for about 5 years - he weighs slightly more than your girl. TBH the vet and I have all but given up - he systematically destroys the house until he is fed - claws carpets, sofas, furniture - he has found a particular door in the lounge he can sit and bang against the wall with his paw for hours until he gets his way and a full bowl….if that doesn’t work he will wait until I’m asleep in bed and then come and pull my hair with his teeth!
the vet and I have accepted he’s a lovely fat chunky rogue - he’s a good age and living his best life (he will eat 2 pouches alone for breakfast and he still looked at me this morning like he was on hunger strike!)

She was originally on 1x untamed, 1x Felix and 1 small bowl of dry food.

The dry food is more calorie dense and we didn’t measure out how much she was getting so could be way over what she needs hence the weight gain.

I’ll keep her on 3 pouches for a couple of weeks and see if she’s any slimmer then probably cut to half a pouch at night.

Mine’s a horror when she’s hungry. Faces to the kitchen every time I move and if I leave the kitchen again without giving her food she will attack my legs 😆

I have no useful advice but came to
say she's gorgeous! 😍

Luna is lovely ! She sounds like a ‘Labrador’ cat, just like mine ! For health reasons mine has been on a diet since we got her and is now at her target weight, though I still need to monitor her food to ensure she doesn’t start gaining again. Here are my tips, good luck ! It’s great you’ve recognised the problem and are tackling it whilst she’s young. I struggled but was eventually successful, it’s very hard, so I try to offer my tips on any dieting thread I see !

• At next vet visit get them to advise what her target weight should be. If you’re on a ‘Healthy pet’ type plan with the vet, where you pay monthly for flea/worm treatments and jabs, you should be able to get her checked every 6 mths under the plan.

• Weigh her every week and record, you’ll soon find out what portion sizes she needs to lose weight, 3 sachets sounds a lot to me but every cat has a different metabolism. I read it’s safe for them to lose 1% to 2% of their body weight per week, ideally 1%. I aimed for 0.5% as she found it so difficult.

• If she’s upset about her reduced portions, consider using diet foods so she can eat more for less. I was advised to use diet wet and dry foods (Hills Prescription Diet Metabolic and Royal Canin Lightweight Care), wet food in the morning as it’s more filling, dry in the evening. I was also advised to use two different brands and alternate daily as it stimulates their metabolism.

• Another trick to help them feel fuller is to use a ‘slow feeder’ … a bowl with ridges in which trap the food so it takes a lot longer to eat … I use one called Trixie.

• Be really vigilant about leaving food around which she could access, mine will lick my cereal bowl clean if I don’t clear it up straight away ! She’s trained us to have a very tidy kitchen !

Our girl is 5.1kg and the vet said she should be 4kg. I have been trying to get her to lose weight but it’s hard as I have another cat and she eats his food without me realising because he is a grazer and she just wolfs down anything as soon as it’s put down! I am trying to stick to three packets of wet food a day, but it’s difficult

When ours needed to lose weight we kept his wet food the same (but he only had 1 little can per day) and reduced the dry food gradually until he started losing weight. Then we raised it a tiny bit to maintain the weight once we were happy with it.

If you know her ideal weight I'd start by gradually cutting down to the recommended serving for the ideal weight. But don't be afraid to go lower if she still doesn't start losing. The recommended portions are on the generous side I think unless your cat is very active.

It's easier for cats as we control the food so the only willpower that matters is yours if she starts complaining 😄

The vet told us it's important not to cut down dramatically, you need to go gradually to give her time to adjust. Good luck!

For reference, when we got him we innocently gave him the recommended portion of dry for a cat of around 5 kg, which is what he was, taking into account he was also having x amount of wet.

And we didn't really notice the weight creeping up until the vet weighed him and he'd nearly reached 6 kg 😳

He now has about half the recommended portion for a 5 kg cat and it's enough for him. And he's back down to his ideal weight.

But he's a very lazy boy with low activity levels so your mileage may vary.