From the Opinion Department - The Coventry, England Animal Centre reports that they have a new “heavyweight resident” named Socks. She weighs 7.4kg, or about 16.65 pounds. The cats here at Catnabbit! protest the suggestion that the cat is so fat. Sure, she might be the heaviest cat that they have, or maybe have even seen, but she isn’t really that fat. Our Gaston, even though he has been losing weight at breakneck speeds, weighs slightly more than Socks at 7.48kg, or 16.83 pounds. Just over a month ago, he was nearly 18 pounds. And I, the largest cat in my house, weigh 8.89kg, or about 20 pounds. Sure, we are fat. We might even be considered obese, although we are losing weight on our new diet. However, we’ve been checked out by the veterinarian and we have never been told we’re the “fattest cat” he ever saw. So where does this lightweight in England get off saying she’s the fattest cat? She is far from the fattest. We’d say she is probably about “average weight” for an obese cat. We challenge Socks the cat to either renounce the “fattest cat” title or start working on deserving it!
The Catnabbit! fitness plan, in case you were wondering, is two-fold: We are restricting our food intake and we’re getting more exercise. We are eating 1.5 cups of Science Diet Senior (among the 4 of us), and forcing our humans to entertain us with strings and flashlights. Gaston’s got a bad habit of not chewing his food, which makes him sick, so he’s been trying out different varieties of canned food. He hasn’t settled on a brand yet, but he seems to like Fancy Feast. We don’t like that stuff at all, so he can have it.
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Thanks for the fitness plan. Lets us know we are on the right track. Shaggy is 18.9 and heavy and round. Obese. Scooby is a somewhat overweight and the vet wants his to reduce too. Socut is 7 months and hopefully will never have weight problems. Are you senior cats or is senior recommended by the your for its ingredients? sss’s mom
Subbes and I (Hazel) are almost 4 years old, but Gaston is 14 and Callas is 7. Our veterinarian says that cats are considered senior citizens at 7 years old, so that’s why we’re all dining on the senior food. Before this, we were eating Iams Hairball control food, and it didn’t really help much with the hairballs.
One nice fact is that we have found that on the premium foods we can eat a lot less than on the “junk” foods, so our food expenses are significantly lower than they used to be. When Subbes and I were young we digged into the Purina foods, and we had to eat a lot more to feel satisfied. We switched to Iams a couple of years ago even though the bags cost more. Boy were we surprised when we noticed that we felt full a lot faster!
We stopped free-feeding this week, so instead of getting a bowl full of food and eating as much as we want whenever we please, we have our cup-and-a-half measured out in the morning and that’s what we get for the day. We have gotten very good at pacing ourselves so that we have a little bit left later on, and we are still comfortable and satisfied.
All that fun and play is helping get our minds off of eating, too!
All those suggestions are what our vet mentioned. #1 was to measure the food instead of just doling it out when the bowl is empty. Interesting to know they adapted by pacing themselves. I have heard wet food is better than dry because of its higher protien and less fillers. But the vet approved of feeding both dry/wet if I want to, but give less dry because ultimately it’s based on caloric intake. They love their wet food. I feed dry Pro Plan Weight Mgnt. It has 46% protien with chicken listed first.
Thanks for the validation. Actually I think Shaggy has lost weight. I’m seeing more “definition” on his haunches & shoulder blades. Thanks again for the info.
sss’s mom
We don’t really like wet food as much as we used to, but we still eat it from time to time. Gaston on the other hand prefers only wet food. He’s still testing out different varieties to see which works best for him.
If you want to keep an eye on Shaggy’s weight you can do what our humans do to weigh us. Just get a home scale and step on it by yourself, then step on it again with shaggy in your arms. This is how our humans first noticed that Gaston was losing weight too fast.
Give Shaggy our congratulations on his new physique, we hope he likes it!