How much wet and dry food should my 8lb cat eat to lose weight?

The best way to maintain his weight at 12 lbs is to measure his food and count the calories. A typical 12 lb cat should eat about 230 calories total in a day. Look at the calorie content of the food your vet prescribed and feed based on the calories per cup or per can. It is probably fine to switch to urinary care with weight management but you should check with your vet first since it is prescription diet. I would also recommend asking your vet about feeding some canned urinary food as most cats with crystals should be fed canned food, too.

Check the labels on your cat foods and see if it gives you a calorie count. Most good pet foods will have that information. Calculate how many calories are in 1/3 of the dry food and compare that amount to the canned food to get an idea of the right amount to feed him to maintain his weight. If you aren't fond of math (like me!) a less precise method is to simply keep an eye on his weight and adjust the amount you feed accordingly. When you run your hands over his body, if the ribs can be felt with light pressure then he's a good weight. If you have to really feel around to tell where his ribs are, he could lose a little weight, and if the bones are felt with no pressure at all, he should get fed a little more.

Hello, depending on her lifestyle, indoor only cats should be fed atleast twice daily. This can be a variety of dry and wet food and should not exceed more than 1 cup of dry food per day or more than 1 can per day. There may be differences depending on how many calories each food contains so it is hard to determine this. Your kitten should be consuming around 201 Kcal per day. Hope this helps and best of luck.

Yes, you should definitely cut the food back. If she seems overly hungry when you cut the food back you may need to talk to your vet about putting her on a prescription weight loss diet. Prescription diets are low in calories (so they can eat more of it) and it is very filling (they are high in fiber). If she doesn't lose weight I would be very worried about her developing diabetes. Remember, you need to feed the amount of food recommended on the bag for their IDEAL weight. Ideally she should be between 10-12 pounds. The average indoor cat should have 20 calories per pound so you should only be feeding her 200-240 calories per day INCLUDING her treats.

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! This is actually more based on the weight than the age per se. If Kovu is really 7 pounds like your profile says, he should be eating about 250 to 300 calories per day to gain weight. The caloric content can be easily found in the can or bag of food or online. Good luck and have a great day!

You're right, there are lots of ways of doing it. I like using the website below, but really you start by decreasing what Snoops is currently eating by 20% for 1 month and re-evaluate his progress. In general, cats will find more satiety eating wet food over dry food, and it is also lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein. I have had success using the "fancy feast" diet, which is one small can twice a day (making sure to choose the ones that sound like normal cat food, not spinach and cream or eggs and bacon!). If you don't see progress after 1 month, then discuss using a prescription weight loss diet with your vet. https://petnutritionalliance.org/cat.php

Getting cats to lose weight can be very challenging. Cats are obligate carnivores and cannot use carbohydrates efficiently, so they tend to be converted straight into fat. Any any dry food needs to have a good amount of carbohydrates in it in order to makes it "dry". So, even using low calorie biscuits, it can be very difficult to get a cat to lose weight. (And the bags generally recommend more calories than a normal cat needs.) My best recommendation for weight loss in cats is to change to a completely canned food diet. This website has some good information about cat nutrition. http://catinfo.org/ Some of the packets are actually also high in carbohydrates, so you have to read the labels carefully. It will seem odd that you are actually feeding a higher fat and higher caloric food in a canned food, but cats tend to lose weight that way. I generally recommend an average of 5.5 ounces of canned food per day for an average ideal body weight of 10 pounds for a cat. Good luck! I hope that was helpful. Thanks for using PetCoach.