Posts tagged "overweight"

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight. Catch up on past posts here.

Yes, yes, it's been a while since you last heard from the fat cats. They've been busy. As you can see, they've relocated to Las Vegas. One cross-country drive and some unpacking later, they are settling into their new routine.

Both cats have now lost three pounds each. I chalk it up to having more room in their Vegas apartment to play, plus marble floors that make toys extra hard to pin down. The commute from the bed to the food bowl is much farther here, so they naturally burn more calories. There's even talk of them soon having their own yard in which to play. (I, on the other hand, have found all six of those missing pounds since moving here, but that's a story for a different blog.)

A vet we saw in Topeka was actually worried that Tino had lost too much weight too quickly, so she upped his daily dose of insulin. A follow-up in Vegas revealed that he's maintaining nicely.

DeeDee and Tino have pretty much stuck to their two-cans-of-food-per-day regimen, but lately I've been giving in and serving them dry food when they wake me up for it in the middle of the night. To combat the extra calories, their dinner can has been downsized to one of the three-ouncers split between them.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight.

After finally accepting the fact that Tino and DeeDee must lose weight, I made an appointment with the obeasts' vet for advice on a game plan.

It had been a little over a year since the two had officially been weighed and I knew both had added on some chub. It wasn't until they got on the scale that it became obvious just how much had been added to their heft. DeeDee weighed in at over 19 pounds -- a pound or two up from last year. Tino, meanwhile, was over 18 pounds -- less than DeeDee, but considering he was 14 pounds just last year, that meant he'd put on about 30% of his body weight. Ruh-roh!

In medical terms: "That's insane," according to my vet.

Game Plan
I was asked, how much was I feeding them? Brace yourself. They split a can of wet food at night, and then have a "couple of scoops" of dry stuff throughout the day. My vet asked me how big a scoop was, then winced when I held up a one-cup measure. I was then informed that DeeDee and Tino should only be getting the canned food plus a 1/4 cup of dry food each. Oops!

I mentioned that Tino had been drinking more water than usual, so the vet tested his blood sugar, as weight gain and water drinking can be a sign of diabetes. Sure enough, his sugar was off the charts, meaning not only does Tino need to be on a diet, but he needs insulin injections and urine monitoring. Fun.

With this diagnosis, she recommended that the cats be switched to only wet food (a suggestion many of you made in the comments last week).

Health Stats
Diabetes is far from the only risk for fat cats. Veterinary researchers at Cornell University found that obese cats are also more likely to suffer from lameness due to arthritis or muscle injuries and non-allergic skin conditions. Read: Two things I'll have to be on the lookout for.

Even scarier? The report also found that fat cats are "twice as likely to die in middle age, which for cats is 6 to 12 years." Tino and DeeDee just turned 10, so they really have to pull it together! Diet starts today.

Wherein I try to get my pets to a healthy cat weight.

The obesity epidemic in America is a major health threat that affects almost half of all citizens. But what many don't know is that the pet obesity epidemic is nearly as prevalent. In fact, it currently affects up to 100% of all the cats in my household.

Meet Tino and DeeDee. They're brother and sister, rescued from the mean streets of Brooklyn by good people, then adopted by me, only to be overfed into rotund walking risk factors.

DeeDee and Tino recently turned ten years old and have started to slow down and plump up.

My vet had previously recommended they lose weight. I briefly tried to put them on a diet, but gave in when they started complaining daily at 4 am. When I noticed they were actually getting bigger, I was too embarrassed to take them to the vet again. So they just kept ballooning.

Recently I bought a scale and did that old weigh-yourself-then-weigh-yourself-with-the-cat trick to gauge just how portly they'd become -- and both cats clocked in at around 20 lbs. Eek!

I shared this information with my helpful brother, who'd noticed Tino's weight gain. JP responded, "I told you. Living in Kansas for six months now, I am able to be considered an expert when it comes to fat. I know a thickburger when I see one." The bottom line? These cats have to drop some pounds, so I took the first step in any human diet and fitness regimen: Procrastination.

Then I made an appointment with the vet to get professional advice on the healthiest way to successfully get them in shape.

Join the three of us here weekly as we check in with the tubs to measure their progress. I also hope you'll share in the comments your own experiences with helping your pets lose weight.