hi everyone. meet my big boy, sufjan. he's BIG and FAT and i absolutely adore him. anyways i've tried a few things but nothing seems to work... i've fed him high protein food his vet recommended, but he stopped eating it after a while, because he prefers temptations seafood medley. i also tried to feed him a dry/wet food diet, but he doesn't seem to like wet food at all. he's very chatty, so when he yowls for snacks, i try to play with him and distract him from his hunger, but it doesn't work. he plays fetch with me for 4-5 rounds before he plops back down like a diva. he does enjoy the outdoors so i give him supervised outside time for roughly 30-45 minutes a day besides attempting to play for another 30. he's much larger than his sisters, and when he's on a diet, he becomes more aggressive with them, which is why i give in to his begging. not sure where to go from here, so please share your experiences with dechonking your kitties :3

She’s been doing great. The vets said she can’t breathe while on her back and side so she’s been scaring me by asking for belly rubs and trying to roll all around. Her owners said she goes outside the litter box but I bought super shallow little disposable plastic trays and that has been perfect she’s using them just fine with no accidents. I believe they weren’t scooping often enough and they used a wood shaving letter which I’m sure didn’t help. Now really we need to bathe her. She plainly is stinky but also her skin is very dry and pealing. We’ve been using a very soft brush on her skin she loves it. I’m wondering if anyone knows a good shampoo to use? I’m thinking of just grabbing baby shampoo. Anyways enjoy the little video of my little naked chicken. She’s been so sweet and purrs so much.

Edit: I also have been adding a coat and skin oil supplement to her food!

She’s a little smaller in stature than your average chonk, (when I got her she was slightly underweight at 7 pounds/3 years old) but she is now 12.5 pounds so we have been advised by the vet to start keeping an eye on her weight 😔 We began measuring her food intake just these last two weeks, and will begin decreasing this week 🫡 wish us luck !!!

She's my first ever cat. My rotund baby needs to lose weight. She was an outdoor cat for the 2nd year of her life until we adopted her. She is absolutely FERAL for food. She'll find scraps in the sink filter if we forget to clean it. She'll tear open the trash. I had to weigh my trash can down with 20 lbs of barbells to prevent her from knocking it over. She cries and screams every time the pantry door opens.

She's been to the vet. They said she looks like a tick; huge body, little head. Everything seems normal. She's just an envoy for gluttony.

I feed her a quarter of a cup of Purina cat chow twice a day. That's 179 calories. Last weigh in was 10.5 lbs. We play with her and encourage her to run around the apartment but she gives up after a few minutes. She has a BCS of 7/8, and I'm not sure what her ideal weight should be. Maybe 8 lbs?

Everyone told me wet food was calorie dense, and to feed dry instead. Is this incorrect?

Is there something in her routine that needs to change? Is this an appropriate feeding schedule and amount?

I (F 23) have three cats and my white cat (Chesterbelle) is getting really fat and i dont know what to do. My other two cats Buster ( M 1 black tuxedo) and Kitchen (F 1 brown tabby) are brother and sister and they like to scrounge around and eat throughout the day. Chester likes to eat twice a day morning and night. I don’t know what to do because I feed them at 9 AM and at 6 PM twice a day and Chester will eat his food and go over and try to finish the other cats two foods. all my cats are neutered and spayed and have their updated vaccines. I don’t know what to do because Chester will go over and eat their food and drink a bunch of water and then he’ll want to throw up and he just keeps getting fatter. I don’t know what to do with Buster and Kitchen because they don’t want to eat all of their food at once. Buster will eat his food at once but Kitchen will not. i’ve seen those food bowls that open for the specific cat with a chip on their collar, but those are way too expensive and I can’t afford that. Any help/ideas?

TLDR: My one cat is a fat ass who keeps eating his brother and sisters food and idk what to do

This is Mr Macchiato! At one point, he was 16.6 pounds, but is now 10.4 pounds. His vet says he’s healthy and doesn’t need to lose any more weight, but I still get comments calling him a chonk or even use the “oh lord he coming” meme.

I guess I’m biased because I’ve seen him lose the weight, but does he look super chonky at first glance?

this is gerald, my 3 yr old orange boy. first pic is today and the last pic is the day i got him from the shelter 7 months ago. we went to the vet today (for unrelated reasons), and he's gained 5 POUNDS since i got him. i was shocked, as i feed him the recommend calories for a 12lb cat and we play daily. looking at home every day, i hadn't realized he'd gotten so big. i was so disappointed in myself and i guess we need to go on a diet.

any advice would be much appreciated as i want to make sure he's losing the weight healthily.

She was 17.4lbs at the end of may when surrendered. She is 13.1lbs today 🥳🥳

Vet told me a couple months ago her goal is 12lbs, just wanted another opinion (obviously will confirm with vet before changing her diet) cause she still looks super chonky lol just loose skin maybe? She still can’t reach her butt but waist snatched

Edit: 12yo but super healthy blood work

I could not tell you what she weighs we have no scale, but here some photos of her. Foot for scale There's a video in the comments cause i cant add more photos, thats her standing

Faye is officially on a diet. She’s over 14lbs, she has such a small frame that she would probably be happier under 10lbs. She isn’t able to groom herself very well, so I’ve gotta be the big mean mom & clean her butt.
She’s 5 years old and I’m still discovering her personality.

A big win for Diego

Today’s the day! I’m bringing Lady to get shaved, vaxxed, and checked up on then she’s coming home. Now I’m really looking for product advice. She’s too big to use a normal litterbox so I’m going to buy two sheet pans, put them side by side, then put them on top of litter mats. Let me know if anyone else has any better ideas. I think a pet pad under the mat would be good too. I found a good litterbox on chewy for senior cats but it’s 70$ so that will wait a month or two. I have two other cats so I’m going to keep Lady in my room for now and the other cats in the rest of the apartment so they can sniff through the door and all that fun stuff. Let me know if anyone has anything that they felt really helped them in the process of dechonking. Also I would love to know other people’s timelines I’ve been looking through other posts but it’s hard to keep track. How long until your kitty was able to self groom again and jump again? I’m feeling overall nervous but excited for those milestones. Thanks!

My mom got back to me today with the best possible update for Miss Desi. Everyone at the vet office fell in love with this sweet girl instantly and they have decided to keep her at the clinic as a resident office cat so she can have all her medical needs taken care of and have a supervised dechonking journey. Thank you to everyone who reached out with ideas for her and to those who actually inquired about taking her in. We are so glad she has found a great place to take care of her every need and get lots of love every day from all the kitty lovers at the clinic. 🧡🧡🧡

From 2022 to now, 2026.
First pic he was about 18 lbs, today he is steady at 9 lbs. At 16 years old too!
I hope we’ve expanded his life expectancy by de chonkin. He’s my best boy and been with me through everything.
Switched from free feeding to automatic feeder portioned, and wet food 2x a day on a schedule.
His vet says that since he’s 16 there’s just a bit of a decrease in kidney function but that’s to be expected, otherwise he’s in good shape!

Update: Desi has been adopted by the vet!!

This is Desi, her elderly dad died of cancer earlier this year and my sister was his nurse. She connected with the family and got Desi placed with our mom temporarily, but Desi was always an only cat and was very stressed by my mom's resident orange boy. After months of trying to acclimate them, my mom has made the decision to surrender her to the vet for further health evaluations given her size and to see if they'll be able to place her with another family, but she will end up being put down if they cannot find her a home. She would be perfect for anyone who recently lost a kitty and is looking to fill the void. She is located in Stillwater and she is super sweet, purrs up a storm when you give her scritchies, and obviously loves a treat. She was peeing outside the box but we suspect that was behaviorally related to disliking her kitty roommate 😭 I wish I lived closer to take her but I'm in another state and have a resident cat of my own.

My cat came to us at about a year old and was only 3.43kg (about 7.5 pounds) and she went to 14 pounds in 6 months - result of over feeding but we were unsure of age so anywayssss we are here and she has lost weight, she’s about 12 pounds now and few months since that weigh in and doing great but aside from her primordial pouch she has a lot of extra fat…just kinda hanging? lol…will that ever go away? Any tips? She’s about a year and 8 months now? She was a stray before so complete estimate

i think shes done. never posted here before. she was a little big, not suuuuper obese i think, but shes definitely lost weight over this past year!

what do you guys think? i think her big chest makes her look fat

I'm fostering a beautiful 5 year old 27lb male cat and he is currently on a dechonking diet via the vet. Thankfully he has no other health conditions other than chonky.

I was wondering if anyone has had a cat in a similar weight range and had diets their cat has been on and would like to share? (Understanding that every cat is unique and under vet's order!)

Also welcoming any tips, though the tips I've seen on this subreddit have been extremely helpful thus far.

My chonk gained a lot of weight when my dad convinced me he was underweight and I should free feed him at a year old. Big mistake. Lasted for a month before I noticed the damage and he started bad begging habits. Seven years later, my husband trips over him on the way to the food bowl and the little guy tears an ACL. Gains even more weight on crate rest.

We have another cat who has bad allergies, and my husband has contact reactions to gluten/wheat, so we can only feed them Science Diet Food Sensitivity, either duck or rabbit. So, my next thought is exercise.

While our other cat is a toy hunter, he is not. He will chase her to bully, and is a really good mouser if they get in the house, but it is really really hard to get him to engage with a toy. I can pick him up and snuggle him for a while, which he loves, but I know that doesn’t get him an exercise. As he has a bad leg, Im trying to find some gentle exercise for the boy. He has been able to run, and has been able to climb the cat tree, but I dont want to push it.

Our sweet Kali was given to us last year. Someone we know got dogs that used to mess with her and she would just hide in the closet and wouldn’t leave. I don’t know how long it was but she gained a lot of weight during that time. Ever since we got her we have given her lots of love and patience. She was extremely nervous (still is) but she has become attached to my hip and fully trusts me which I couldn’t be more grateful for. We got her on a feeding schedule, play with her and now that she is roaming the house freely she’s lost a lot of weight. She’s still got some ways to go but I feel like she’s so much happier now and it shows!

I feed her 1/6th cup of kibble in the morning, and another 1/6th cup in the evening

Here is the kibble i feed her, its even less than the bag recommends.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0848L7KXZ

I also give her one churu per day before i leave to go to work

and every 4-5 days or so i will give her one can of wet food instead of the kibble.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0169J3ANO

She is pretty active, she loves to sprint from one side of my room to the other.

She is 2.5 years old

She weighed 11 pounds when i last took her to the vet 6 months ago

I tried weighing her just now and it showed 12 pounds but it was on a human scale so idk how accurate it is

Am I doing something wrong? everyone's reaction when they see her is that she is fat and it is frustrating.

Okay so this is Boris. He is me and my boyfriend's cat that we adopted from the streets, he got rapidly overweight over the course of about 2 years (they were feeding him however much he wanted) and is currently at a bit above 7kg. We have been to the vet with him, got him his shots and a checkup, got his chip put on our name, and he is now on prescription food since about the beginning of July. He hasn't lost any weight??? He isn't gaining any weight either but obviously this seems very unhealthy for me

Some additional context:

He is 11 years old and neutered. He and his sister were originally my boyfriend's neighbours, but they moved to the US and simply left the cats there (We're from Europe). My in-laws decided to take him and his sister in when they started showing up in their garden, this was about two years ago, and we officially adopted him in july. His family had never owned any cats before, and neither had my boyfriend, so they were clueless. Me and my boyfriend do not live together yet as we're both students with a limited budget, but we decided that when we do move in together we will be taking both cats with us to give them the care they need. Veterinary budget is not necessarily a problem because his parents are willing to pay for it, but they also don't seem to be taking it very seriously. (Boyfriend does take it very seriously and monitors it as best as he can when I'm not around)

He is currently on 50 grams of Hills metabolic cat food, which he gets in 2 portions in the morning and evening (so 25grams in the morning and then again in the evening). I'm wanting to get additional blood work done, but we'll have to convince my boyfriend's parents to take him, and in the meantime I wanted to see if anyone here has experienced something similar and had any advice