It was a challenge with another cat and a dog in the house

Sadly it was other cat's passing that was the catalyst for us to be able to get him to commit to his diet no matter how much it pissed him off LOL

He is now happy to jump up on counters and is able to groom himself just fine <3

Used to be 18 lbs each (2021). They’ve been at 12 lbs for years now. Found these old photos of my chonkers and wanted to share :)

This is Piggy.

Legal name: Fatty Patty Also referred to as: Patpat, Peet, Peetpeet, Deetdee, Piggy, Bunny, and Baybay Age: 6 Years, 6 months Weight: Unknown, but less than it was the first time around Dimensions: 12" tall, 24" from nose to tail tip Nationality: Canadian

It has been 6 months since Piggy has started her dechonking journey. I'm not certain of the exact amount of weight she has lost as I don't have a scale, but in my opinion, there is at least a significant visual difference. On top of a visual difference, I have noticed Piggy becoming a little bit more playful with her sister, which is a huge improvement because only six months ago if Mimi tried to initiate any play Piggy would hiss and growl at her (exhibit A, photograph 2). Now they actually chase each other around the house and up and down the basement stairs with very minimal hissing. As well, Piggy seems a little bit more flexible when grooming herself!

She is obviously not at a healthy weight yet, but the improvement is nice to see. Until this morning I had never noticed how much progress she has made, but now I can see it now in her face, neck, shoulders, and front paws. Proud of you Piggy.

My kitty lived with my ex for about 3 months last summer and rapidly gained weight and developed behavioral issues/depression. My ex finally agreed to give him back and this is where he is now! There’s a 2 pound weight difference between the photos. I love my baby.
Here are all the lifestyle changes we made:
Wet food (Purina pro plan or purina one) with added water
Probiotics (Fortiflora)
Psyllium husk
Fish oil
Food puzzles
Leashed walks and trick training

Tigger’s brother loves to sit in the open window, and while tigger is still too big to get all the way up onto the window sill (thank goodness or else he would pop out the screen lol) after watching his brother in the window he got the courage to try. Lo and behold after a couple of practice lunges he made it!

The first 2 pictures were taken when we went to meet tigger in all of his 35lb glory. I don’t think I have ever felt a cat this dense before in my life, the poor boy felt like an over inflated balloon, about to pop.

3 was the first night we brought him home, he was so nervous and wouldn’t leave the bedroom for almost a week he ate all of his meals under the bed or right beside it

In picture 4 he finally started loosing some weight! I think he was down about 2 or three pounds here and his fur and skin was finally seeing improvements after a few baths and a whole lot of brushing.

In picture 5 we finally got into a good daily exercise routine! We didn’t go very far at first, just up and down a few stairs. But every day he made it a little bit farther before he would lay down and quit!

In #6 the spring flowers were in full bloom and his favourite activity was stopping to smell all the flowers in the yard and he loved to try to chase the bugs and eat the grass. He had lost 5lbs at this point and was able to walk around the whole back yard and do all the stairs down and back up, huge progress!

In picture #7 we discovered that he doesn’t hate the pool, and it was a great way for him to get exercise and stay cool at the same time! And when he was done with the pool he would bask in the sun to dry off

Picture #8 is mister Tigger just a couple of weeks ago, guarding the bags he worked so hard to kill (they make lots of noise when he lays on them and he loves it) and he has lost almost 7lbs!

Tigger still has a long way to go on his dechonking journey, 28lbs is still way too much weight but in 14 months he has come such a long way! I don’t think that he looks like he has lost that much weight but he feels much less dense. His belly is actually squishy now and not hard like a marble under some greasy fur. And you can feel his spine! (And ribs if you really look for them) his joints aren’t swollen anymore and he can run like a bat out of hell when he wants to.

We have been very lucky that he has no health concerns at all. His vet says that his joints, organs, lymph nodes, and thyroid all look great, there’s no concern about diabetes, and he has the most gorgeous teeth and eyes that she has ever seen in a cat of his stature. I’m hoping that he continues to loose weight well and in 2-3 more years we can have him at his goal weight!

The first picture is from October, when Yoda was I think around 15 lbs. I took his weight a few weeks ago (around when the second picture was taken) and he measured out to 11.5 lbs!

The steps I took were 1) Getting him an auto feeder, 2) gradually over months reducing the portion sizes, now at 50g daily. and 3) leash training him, and taking him for daily walks around the hallways of our apartment complex.

I'm so proud of him (and me!).

Pictures 1-4 are recent 5-10 are all in the first few weeks we brought him home and shelter listing photos.

When we brought our boy Tigger home he weighed in at 35lbs. 23 months and almost 15lbs later he looks like a completely different cat!

He still has a way to go yet but he has had more progress than either us or his vet was expecting. He is happy, healthy, active and thriving and I am so happy that we have the privilege of helping him get his life back 🩷

At 35lbs he was unable to clean himself past the top of his chest. The only thing he ran for was food or the litter box, and he didn’t know how to play or do normal cat things.

Now at just over 20lbs he can clean himself all on his own from tip to tail. He gets the zoomies and runs around just for fun because he can. His favourite toys are laser pointers, ping pong balls and fishing rod style toys. He loves going outside for long walks on his leash in the back yard and playing with his little orange brother Bentley.

Give the big kitties a chance. It can be hard and it can be expensive depending on any preexisting health conditions, food, etcetera. But it is the most rewarding thing in the world to give an animal their life back. They complain a whole lot at first ( I mean who enjoys dieting ) but they are appreciative in the long run. There is nothing like watching them realize that they can climb onto the back of the couch, or reach the window, or hell even reach the bag of cat treats you keep up high on the counter. Every single milestone feels like magic and I would do it all over again a thousand times over 🩷

My boy, Moon, was hanging out around 12.6-12.8 lbs but he's a pretty small-boned cat (and therefore body condition score was not good) so the vet recommended we get down to around 10lbs and see what his body condition looked like.

We tried different types of food (high protein, different protein types, prescription weight loss food) and different feeding styles (fewer meals, more meals, meals more concentrated at night vs morning) and nothing worked, but ultimately what cracked the case was wet food! We switched about a third of his calories from dry to wet food (originally it was ~1/8 of his calories) and he started making progress!

We're now at 10.8 lbs after five months! He's become much more playful and active and his body condition looks pretty good (more of a 6 than the 8 he was when we started), but we'll see what the vet says in terms of any more weight loss.

The best thing about this is that now he can spend time in his catio during the summer! I was a bit nervous about letting him be out there in the heat when he was so overweight, just because I didn't know if he'd really be able to judge when he needed to cool down inside.

I love my cat Carlo so much. He and his two siblings came to us during a really rough period in our lives, and they helped us find some happy moments even when everything else was falling apart (look at the second picture, how can’t you be happy if you wake up and look at these faces).

His brother is at a perfectly normal weight, but Carlo put on a lot of weight after he was neutered.
He's an absolute master thief and also an outdoor cat, so even with an automatic feeder and every trick we could think of, we just didn’t manage to prevent him from getting bigger.

At his heaviest he weighed horrible 24 lbs. (For comparison, his lean brother is 14 lbs, so they're both on the larger side.)

Finding this group was a huge inspiration for me, and it pushed me to really step things up, because I want him to stay healthy.

The recommendations for Royal Canin Satiety wet and dry food were a total game changer, though we had very good wet food, but this works so good for satiety for him.

For the past months I've supervised every single meal so he couldn't steal anything (most of the time).

I'm proud to say he's lost his first 3
lbs! We still have a long way to go, but we're getting there, and I really think we can do this.

Even if he still pulls off the occasional heist when no one's looking, tears open a whole bag, eats every last bite, and then just lies there, too stuffed to move 😆

A year ago I introduced Houdini to this sub. Original Post

He topped out at 26 lbs in 2023, but lost several pounds when he got a nasty UTI which led to a diabetes misdiagnosis. Luckily the misdiagnosis sent me down the cat food rabbit hole, and he went off dry food entirely. He hung out around 23lbs until we lost our special needs cat, Brenda, the day after Christmas in 2023. With her over the rainbow bridge, we threw ourselves into learning about his dietary needs.

It took a lot of work. We tried several kinds of scales, and several types of food. As a humongous cat he struggled to stay on baby scales, so we finally landed on a luggage scale. We tare the weight with the carrier on the hook, add him to the carrier, and voila we have his weight.

I counted calories like a maniac, and caught my husband sneaking him treats several times. I've had to hide food from my husband more often than the cat, but we've gone down to 155kcals per day at his lowest (3 small cans of wet food through the day, 1 churu snack when my husband gets home, and 1 teaspoon of dry food as a bedtime snack).

He is such a cuddly snuggly boy, we struggled with getting him active. So we started with a bird feeder on the picture window behind the couch, and it quickly became his spot. As the birds became more active, he became more active stalking them across the window sill and pouncing at the glass. And as the weight came off, he wanted to play more. We used motion activated toys, wand toys, but he is all dog and responds best to fetch. He loves his wubbas and his fish, and goes absolutely bonkers for chasing them, carrying them, and even feeding them to us.

We are 2 years in, and he is officially under 15.5 lbs. He is still my cuddly snuggly boy who sleeps through the night in bed between us. He still lays in my lap when I'm working from home (no matter what opinion my bladder has). But he also has a pile bigger than he is of mice and fish and balls he loves to chase around the house, and he has a family of woodpeckers he ekk ekk ekks at from his window every day. Unfortunately no matter how much weight he's lost he does not get more time with the brain cell, but we love him all the more for his antics.

So I make this post to tell everyone on the journey: don't give up. When it feels like you're not making any progress, just keep holding on. When it feels like they're begging for food constantly, consider adjusting the volume and frequency of feedings but hold on. When it feels like they just don't have any interest in playing with you, hold on. It's not a race, so if you hold on you will make it to the finish line and you will have a happier, healthier furball.

13.6lbs to 11.2lbs from August 2025 to now 😊 the vet says her goal is around 10lbs so she's getting close! Im very proud of my little girl and her progress

Luna was originally 8kg to begin with. First pic is when we started her diet about a year ago. Pics 2 and 3 are her at 6.4kg. The vet says she just needs to lose at least 1.5kg left. She's over halfway there!!! She's on prescribed royal canin satiety kibble, 40 grams a day with about 15 grams of regular canned food mixed in water for hydration purposes (She's almost 13, and senior kitties are at higher risk of kidney failure, and she doesn't like drinking water, so her "soups" are her way of us bribing her to get the water she needs).

She's so different now that she's lost so much weight. She gets the zoomies almost every day and sprints up and down the hall and play fights with her sister, Selina. She's like a kitten again!

Ukulele was a little bit chonky at his vet visit last year - down from 16.3 pounds to 13.6 this year. The vet complimented him on his progress that she hardly ever sees weight loss progress like this. The two pics in the harness are his current weight.

The vet said he could still stand to lose another pound or two. So proud of his progress!

He eats about 200-210 calories per day. Half pack of wet food twice a day with about 1/8 cup dry food twice a day. He also gets some treats every day for training. I play with him at least 10 minutes twice a day with a 30 minute leash walking outside. He's my best buddy!

*pictures are out of order near the end. Last picture is from Saturday!

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Showing off Socks's weightloss over the years! Someone said he was a "fatty" recently and I was a little offended.

She has a pouch but swipe for the above view. We used to really struggle with her weight because our roommates free fed their cats so we couldn't stop her from eating it. But our roommates started putting their cats on a schedule and we got better at checking with each other to make sure she hadn't already been fed and she's much thinner than before. Does she look like this is the size to stick with to you? Any tips for switching to maintenance calories?

Some of you might remember Piggy. Like come on, who could forget that vacant stare? That sensational body? Those kitty-cankles.

As much as I loved her roundness, Piggy had made great progress over the last year! She weighed somewhere around twenty pounds when she started her journey, but just a month ago at the vet she weighed in at 15.2lbs! Still large for her size (she is only 24 inches long from her nose to the tip of her tail), but the improvement has been great! Both for her physique and her energy levels! Piggy is running, jumping, playing with her sister. She has discovered a new activity of jumping from the back of the couch to the kitchen counter, and I can't even be mad at her for being on the counter because it is something she was never able to do before. Her general energy levels are higher than they were a year ago; although she still spends most of her day cat-napping, it's more of a 30:70 split of wake/sleep than a 15/85 split. She is also way more accepting of play from her sister; before when her sister would try to engage in play she would hiss and fight her off, but now it has developed into actual play fighting, with Piggy initiating more of it now!

Speaking of Piggy's sister, Mimi, I included a one year progress picture of her as well. They eat out of the same food bowl through the day, but eat separately for their wet food servings. Because of this, Mimi has inadvertently lost about two pounds as well! Mimi has always been leaner (the photos are deceiving, she's actually bony) but you can see it more obviously without petting her now!

Anyways that is the progress. Diet going strong, just wanted to share the success!