How many calories

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LamontsMom

LamontsMom

Member Since 2015
Hi Everybody,

Lamont is, thankfully, doing fine. Eating, drinking, going to the bathroom all normally, normal glucose. He's been in remission for a month and never took insulin. His last fructosamine was 390 (a few weeks ago), which is within the range of a normal non-diabetic cat.

The past two days, he's been hungrier. Not ravenous, by a long shot, but eating everything on his plate, whining for a little more and then taking a bite, walking away knowing he has stuff there. Yes, he's madly in love with Cats in the Kitchen Chicken Frick a Zee and gobbles it up instantly, but...

I'm wondering: am I feeding him enough calories? Prior to two days ago, he usually left about 1/4 of the food on the plate so probably was getting about 200 calories or less per day. He's not more active. I'm wondering if his pancreas is healing and he wants to eat more? Or, it could be a phase.

He's a little over 11 pounds, 15 years old, not too active and I've seen calories estimates ranging from 176 -280 for a cat like him. He's still transitioning from 1/2 a can of Purina DM, 1/2 a can of Wellness Complete and 1/2 a 3.2 ounce can of Cats in the Kitchen Chicken Frick a Zee to full can of Wellness CORE Turkey/Duck and 1/2 a can of Cats in the Kitchen Chicken Frick a Zee. Total calories for the DM/Complete/Cats is about 240 . Total Calories for CORE/Cats is about 225. He's transitioning because I bought all of that food, want to finish it because I pay for a new case of food. He LOVES the taste of Wellness CORE + Chicken Frick a Zee.

He's lean-ish, not skinny. And he does have a tumor which may or may not be malignant (it hasn't changed in size in 10 months.)

Any suggestions? Should I keep feeding him if he wants more? What have you guys done?

Thanks!
 
Is it possible that he is hungrier some days than others because the "half a can" actually varies? Or that he eats quickly when he really loves it and the part of the brain that says "you're full" doesn't kick in fast enough?

Rosie will most definitely eat more than she should. She eats a variety of foods and the way we (try to) maintainer sanity is to think of everything in terms of cans of FF. Once we had the calories all figured out, it seems she needs roughly the equivalent of 2 1/2 cans of FF a day. so, 1/4 can FF equivalent of some of her other foods is how we think of them. This seems really dopey as I see it in print but what can I say? It works for us! LOL!

Before Rosie was diagnosed, she had some very hungry days. We were never sure why, but she still is more hungry some days than others. We tend to go with that flow a little bit. I am hunger some days than others, too.
 
Thanks for the info and sanity check :-) , Lydia! The 1/2 can does vary and once I started with Chicken Frick a Zee, he gobbled that all up and left some of the rest behind. It seems like introducing the Chicken Frick a Zee whetted his appetite. What you wrote doesn't seem dopey, btw. It's kind of what I'm doing.

I guess I'll just go with the flow....
 
We had a pet sitter that, when I left instructions to feed "half a can," would eyeball that by scooping it out instead of cutting the little puck o' pate in half. I know she thought we were nuts when I explained. And, let's face it, we are.
 
lol, Lydia! I'm eyeballing it, btw. But so far, until yesterday, it's been working...I wish there was something like an apple corer for cat food .

And Mogs, thanks for the great suggestion. I will.
 
Okay, now you will report us and have us taken away--Have you considered weigh the food for a while. I had to do that for my CKD dog. I cooked for him and it was hard keeping weight on him. All his portions were weighed so I didn't obsess quite so much over each bowl of food and wonder how much was actually in there.
 
Frequently weight Lamont if loosing weight and that is not desired then feed more.
If weight is steady where you want feed the same.
If gaining wait and that is not wanted feed more.
 
lol! I think I'd drive myself even more nuts than I already am with all this if I weighed his food. What I'm hoping to do is get the right combo before I buy cases. The CORE/Frick A Zee is a winner and I suspect I need to add more than 1/2 a can of the Frick a Zee (or maybe a scoop of some FF Classic Chicken Feast which he also likes a lot but I'm staying away from because of it's high phosphorus...I suspect a small scoop a day isn't going to hurt him...)
 
I weigh weekly. I just use a human scale and weigh myself, and myself plus Shenandoah, and take the difference (ugh, that has the side effect of having to see how my own weight is doing every week, too :eek:). It's a little less accurate than a dedicated scale, but as long as I don't see an overall trend in the wrong direction I'm not concerned.
If you want to buy something more accurate, pretty much any baby scale will work. You can get them at Toys-R-Us, Walmart, Target, etc.
 
Thanks, Shenandoah. I think I'll just use the human scale. As long as I don't see a trend. Plus, my scale is old, I was planning on getting a new one (plus, ahem, one of my New Year's resolutions is to start working out more) so I'm going to get a human digital one on ebay...
 
Thanks, Mogs! This probably was an overreaction on my part. He's now back to his usual finicky eating (eating about 1/4 of the bowl, coming back in a few hours, eating more, etc. etc.)

Love the chart. Lamont's a 5. But he was a 9 last summer, which I guess explains the diabetes.. :-(
 
Glad Lamont's more himself. :) (Always a relief! I'm a dyed-in-the-wool helicopter kitty momma, too. :rolleyes: ;) )

Catch ye on the morrow.


Mogs
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