Tamerlane

Tamerlane (aka Fuzz) is our oldest cat and turned 13 during Phase 2 of the Diet Switch. For most of his life he's been on the chubby side in addition to being a large cat to start with. Previous attempts to get him to lose weight failed. In fact, the only time he lost weight was when he had a thyroid tumor. After that was treated and cleared up, he gained back every ounce plus some.

Oddly, he's never been a really big eater, but for most of his adult life he's also been very inactive. In recent years he's developed some arthritis and by the time of the change in diet, had been on glucosamine for a couple of years. It helped some, but he was still unable to jump onto surfaces he was able to access when younger. 

Fuzz was delighted to get canned food at every meal. In fact, he began eating more than he ever had before, which alarmed us at first since we were aiming for weight loss. He did refuse to eat the Wellness grain-free food for some time before he finally developed a taste for it. 

First of all, he lost weight! We'd like to see him get past his current plateau and reach 16 pounds even but we're thrilled that he's gone from 19 pounds, 3 ounces to 16 pounds, 10 ounces. I wish I'd taken a "before" picture of his first weigh-in.

Since the diet change, he's become much more active. As I mentioned on the main Diet page, the increase in activity came before the weight loss, so I assume he was feeling better overall because he was finally getting the right nutrition. He's out and about in the house much more often now instead of sleeping in the upstairs closet, and he even frolics with cat toys - something he hadn't done for years.

Finally - and not surprisingly -  the weight loss appears to have lessened the effects of his arthritis. He's back to jumping onto the kitchen counters (I guess many people wouldn't view that as a positive change...) and the wall in the backyard.

We were hoping he would lose some weight with the new diet, but had no idea that it would "youthen" him by several years. I'm sorry we ever fed him dry food because a high-protein canned food diet obviously suits him much better.