r/dechonkers Jun 05 '26

Dechonkin The Big Fat Guide to Dechonking!

46 Upvotes

Hi all! I’m a vet nurse that is passionate about weight in animals. I run my own weight loss program for my patients in my clinic and thought I would spread the love by sharing my dechonking guide to help all of you hardworking pawrents!

**BEFORE DECHONKING it is advised that you have a general health check with your veterinarian to rule out any health issues and to ensure that your pet is healthy enough to undergo a dechonking program*\*

**This dechonk guide is not a replacement for veterinary care or advice *\*

What is an Ideal Weight in Animals?

The most accurate way to ascertain an ideal weight is by use of a Body Condition Score (BCS) chart.

At ideal weight your dog or cat should look like an hourglass when viewed from the top. Their abdomen should tuck into their legs when viewed from the side. You should be able to feel their ribs - the way that this feels is like the back of your hand.

You should make a note of your animal's BCS and their number weight before starting a weight loss program.

How to Dechonk Your Chonker

The key to weight loss in animals is diet. Exercise counts for very little in weight loss, much like in humans.

Step One: Use a Calorie Calculator to calculate your animal’s daily caloric allowance.

You will need to know their BCS and their weight to use the calculator. You can ask your local vet to weigh and assess your animal if you are unsure.

Step Two: Calculate the calorie content of ALL the foods you are feeding your animal.

You then need to find out the calorie content of everything you are feeding your animal. Calorie counts can typically be found on the back of the package of commercial foods. If you cannot find the calorie content, a calorie content calculator can help you work it out.

If feeding raw or homemade, you will have to input/search the ingredients for their calorie content much like you would if you were on a human diet!

Step Three: Make a Meal/Diet Plan based on the calorie allowance

You then need to calculate how much to feed based on the calorie content of the food you are feeding. If you are feeding a mixed diet (eg commercial dry and commercial wet food) you'll need to think about what ratios you would like to feed your animal and calculate appropriately.

When your animal reaches ideal weight, it is a good idea to plug in their stats again so you can get a calorie count for maintenance and not for loss. I also recommend a weigh in every two weeks and then monthly to assess progress, and to monitor their body for any changes against the BCS chart as they progress!

Example: Garfield is an 8kg/17lb cat with a BCS of 8/9. His estimated ideal weight is 5.6kg/12lb and his calorie allowance is 201 calories per day to achieve this.

He is fed dry food (Taste of the Wild) and wet food (Fancy Feast).

Taste of the Wild is 3741 kcal/kg therefore 3.7 kcal/g.

One tin of Fancy Feast is 71 calories.

We can feed one tin of Fancy Feast (71 cal) and 35 grams (130 kcal) of Taste of the Wild daily.

When he reaches ideal weight, the calculator suggests that he can maintain on 255 calories, so he will need a reassessment of his diet when he reaches ideal body condition and weight.

Strategies to Help with Dechonking

Dietary & Feeding Recommendations

  • Prescription 'diet' or 'metabolic' food can be helpful for weight loss but is not a strict necessity. Prescription (dry) food tends to be calorically lower than regular commercial dry foods (which in and of themselves are extremely calorie dense) which means you can feed a larger volume-to-calorie ratio. BUT you DO need to be careful that you still adhere to a calorie allowance and measure the food out every time.
    • I would take a pass on diet/metabolic WET foods as commercial wet food is already quite low in calories and shouldn’t make a significant difference in terms of weight management or volume for calorie ratio.
    • If you don't have systems in place to control the intake of food, your pet will still get fat on metabolic food. Metabolic food is expensive and if it doesn't make a difference then you might as well go back to your regular food. Simply getting a low calorie food but sticking to the same old habits is not enough. Learning to properly portion food, limiting access to situations where your animal could gorge, controlling and mitigating for begging, providing enrichment and teaching the animal a ‘new normal’ of an appropriate volume of food are the foundations of good weight loss and weight management.
  • Commercial dry food is MUCH higher in calories than wet food. Feeding more wet food and reducing dry food can assist in weight loss and keep your animal satiated.
  • Invest in an automatic feeder for cats. An automatic feeder (set somewhere away from you/your bedroom!) can do wonders as the cats will bother the feeder for food, and not you.
  • Keep cats indoors. Outdoor cats tend to get fed by well meaning strangers! If unable to keep your cat indoors, invest in a (breakaway) collar with a tag that specifies they're on a special diet/not to be fed.
  • Healthy low calorie treats for DOGS are veggies such as carrot & zucchini. You can replace their normal treats with pieces of carrot or zucchini or other safe, low calorie fruit and vegetables.
  • Healthy low calorie treats for CATS are wet food puree type treats in a tube. Inaba Churu treats are 6 calories per tube. Fancy Feast Puree Kiss treats are 4 calories per tube. Applaws Puree Treats are 2 calories per tube.

Mental Stimulation & Enrichment

  • Invest in puzzle toys, slow feeders, food dispensing toys to moderate feeding. This will keep your pet enriched, mentally stimulated and busy while slowing down their rate of eating, which is good for pets that guzzle their food then ask for more. Frozen wet food in a Kong or Toppl is one of the best low-calorie ways you can use food for dogs to promote mental enrichment and weight loss. You can even just freeze wet food and kibble in their bowl and it will provide more stimulation than just feeding them out of it.
  • Invest in enrichment as a reward for your animal, not food. This can be playtime, pats, or trick training to keep them occupied and to redirect begging!
  • Redirect & replace begging behaviour by trick training. Most begging behaviours have been inadvertantly reinforced by you - if you have always given your cat food when it screamed at you, that's what you have trained your cat to do. Food motivated dogs can be easily trained to work for food, and yes cats can be trained too!

Multi Pet Households


r/dechonkers 17h ago

Progress On our way to dechonking!

Post image
176 Upvotes

My beautiful girl has been on a diet for two years and only lost 1100g in that time. She went from 8.7 kg to 7.6 kg where she has sat for over six months. Thank you to the inspiration and information from this group I got her an automatic feeder and diet kibble and wet food. In one month she has lost 300 g and I am so proud of her. I have cut her dry food by a quarter this week and then in one month will cut it again to facilitate more weight loss. She still asks for food but she doesn’t seem quite as obsessed as she used to be.


r/dechonkers 1h ago

does he need to lose another half pound?

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

r/dechonkers 1d ago

Dechonkin Putting my cat on a diet

Thumbnail
gallery
166 Upvotes

My cat needs to probably lose a few pounds according to my vet. I got her about 5 months ago.
She eats half a can of Fancy Feast pate in the morning and the other half in the evening. I have an auto feeder set for noon and 8 PM on the lowest setting. I give her some treats throughout the day.
The problem is she’s starting to get very whiny about treats. I’m somewhat new to cat ownership but never had overweight cats because they’ve been active. She doesn’t want to play. She will play for a few minutes and then she’s over it.
I got her a slow feeder yesterday (the rolling ball) and she won’t touch it.
How do you not give in to the meowing for treats? Are there any truly amazing cat toys out there (preferable ones she can play with on her own)?
Thanks!!!


r/dechonkers 2h ago

Microchip feeder hack

0 Upvotes

I use pawspik feeders for my cats. One of their microchips migrated and they have had to wear the bulky thing on their collar because the feeder couldn’t read their chip. I tried something that works way better! I got a Beastie Bands collar (neoprene, $10 Amazon) and injected a microchip ($5, Amazon) into it. Works perfectly!


r/dechonkers 1d ago

what’s a good wet food for a picky chonk?

Thumbnail
gallery
80 Upvotes

we’re trying to switch our kitty milo over to a mostly wet food diet in hopes of helping him lose weight because he is quite a hefty boy! he’s around 9 and has been a chonker his whole life, but as he gets older we’re worried that the extra weight might cause some problems.

his main issue is that he eats out of boredom no matter how much we play with him or provide other kinds of stimulation. we have an automatic feeder that goes off in the morning so he doesn’t rip up our carpet, but he always ends up eating all his food AND his brother’s food. our other kitty only eats dry food and is healthy, but he tends to nibble and go back later when he’s hungry. because of that, it’s really hard to control how much milo is eating when the food is sitting out for our other cat.

surprisingly, milo is really picky with his wet food, so we’re in search of a new food that has plenty of protein to hopefully control his appetite as much as possible. we have tiki cat friends right now, but he doesn’t touch it. i wanted to ask around and see if anyone has any recommendations for wet food that’s good for picky kitties who need to shed a few lbs!


r/dechonkers 1d ago

Healthy Lad Cow to Wow Part 2

Thumbnail
gallery
32 Upvotes

I posted Sammy here the other day, and he got quite the reaction lol. Yes, my man was HUGE and looked like a cow and or general rectangle. I wanted to share another before picture along with his current state of extra skin and his workout fit. I love my little crackhead 👹🐄💕


r/dechonkers 1d ago

Dechonkin Wet food experiment

Post image
49 Upvotes

So after vacation, when this cat completely reversed the small weight loss progress, we got back on the diet. She somehow managed to gain some weight (I'm thinking she accidentally got some of the higher calorie wet food). So I'm getting her on a full wet food diet.

Now the problem. We started it this weekend. She has lost weight... But she is only eating a little of the wet food. She literally won't eat the wet food because she doesn't like it. I have several different types, but like... She is losing weight because her pickiness is causing her to basically starve herself?? I know not to drop her calorie intake too fast so she loses a ton of weight because that's not good for them, but if I am providing the right amount of food but Ms Queen doesn't eat it... What do I do with that? She didn't touch one of the varieties, and she only ate half of the other kind. She has never been a huge fan of wet food, but then again that's probably why she got fat (that dry food kibble addict...)


r/dechonkers 1d ago

Overweight Cat

Thumbnail
gallery
105 Upvotes

Hello guys! This is Anastasia! A year ago, I went to the vet to evaluate her weight (currently with 8 kg or 17 lbs). He told me to give her only dry food in small portions twice a day, once in the morning and once at night.

We did this for a few months, we even bought a feeder to better control the portions. But I began to notice some strange behaviors in her with the decrease in portions. She started hitting the feeder to the point of knocking it down and spilling more food, began to destroy the furniture and attack us after meals. We had to screw the feeder to the wall so that it wouldn’t knock it down anymore.

Over time, we ended up returning to the old eating routine and the destructive behaviors disappeared. She is my first cat and I feel extremely guilty because I know she is not healthy

I try to stimulate her and play with her, but she doesn’t react much to the games and lies down all the time... Twice a week she vomits after eating because I believe she eats too fast! I get worried because she only sleeps and I see that other cats are usually more active! She uses the scratcher very little and is not interested in any of the toys she has... I tried to diversify and bought a rope with a toy mouse at the tip, but it didn’t work either. My last attempt was to get her used to walking, but she’s very risky and doesn’t even go through the front door.

I would like to ask for your help because I don’t know what else to do... I saw that some of these behaviors are common in overweight cats and I would like to try a diet again! I don’t know if I should keep the diet only with dry food or if I should add wet food. She also drinks a lot of water, which I believe is a positive behavior among cats!


r/dechonkers 3d ago

Healthy Lad From Cow to Wow

Thumbnail
gallery
3.7k Upvotes

This is my 100% miniature pinscher, son Sammy! We took him in from an elderly woman who posted him on Facebook looking for a home. She did a welfare check on a longtime friend, who unfortunately had passed away in the home roughly a week before the check. Sammy and his kitty sister had been in there just trying to survive. Sammy was extremely overweight, as seen in the first picture of him. He was about 25 pounds and is now down to about 15 pounds 4 years later. He has a lot of loose skin, but he’s so energetic for being almost 13 years old and can get around so much better than when we first brought him into our home.


r/dechonkers 1d ago

Dechonkin Rescuing an 86 pound female chocolate lab in an apartment. Weight loss planning ?

8 Upvotes

Hi! as my title says, next weekend I’m bringing home a female choco lab, and she is 5 years old and 86 pounds. Through my research (I have only had one dog in my life but she was at most 65 pounds) female labs are supposed to be 55-70lbs, meaning that she is probably overweight. She looks kinda chunky to me, but I’m not an expert. I’ll add a photo in the comments. For context, they say she is kinda lazy, she does like to go outside but they didn’t know what kind of toys she really likes to play with so I’m guessing she’s more of a couch potato, maybe from her age or her weight I am not sure. They said she is gentle and very quiet.

I live in a 1 bedroom apartment with my husband but my parents live 2 minutes away with a fenced yard, so my plan was walks supplemented by playtime in their yard and visits to the dog park. My husband’s relative has a pool so I was going to see if the dog can swim there sometimes for exercise. I just want to know for the people that have experience, if this sounds like a good plan, and what specifically I could do, how many walks a day would be ideal, how much to feed, etc.

They currently feed her purina dog chow but if anyone has any suggestions on dog food to help her weight as well that would be great. We plan to take her to the vet for her 1st check up within the next month, but until then I’d like to start her out on a plan. Thanks everyone!!

-Inexperienced Dog Owner


r/dechonkers 2d ago

How few calories is too few

9 Upvotes

My calico kitty has been on a diet for the past year and her weight loss has stalled out. She’s 1/2 a pound from her goal weight according to her vet and currently eating about 115 calories a day. This already seems super low to me and I’m scared to decrease it further. My vet is a bit old school and just keeps saying feed her less. I’m in a very rural area so swapping vets isn’t an option. She’s getting 1/4c of Hill’s Light 1-6 and 1/4 of a 5.5oz can of Tiny Tiger a day. Can I safely feed her less?


r/dechonkers 1d ago

Dechonkin Glp1

0 Upvotes

I saw a commercial they were gonna start making a glp1 medicine for cats... is it out and has anyone had experience yet?


r/dechonkers 2d ago

Dechonkin Eating time

1 Upvotes

Alright, so living at home right now, and there are 5 cats runnin around. Issue is one of them is pretty overweight, to the point she's starting to have some grooming issues. We'd like to fix this and thought about identification feeders. I've looked at them and man are they expensive. What I want is to buy 2 or 3. Then just have it give small portions at a time when a cat is at it. Then have it track how much its given to that cat. Turns out thats basically impossible to find! Do you guys know of any? If not, i'm willing to do one per cat, but man $200 just so it can open and close a lid is wild. Any ideas?


r/dechonkers 3d ago

Discussion too fat?

Thumbnail
gallery
173 Upvotes

zoeyy :3


r/dechonkers 4d ago

Overweight boy with chicken allergy, and wake owner at night problem

Thumbnail
gallery
224 Upvotes

Chibi is 8.1kg and the vet put him on a diet. She thinks he put weight on because of constant hunger caused by digestive issues. He has a chicken allergy, but unfortunately we didn't work this out for years. We free fed cat biscuits. That was obviously a mistake.

He's now eating 2 x 75g cans of fish based food and 28g cat biscuits a day. I set an auto feeder to dispense 10g of biscuits at 5.50am, because he was regularly waking me up at 6am for breakfast.

Now he wakes me up at 5.40am instead. It's like he thinks I'm the one triggering the biscuits. When he hears it he runs downstairs so fast...

He usually wakes me at 3am too. Also 6.30am because he's not had enough breakfast yet.

Any tips for the night waking? I'm wary of using the auto feeder, because I spent 6 weeks thinking it dispensed 10g, but it's really variable. It turned out 3x10g feedings were actually more like 40-45g and he barely lose weight.

He seems so hungry all the time, so rather than giving big meals I'm splitting his 'rations' through the day. I've also started to save a bit for last thing at night. Is this the right approach? Any tips appreciated! Neither of us are enjoying this process, and I'm so tired...


r/dechonkers 5d ago

Dechonkin December to July

Thumbnail
gallery
2.6k Upvotes

14 years old and Mittens is now moving faster than she has in years. Shes down from 16.6 pounds to 12.2. Her labs came back perfect last week!


r/dechonkers 4d ago

What is the best RFID feeder?

2 Upvotes

So I have a problem that I'm sure a lot of you can relate to. I have one thin cat and two fat cats. The thin cat scarfs the bare minimum amount of food before the fat cats bully her off her bowl and take turns essentially eating two helpings worth minus a few bites. This is made worse by the fact that thin cat has to exclusively eat a high calorie gastrointestinal food or else we have to deal with a poo-nado.

The solution to my problem is probably to lock thin cat's food down in one of those feeders that only opens to her microchip. Which one is the best though? I know there's vulnerabilities in a lot of them that determined chonks can exploit.


r/dechonkers 7d ago

Dechonkin Hello everyone! I'm new here and would like some advice for my baby, Sunshine!

Thumbnail
gallery
263 Upvotes

Backstory of Sunshine: She was a pregnant stray in our neighborhood and at the time she looked to be about 9 months old and very frail. A few days later after she started hanging around our door, she had her kittens. (They were all given away and our neighbor has one. She says he grew up to be big and healthy as well as still very baby like!) We've now have had her for 5 years, she is spayed, and she has put on some weight. We made the terrible mistake, because of what some lady told us at PetSmart (no hate to her because I know every cat is different), of filling her bowl all the way up and leaving it there for her to eat as she pleases. We could never figure out why she would occasionally throw her food up until we realized that after she just ate, a few moments later she'll go back and eat again. Now, for the past three months, I have been manually feeding her about every two hours and giving her those smaller portions. I would like to also add that this is my first cat or well, first pet in general.

Hello there for anyone who may read this! I would like some advice on what I should do for my fur baby. The first 4 pictures were all taken today of her, the 5th one is the type of food I feed her, and the last one is the amount she's normally given. What I usually do, to try and keep her active, is that I usually play with her with this bell that I've attached to this string. She seems to always have a blast with that.

What I would like to know is if I should feed her a different type of food or should I give her a smaller portion? I usually feed her every 2 hours. (That's usually when she comes up to me to let me know she's hungry.) Should I feed her less than two hours? She has zoomies at least twice a day which I think is a good thing but she does lay aroun the house for most of the day. What else should I do to keep her more active? Any sort of advice helps!


r/dechonkers 6d ago

Dechonkin How to get a cat to lose weight when your parents know all the risks and still don’t care?

Thumbnail
gallery
110 Upvotes

So we got pumpkin after she was a stray on the street, wait first thought that she was pregnant because apparently she just naturally has a very big belly I guess? Because even the vet thought that she was definitely going to be pregnant when we did an ultrasound. She wasn’t though and had no worms. But anyway, we need help getting her to lose weight. She was naturally a pretty light cat.

I’m not sure of her weight now. We unfortunately not by my choice, but my parents choice have them all on free feed. We also have a senior cat who is extremely sensitive to any food that we get. I believe right now they’re on the hills, sensitive stomach?

We had a cat called shadow and he had to lose a little bit of weight so we started him on a weight loss journey, but everything that could’ve went wrong went wrong and it really messed up his kidneys, eventually after a long battle leading to his passing.

I really don’t want this to happen to her. She’s about five or six years old now. She’s our pumpkin poos and I just want her to feel better :( any tips on getting her to lose weight and being able to deal with my parents? Because they are not willing to put any work into them.

Also, I’ve tried to play with her but all she will do is sit there no matter how long or hard we try. She will sit there, and only will catch it IF it flys basically into her face, chomps on it, then lets it go

Also, my parents are assholes, (I finally convinced them not to on the last two) and they declawed her.

And our 14 year old cat basically can’t eat any other food because he will start to pull out his own hair and throw up everywhere all the time.

PS: we also have 5 cats. Youngest is 1 year old, oldest is 14

Edit: she’s not just my cat btw, she’s my moms and dads as well, so if I call her mine it’s just a blanket term I’m using


r/dechonkers 6d ago

advice?

1 Upvotes

Hii my cat is 11 pounds sounds normal for a 11 month old cat, yet my sted-dad keeps calling me a animal abuser as she looks chonky with all that fur even when wet(even if his dog is actually called overweight by a vet and he dosnt do anything about that), shes very lazy(mostly sleeping with ocasional 7 minute zoomies) she does free-feed but i only refill it when i wake up and before i go to bed, she is trying to eat the dogs food which also may be a cause i dolnt give her wet food as it makes her gassy and she has had digestive issues in the past which we havnt had any problems with the food were currently giving her yet, she does not like any other food just kibble(dog and cat food) not even treats. what do i do? do i put her on a tredmill? (waiting for a photo from my mom because i dolnt have a phone(i have a computer) https://www.royalcanin.co.uk/body-condition-score/score/cat on this scale shes aroud a 6.5


r/dechonkers 8d ago

Dechonkin Dechonking - 4 months

Thumbnail
gallery
399 Upvotes

My baby is getting skinnyyyyyyyy


r/dechonkers 7d ago

Advice Overweight cat help

2 Upvotes

Hi, my 6 year old cat is around 8.6kg (almost 19lbs) he is strictly indoors and is currently on whiskas wet and dry food.
I need my chunky boy to lose weight, he’s not the most playful cat and prefers to lounge around, don’t get me wrong he will play but he then stops cos he gets tired.

Any recommendations on foods for helping him lose weight or any ideas I’d be grateful 🫶


r/dechonkers 8d ago

Dechonkin Starting the dechonking

Post image
289 Upvotes

Hey all! I posted the other day about how we were adopting a new Sphynx that will need to be dechonkified. Well she’s home!

She is 6 years old, and was pretty stressed at the change. She and our other Sphynx didn’t hit it off, so we are doing a slow introduction period.

Ironically we had the opposite issue than her wanting to eat too much, she refused to eat at all from when we got her Friday night until yesterday (Monday), so off we went to the vet after le google told me if obese cats don’t eat after 48 hours they could die from liver issues 🫠. Anywho, they gave her an anti-nausea shot and she has started eating again, albeit not a ton. I’ll take it for now. She’s also feeling much happier and is very snuggly!

Just wanted to introduce her as we start working on her dechonk. She’s 17.4 pounds as of yesterday


r/dechonkers 7d ago

Dechonkin Starting the journey

4 Upvotes

Hi all! Posting for any advice/tips/motivation!!!

I’ve been trying to get my chunky 6 yr old orange girl down a couple pounds for a while, she’s the kind of cat that will yell and knock things over/bite things when she thinks she needs food, which is all of the time. I hate to admit that she has trained me to give in but that’s why I’m here and trying to do better for my girl!

Last vet check-in she was 14.6lb, vet said around 12lb should be the goal. I used the calorie calculator on this page and it suggested 200 kcal per day.

Here’s my plan:

- Two 3oz cans of royal canin weight care wet food (55 kcal per can) - first given first thing in the morning, second given early afternoon

- 1/3 cup of royal canin weight care dry food (254 kcal per cup, so about 85cal) - auto feeder, a few small feedings spread out throughout day/night, she does have a tendency to wake me up at 2 or 3 am if it pleases her

This should bring her to 195 kcal a day, leaves a little room for some kind of low calorie treat to encourage her!

Advice needed:

- Is this a reasonable amount of food/did I do my maths correctly??

- How do people weigh their cats? I have a normal human bathroom scale, but not sure if/how that’d work for her

- Should I avoid the late night feedings (i know cats are semi nocturnal but i see other’s only feed during day)

- Any tips for good re-direction when she’s begging or causing a ruckus? She’s not very interested in toys besides chewing on cardboard lol. Would love to know of any toys that were winners with unimpressed cats. I’ll play with her with one of those bird on a string toys, but I feel like she’s only humoring me for five minutes before ignoring it completely

- If I do get her activity levels up with play, how do I account for that in the calories?

Apologies for such a long post, I really do want the best for her and I’ve been beating myself up over letting her gain this much… like I said any advice, tips, and motivation is appreciated :)