I used to be really happy to have my fat, happy cat. There was so much of him to love and he never had anything to complain about. He was also about 18 lbs or so in this picture. This was not as heavy as I let him get.
August 2013 he was about 21 lbs and we started to take it seriously.
We took away free feeding. Scheduled meals with controlled calories. Tommy was always hungry. We worked for 4 years to get him to about 12.8 lbs. The vet had said ideally, with his body type, 13.1 was the goal.
And it can be done on dry food. Don’t let anyone discourage you from that if that is what you can afford. But, ideally cats should be on a wet diet; ESPECIALLY MALES. We made the switch late last year to home made food and a few months ago, Tom was losing weight again. He was down to 12 lbs. I worked slowly and got his weight back up, but with these guys (my other cat, Stew) you have to be religious about weighing them.
Once you have a cat with a weight problem, you might always have a cat with a weight problem. Their metabolism can change with age and activity, and you’re their caregiver.