So in the past year I have been hospitalized in five different hospitals due to an undiagnosed illness with symptoms of loss of appetite, weight loss, nausea, and vomiting. They have tested for everything and found nothing. I am a very skinny teenage girl to begin with. And no, I don’t think I’m fat and I don’t want to lose weight. Anyways, I was admitted into John Hopkins and the doctor thought that it was best for me to go into a nutrition program at an eating disorder unit in another hospital. I was supposed to be there for ten days but when I got there, the doctors of course automatically assumed you are sent there due to an eating disorder. So they thought that I wasn’t eating because I didn’t want to, not because I was feeling sick. I ended up being there for two months. Hardly any family visits, or phone calls, or showers, or clean clothes. I never felt so abandoned in my life. I get so sad thinking about it, and it haunts me. I don’t like eating in front of people now because I’m scared that if I don’t eat enough they will think I have an ED and then send me back to that place and be locked away from society even longer What should I do?

My cat went to the vet today and she’s 19 pounds. She needs to lose around 5 pounds according to the vet’s assessment. However, other than tell my husband to give her “diet” food, he didn’t really give any suggestions on how to go about it.

We are a two cat household. The overweight cat is about 6 and her sister is a senior cat (around 12 years old). The senior cat is not fat.

After many years of feeding Purina Chow dry food, I found out about better nutrition for them and switched them to canned food + dry, rotating brands such as EVO, Wellness, Serenghetti, Felidae, etc. The senior cat prefers the wet food, the overweight cat prefers dry. I usually serve them each some wet food in the morning and at night, leaving the dry food out at night and sometimes during the day too.

I realize I must have been overfeeding her, otherwise she wouldn’t have gained so much weight. My question is wether it would be better to just scale down her portions and feed her 2-3 small meals a day or to switch her to a diet or “light” food. The dry food she’s currently eating is EVO Herring Meal (50% protein, 18% fat, 3% fiber, 482kcal/4.5oz). The wet food varies.

Any ideas?