Another cat with an eating disorder

We selected a beautiful calico cat from an SPCA photo on the web and when we went to pick her up, discovered she is now 17 pounds -- way overweight. She's a year old. We brought her home, anyway, and now have to go about healing her.

We wanted her as an indoor companion to our nice, sleek male. Fortunately, he won't object to not having his food left out all the time because feeding is incidental to him.

I learned that one has to be patient in a cat weight reduction diet because if the cat loses weight too fast, it can contract a fatal liver disease. One site said 1 to 2% of its weight each week (about 1/4 pound for her, or 1 pound per month) and another site said limit weight reduction to 1/2 pound per month. This is going to be tricky. But -- oh well -- we saved another cat's life.