My cat is a bit podgy

[fluffydressinggown]

My cat is looking a bit round. We feed her 60g of Iams and half a pouch of food a day, sometimes she gets some Dreamies. She doesn't get any scraps off our plates or anything like that.

I don't think she is getting fed anywhere else because she doesn't go far when she is outside and she prefers to be inside next to me or DH anyway.

She loves food and when we feed her she eats it all in one go which surprised me because I thought cats were grazers. She is very very food motivated and will always come in or go in her travel case for a treat.

How can we get her to lose a bit of weight? Would diet cat food be a solution?

Gosh that doesn't sound like very much food so I really have no idea.

Hopefully Lonecat will come on this thread. She's a vet and apparently her cats are all 'lean, mean fighting machines':) (I wish mine were ...) She might be able to make suggestions.

Well I said she doesn't get scraps but I have just caught her licking my soup bowl from lunch!

We managed to get our fat fluffy cat from 5.5kg to 4.8 just by giving 'light' cat biscuits instead of normal ones. He has now discovered that the abandoned building across the road is full of pigeons, so I have no idea how much he weighs now. I just hope the act of hunting is burning off some calories.

The vet said to that he was happy as long as he stays under 5kg.

I also got a feeding ball which he sometimes plays with. You put the biscuits inside and he has to pat the ball round the room to get them out.

Definitely marking place on this thread! Mooncat is considerably plumper than she was when we got her 8 weeks ago - partially I suspect because of her initially eating the same higher fat kitten food as Moonkitten. We've now split them up to be fed the appropriate pouches, but she still keeps raiding the kitten crunchies. I guess better partial adult food than none at all...

Feeding ball eh? That sounds fun!

But lonecat is a well'ard vet, she is immune to their nagging.

Haha here I am. Firstly you need to weigh your cat most average cats should be between 4.5 and 5kg. If your cat is more than 6kg you need some specialist advice about weight loss as cats should not lose weight to fast. Between 5 and 6 Kg look on the aims pack to see what it says for a 5kg cat, if you want to still feed the half pouch only feed 75% of what Iams recommends. Having looked at the Iams feeding guide I would say 52g of Iams and half a pouch of wet food per day.
If cat weighs less than 5kg and looks podgy I would check with your vet.

My lean mean machines are a male half British short hair 4.5kg and the petit tail less wonder who weighs just 3.5kg.
There is a widely held misinterpretation about cats miaowing that they are hungry in most cases they are not, they are looking for attention.

My fluffy girl has always been a little on the heavy side (not huge but vet often said she was a little over the ideal). She is 18 this year and has been poorly. Any skinnier and I think she would have gone by now. There is a difference between a little over and obese. We feed am, pm and before bed. No snacks etc.
Disclaimer! Very overweight pets can face serious health issues.

Bugger, ours is 6.4kg. He has a waist though.

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i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b626/Fluffycloudland77/image_zpse5d7662a.jpg

He's quite, quite, gorgeous.

Doesn't look fat, either - just big.

Ah Fluffy you have one of the special tabby boys. These are most certainly not the average cat anything between 6 and 7 kegs is normal for them. If you look at details for the Scottish wild cat you will see that these are probably some kind of hybrid.

He's a Bengal if I recall, Lone. I think they're bigger anyway?

He is indeed a bengal. Thank you for the nice comments

When that cat documentary was on (Horizon?) I remember some of the cats on that looked seriously overweight. I do wonder if it's what we feed them or rather what pet food manufactures put into the leading brands as well as the amounts.

I wouldn't have said he was fat from those photos Fluffy. He looks beautifully muscled (look at his front upper legs for instance) and muscle weighs heavier than fat, I think. I defer to your vet's view of course - as well as the age of the photos.

My own thought is that we often feed cats too much. (Sometimes just to 'shut them up' for example.) The pet food manufacturers may make some foods more calorific than we realize but that shouldn't be a problem if we're keeping a good eye on pets, eh ? You can just adjust amounts if they're looking a little 'full figured'.

I know that Seniorboy and my other boys have often come to me yeowling when they didn't want food so much as attention. So attention is what they get and not nosh.

Oh the Photos are from yesterday morning.

soaccidentprone lots of hunts are unsuccessful and all that bottom wiggling and sprinting is bound to burn off calories.

Ah a Bengal that makes sense they do not fall into the average cat size range. Normal for Bengals is up to 7.5kg only surpassed by Norwegian forest and Maine Coons for whom up to 10kg is normal.

There you go, Fluffy. You can relax a bit.

Aw Fluffy, he's beautiful

BlueBoySiamese weighs 5.5 kg, he's not tiny, but is a bit podgy. BlackCat is skinny (young and active), weighs 4.2 kg so I don't like to ration his food, but of course BlueBoySiamese helps himself too.

She is nearly 5kg but the vet said when we got here that she was a small cat and she should weigh between 3.5-4kg.

We bought her some diet Iams yesterday and bought her a ball she has to roll around to get a treat out of it.

We have 3 cats. Big fluffy (boy age 4 1/2), little fluffy (girl age 2) and old lady cat (16).

Despite the fact they all get fed the same amount, and we take away their bowls when they have finished eating, big fluffy weights 4.8kg whereas the other 2 female cats each weigh 2.5 kg!