Two cats. One needs to lose weight...

[HighFiveMummy]

So how do I do it?

Cats are 18 months old, I have had them since they were 9 weeks. The boy likes to spend a lot of time outside, no idea what he does but I guess he's chasing and running lots. He's lovely and has a slim toned body. The girl however is a real homebody/couch potato. She spends most of her time indoors and has become a little podgy.

They are both fed royal canin dry kibble which they love and plenty of water. What I do is I fill two bowls in the morning and put them down, and they stay down until I replenish them at around 5pm, and then again, they stay there until breakfast. I wonder if there's too much food available and I should do set meal times?

I was under the impression that cats self regulated but my girl cat seems to behave more like me, if there's food there she'll eat it.

Help?

Too much food available all day - just do set mealtimes then remove what’s left

We have this problem too, our girl is an Olympic sprinter but our boy cat is couch potato.

On the back of the royal canin food it tells you how much to feed the cats. You will need to know how much they weigh and what you would prefer them to weigh and put the food out accordingly.

You can also encourage the cats to work for their food by putting a ping pong ball into the food bowl so they have to push it around to eat giving them a bit of exercise.

Yes, I was going to suggest making couch-cat do a bit of exercise!

Thank you.
So would you say I remove the food when I leave for work at 8:30 and then put it back when I get home at 5?

That sounds fine, they soon get used to the routine. Expect a lot of demanding food the minute you get in from work for a little while though! I like to give mine a pouch each in the morning and again at 5pm, then a few biscuits before I go to bed, they took a while to get it but now they know when its mealtime!

I’ve got the same problem. Mine have Royal Canin Persian which is meant for lazy indoor cats. If anyone has any idea how to get my pom-poms with eyes to do more exercise I’ll be glad to hear it! I’ve yet down a bit on the amount they get. They never gorge but graze through the day.

They never ever make a fuss about food or demand it.

I had this problem. I eventually (after trying to supervise mealtimes/remove food etc) bought a microchip cat feeder and keyed it in for my slim girl. She is much happier as fat cat can't steal her food, I no longer have to worry about supervision when I've got a lot of other things to do! It was about £55, so not cheap, but has saved me so many headaches.

Will try and link to the one I have!

Am struggling to link on my phone, sorry. Look up Sureflap microchip cat feeder on Amazon. I got it on Black Friday so it was a bit cheaper than it is now. Still worth it to be honest! Key bonus for me was that I felt like I was training my skinny minnie to miaow to demand food... Very annoying habit, but because I was lifting her food and then giving it back to her on demand it was my own fault! Now she can nibble as and when she wants without needing to tell me all about it!

I bought two microchip feeders when o e if them had to have soft diet and I didn’t want her sister in it. I couldn’t work out how to teach them to use it. My girls are not overly endowed with brains so they had no hope! I sold them on eBay!

Oh dear! I just left it open for a day or two, then once she was used to eating out of it started leaving it half open etc... It has a training program you can activate and it only took my (timid) cat a few days.