Overweight cat - what has worked for your plump puss?

[CreatingHavoc]

Our cat has had her fair share of issues over the last year or so. First she had a severe reaction to bravecto flea treatment and that seems to have triggered several other things. She has had problem skin since this reaction and I've recently had to shell out for Hills z/d allergy diet (wet & dry), which thankfully seems to be helping after a couple of months on it. However prior to this I was feeding her whatever she would eat, which was usually whiskers or purina (she's fussy). She tends to always have dried food in her bowl and I used to feed her wet food twice a day. However, when we saw the vet about her skin she weighed her and she has gained nearly 1kg in weight in 12 months 😳 when we first got her she was 3.8kg and now she is 4.7kg. I'm not quite sure where all this weight has come from as she's not greedy, doesn't rush her food and doesn't mither much for it either.
Over the last couple of months I've been having to add a tiny bit of tuna to her wet Hills z/d because otherwise she won't eat it. I'm aware this probably won't help her weight but obviously she still needs to eat something so I've just dropped down to one wet meal a day (with 1 fork of tuna) and roughly one bowl of dry. Is this ok? Will switching to dry only be better for weight loss?

I'm going to try and get her to exercise and play more as she barely goes out in the winter and just lazes around all day. She will tend to only play for 5 mins or so as well.

Are there any other weight loss tactics I can try? I've been looking at feeding balls but as she can't have the usual treats due to her allergy, I'm not sure if she'd be interested if it was just her regular hills dry food in there. Might give it a go though. Any other recommendations/weight loss tips would be greatly appreciated.

Following as I also have a chonky lady who manages to gain between vet visits despite having quite a small appetite!

The vet thinks it was where she was spayed when still feeding her kittens before I adopted her - says she is ‘thick set’ and menopausal looking!

She has a bowl of dry down that she nibbles at and a soup for fluid (prone to cystitis) in the evening. The odd treat - a bag lasts a couple of months. She can only have purina sensitive as she also has a sensitive tum (tried weight loss food but explosive poo probably isn’t how she’d like to lose weight).

Mine is also very lazy so I turf her out for a five minute run around midday and play with her chaser toy at night. She’s agile for a chonk at least…!

I reduce dry food available for mine when she needs to lose a bit. Her preferred dry food is heavy on calories. I leave a small amount to tide her over at night and a small amount in the afternoon.

Check the calorie content of what she's eating.

I think its OK for them to gain a little over the winter, it tends to disappear when the weather improves and their out and about again.

Following for my lovely big chunk of a boy.

I’ve only been successful once, with my old cat, and it was down to increased play and enrichment. I think I was lucky because he loved to play and run, and we live in a long terrace house so he would gallop from the bottom of the garden through to the front door. Try to extend their natural times of play, like when they get the zoomies. Hide round a corner and dangle a shoelace.

Ivy Cat went up to 6kg over lockdown, I put her on Royal Canin Weight management food and she got down to 3.8kg months. You have to be strict and weigh the exact amount recommended for what weight she should be, not what she is. IME dry food does make cats put on weight, so maybe try a gluten free high meat wet food. Also Ivy was poorly after Bravecto, I'd never use it again as I've heard a lot of similar issues.

Ahh so it's the dry food that makes them chunky! That makes sense now I think about it as it will only expand in their stomach once they have a drink. I will start weighing the dry food and try increasing protein. Thank you!

@DumpedByText yeah, bravecto is awful. I can't believe it's still available and vets voluntarily give it out.

I managed to reduce the weight of my old cat by reducing the amount to dry food and using a treat ball to dispense the food. I've continued it with my current cat. Dry food never goes in a bowl so she has to work for it.

@barberousbarbara I think I'll get one of those, thanks for the link.