My cat is fat!

[LynetteScavo]

Cat is 6 years old, and in good health. For the past two years when he's had his annual vacations the vet has said he's over weight. I've argued that it's actually muscle, as he's so active.

Recently however, he seems less active and spends his day sitting with DH who works from home. Cat is now, indeed, obviously overweight.

The problem is, if we don't feed Cat to his liking he pesters us. He pesters DH on Teams calls during the day. He pulls up the carpet, scratches the sofa or mews outside the window at DH if he feels he doesn't have enough food. The vet thinks we are just soft and should feed him less, but honestly Cat does his best to terrorise us if he doesn't always have food. He had a rough start to life at was very underfed as a tiny kitten. I think that is the root of the problem.

So how do I put a Fat Cat on a diet without him shredding my face?

Oh dear, I do sympathise. I also had a fat cat who had had a terrible start in life. We always said she was determined she was never going to be poor or hungry again.

We stopped giving her dry food because the vet told us wet was more filling. And we tried to make sure she couldn’t steal our other cat’s food.

We would also put her out in the garden in the hope she would scamper about a bit. But she tended to sit at the back door and make a beeline to her empty food bowl to beg for more when the door was opened

She got a little bit slimmer but I wouldn’t say she was ever anything but tubby. She was, however, very placid, very sweet-natured and bomb-proof with a noisy toddler.

Good luck OP.

Our Fatcat is on a diet at the moment. We have had to have a whiteboard tick routine because he's so good at the starving cat routine. He's on 3 pouches a day - 7am, 12pm and 7pm. He'd like another one at about 10.30am and 4pm, and about 11pm too. We get screaming and violence. We respond by hiding encouraging him to play or go outside, giving him a bit of a cuddle. He's whinging less about it now we are two months in and he's dropped about half a kilo. He's always got dried food available, and we tend to take away his empty bowl in-between as THE HORROR of seeing an empty bowl is too much.

How much are your fat cats weighing in at? Mine is about 6.6kg. No way could I have dry food out all the time! He eats everything that’s out.

Mine is only 4kg but on a very petite frame.

She thunks when she jumps down from the cupboard.

I also have a fat cat. Similar age. However she is very inactive during the winter. In the summer she eats less and is out all day. Winter she sleeps 24/7. I had tried cutting her food right down but she wasn’t losing any weight. I had her in one pouch of good quality grain free food and a small scoop dry food in the evening.
Someone on MN recommended Katkin . It is a pouch of cooked meat which is a portion for the day. Half in the morning and half at night. No fillers or additives. I thought it was worth a try so used the code provided by the poster. It is more expensive but I thought I’d try one box to see what happened. The upshot is she is losing weight .She seems happier and more active. So I have ordered a second box. She is still losing weight. I throughly recommend it . I think cats , like humans are not meant to eat carby foods with fillers. They get fat, get diabetes and get thyroid disorders as a result.
I will carry on with Katkin until she is a slim cat and then reassess.

I was sent a referral code which I can’t find but will try and post it if anyone is interested. PM me.

My fat cat is now 15 and diabetic. What I've learnt is cat food is mainly rubbish. Find a food that's low in carbs (sugar) and higher in protein (meat). It'll fill your cat up more and you won't end up in my situation! I found sheba was the best off the shelf without breaking the bank as much as some of the uber posh brands.

Oh, and mine attacks the dog when he's hungry, to get me to feed him!!

@CatChant was she called Scarlet OHara?

Our cat got fat. Looked like a watermelon on toothpicks.

Vet said to give far less dry food (as pp said) and more better quality (higher meat content) wet food. This worked.

She should have been, shouldn’t she!

But when we got her and her sister from a cat rescue they were such skinny, angular kittens we wondered if they were part Siamese. Sadly, it was just that they hadn’t been fed properly before they were finally dumped in a cardboard box in the pouring rain.

I put dry food in an egg box. Keeps fat cat busy. There are a lot of 'DIY puzzle' ways to feed cats on youtube, make them work for their kibble.

More protein. Smaller portions more often? Unless you think that will just encourage the pestering.
If mine are going bananas and hassling me and each other I sometimes give them poached fish and a blast of the central heating. Seems to subdue them..

Mine has been trapped for a few days twice, once in a shed, he fell through a rotten roof and the second time in an enclosed alleyway next to our lovely neighbour who lives next door to the alleyway. So cat feels he has to eat before he goes out and eat when he comes in as he probably has a fear of being trapped again. The dull sod did get trapped in the alleyway a second time but only for a couple of hours as I guessed he could be there when it was time for dinner and he wasn't waiting to come in.

He is 6.6kg but can move fast to catch sparrows to supplement his diet when I restrict his food as per Vet instructions!

Mine did that too! After a while we decided the best plan was to ignore the cat and feed the dog every time she (cat) attacked him.

It's interesting about the dry food! I've been leaving dry food down (Lilly's kitchen) to try to placate Fat Cat, and I think I see a correlation between doing that and the recent weight gain!

Having no bowl down at all is the worst thing possible, according to Fat Cat. He seems to like a bit of uneaten food to be there just in case
(I don't like leaving wet food down, especially in summer)

He was 4.5 kg last year, we'll see what he weighs at the vets this year. When he was a kitten we were told he'd never be much more than 3kg because he was so tiny.

I'm going to get out 4 pouches a day to feed him (we'll still give him a bit of food dry on top) so everyone in the family can see if he's really hungry or not.

Some of the better brands do weight management foods - Hills especially does a large range of both wet and dry, and Royal Canin has a dry kibble for it.

Not cheap of course, but better for the cat than typical supermarket fare.

Try giving her more protein - fresh chicken (obviously, no bones), turkey or some tinned fish - Mackerel, tuna, pilchards - in oil or spring water, never brine.

I think working from home has been quite bad for some cats (and their owners). If there's no one to harass, most cats will find something else to do.

So, my advice is that your DH sets up some in-person meetings out of the house

We have three cats - two are petite and healthy and one weighs more than both of them combined 🤣

The vet tells he's just a "lot of cat" and reckons there's probably some Maine Coon or something in there. He's a rescue so we don't know his history.

Mine is very big and muscly with big bones but he weighs well over 8kg. He's about 65cm from his nose to the base of his tail when lying down (not stretched). I feed him the correct amount but he steals his sister's food and never, ever does any exercise. He's only 2 as well :(

I have a small cat, and she is fat. Overweight when I adopted her. First thing I did was not feed her dry food.
Next thing was to feed high meat content wet food, there are a lot more decent foods available now than there used to be.
Min. 60% meat and read the list of ingredients, the higher meat the better. Avoid anything with grain or added sugar in any guise, companies are sneaky and call maize 'vegetable content'.
Reduce the amount of food, gradually otherwise cat will lose muscle mass. Mine was on at least 200g per day and should have been on 100 - 120g for her size. She is now on the correct amount after reducing it a few g per week and is a lot slimmer. Not sure about weight yet as my scales are crap.
If you want suggestions for food, read the later posts on this thread.
www.petforums.co.uk/threads/zooplus-cat-food-list-just-the-good-stuff-work-in-progress.440844/
The rest of the cat forums are very useful too.

Thanks @CatAssTrophic - I've stopped the dry food, and Cat seems to be happy with the same amount of pouches.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-64731767

12 kilogrammes!

Not all dry food is equal there are brands that are "raw food equivalent" with 85% "proper meat" content

Orijens, Eden, Josera - 85% meat the essential vitamins and minerals they need and no carb filling crap.

Lilly's Kitchen went downhill after the original owner sold the brand.