My cat is so darned fat. What can I do?

Question

She eats 1 cup of Iams weight control dry food a day. She is 9 years old and is a fatso! Everyone makes fun of her sweet self and the vet thinks I should try to get her to be more active but she only looks at you when you try to dangle a toy in front of her. She will bat at it only if it is right in front of her. He also suggested a plan with some real high fiber food but it was really expensive and included giving her an appetite enhancer so she would eat it and then weaning her off of the appetite enhancer but the plan would be that she would then be used to the extremely low calorie/high fiber food. Has anyone tried this? thank you .

Answer 1

My cat was overweight as well. Our vet had us put him on a prescribed weight reduction dry food, which he ate on and off for about a year. Then he developped diabetes, and he was put on another prescribed dry food (a diabetes management food). Both rather expensive products.

In an effort to learn more about feline diabetes, I started frequenting the Feline Diabetes Message Board at this website http://www.felinediabetes.com/ earlier this year. There I learned a LOT about what's good and what's not good for cats to be eating. Dry food is not recommended. On the advice of many folks at that site, I transitioned my cat from the DM dry to low carb canned food, mostly Fancy Feast, President's Choice, Friskies, and occassionally Wellness (that's a very expensive though very high quality brand, so he gets it occassionally as a treat).

My cat's insulin requirements dropped significantly, which is wonderful. His fur looks great, he is alert, and he is down from around 20lbs to around 14lbs. Sometimes when he turns his nose up at the canned food, I sprinkle a spoonful of the DM dry that I saved on top (at almost $50/bag, I wasn't going to just toss it away). Other than that, he never gets dry food anymore.

I worry that your cat is also at risk for developing diabetes. If you're sincerely looking for information re: what's best for your cat to eat, I would start with the website I mentioned above. The people there seem very friendly and have ben a tremendous help to me (and my cat!).

Answer 2

if you want the fat one to get skinny here's an idea step1: feed them separately and by that I mean in different rooms ( also lock the rooms just to be safe ) step2: slowly reduces the amount of food the fat one eats ( the reduction should be unnoticeable and there must be a sufficient gap between each reduction ) step3: take it to see the vet ( have you considered the possibility that your cat might have more than 1 stomach ) ) step4: technically this is pretty much step2 , make the cat work for the food, put food in far away/ hard to reach places in the house this way you get a long walk for loosing unwanted weight ( not in one place, it should be in small portions and placed far away only after the previous portion has been greedily devoured ) this is a an further expansion of step2 if your cat eats 2 bowls then if equally reduce the amount in both bowls by 2-3 spoons once in a while then your cat will think it's eating the same amount as before when it's comfortable with it reduces again by 2-3 spoons till it equals the necessary intake ( your cat shouldn't be able to tell the difference )

Answer 3

I would just cut back the food, you might be giving it way to much being that its Iams, Iams is not always the best food because it cost more... Meow Mix is not so high in calories I don't think. Also give her some catnip so it may make her more active. Does she go outside to get exercise? She sounds lazy...need to rev her up. A lazy cat will gain alot. But also being that she is 9 years old is another factor why she may be fat. The older they get in some cats the fatter they get. Maybe you'll figure out something :)

Answer 4

IAMS is NOT a good quality food - it was but years ago Proctor and Gamble (YES THE COMPANY NOTORIOUSLY ASSOCIATED WITH CRUEL ANIMAL TESTING) bought out the company and really changed the formula.. now it has lots more filler and lots less nutrition.. the filler causes the cat to need to eat more and gain more weight
rule of thumb : if you see lots of commercials for a food.. then ask yourself - where is the money going from your purchase - is it going into food quality, or into making and running commercials
rule of thumb : foods that are sold in Grocery stores or Wal Marts are crap - loaded with fillers

if you are in Canada switch to ACANA, or NUTRAM both are WAY better nutritionanlly and better price (because made in Canada)
if you are in USA switch to Nutro Natural Choice...

pick a light diet in either formula

oh ya.. by products are beaks feet and feathers... AND are preserved with a CHEMICAL PESICIDE called Ethoxyquin which causes all sorts of problems.. Iams is one of many foods which use this as filler

Answer 5

I haven't tried the above but when I had a slightly overweight yorkie, she wouldn't eat the low calorie food. What I did was start her off by mixing equal parts of her normal food with the low calorie food. After a week, the low calorie food was 3/4 of the mix. And a week later, she was eating all the low calorie food! By doing it gradually, she got used to the taste difference and didn't notice the change.

Sometimes, you have to experiment to find out the easiest way to get your pet to eat the new food.

Answer 6

You can get toys that they have to play with to get the food out. And don't feed her as much. Pick a good quality food and cut her way down. What is she going to do--raid the fridge? Don't let that incessant meowing get to you.

Answer 7

Put your cat on a diet like Jon and Garfield.

Answer 8

Well, you could try to make her more active by making her toys more attractive or something. you could also try to get more info. from the vet.

Answer 9

cut back on food put cat nip in sock play with for exercise

Answer 10

dont feed it ,make it go and hunt some mice ,like normal cats do