Conference misery::feline_v1

      How to tell if he's overweight:
    
     (1)If things start falling off of shelves from the house shaking as he
    walks through the rooms. 
    
     (2)If furniture collapses as he jumps onto it..
    
     (3)If you get a hernia when trying to pick him up..
    
     (4)If he cannot get through doorways without a struggle..
    
    (Seriously, put your hand under his stomach..near the back legs...if
    you feel large "chubby-rolls" of fat on the stomach when you grasp him
    gently there, he's at least GETTING there...)
    
    
      How to get him to lose weight:
    
    (1)Buy him a treadmill and force him to use it for an hour a day..
    
    (2)Eat out...don't bring food into the house...
    
    (3)Feed him NOTHING but brocolli and lettuce...
    
    (4)Feed him nothing but broiled boneless chicken breast...
    
    (5)Get him a membership at "Gold's Gym"...and make him go three times
       a week...
    
    
    (Again, seriously...simply cut down his food...feed one time a day,
    don't "free-feed"....and ignore those plaintive wails...)
    
    
    JM

    
    
      I had to at one time cut back on Sylvester's canned food, because 
    he was getting big and what I did was still fed him twice a day, but 
    made the portions smaller.  This way it wasn't a drastic change and 
    eventually he didn't even notice, as long as he did still have
    something to eat at breakfast and dinner.. (It did work).
    
    p.s. Those where cute, I can't say that my furniture collapsed when
    my Sylvester jumped on it, but I have a rocking recliner and it
    did some rockin when he jumped up on the top of it.
                                                             
    Good luck..
    Diana

    
    
    	Since we're talking about fat cats, how do I put one cat on a
    	diet without putting the "other kid" on one?
    
    	I have two female siamese (1yr. old & 2 1/2 yrs. old).   The one
    	year old cat is definitely portly!  The other cat is very much a
    	small lady.  I don't want one cat starving while I put the other
    	cat on a diet.  It would be easy to cut down if you have one
    	cat - but how do you do it with two?
    
    	I make the cats share one can of Sheba at their night feeding, and
    	leave out dry and semi dry during the day, so they eat what they
    	want when they want.  This is something I've always done with my
    	cats in the past, but Ashley is a real chow hound and I'm not sure
    	how to make her slow down.  I've had her since she was 8 weeks
    	old and she was only 1 1/2 lbs. when I got her.   I think she
    	really had to fight for food with her littermates since she
    	growled for at least two weeks whenever she ate.  So I was happy
    	when she started to put on weight, but she's STILL putting on
    	weight, while my other cat is small and delicate looking, but
    	not underweight, just right.
    	
    	Awaiting all those good replies!
    
	-dee
    

    try Cat Max (or is it Max Cat) lite.  Nippa was getting rather...eh,.... 
    rather heavy, the vet suggested R/D, or Iams lite....but she'd rather
    starve.
    
    The pet supply store owner suggested the cat max lite, and her was 
    right....she liked it.  Although this past weekend, they were out of
    it, and she has lost some of that extra baggage, so I bought a small
    bag of Iams.  Left it out......and she ripped open the bag and ate
    a good amount before I kjnew about it.  (at least I know she wont
    ever starve).  I have since then put the bag in the cabinet.  SO I know
    she Loves the Iams.
    
    I am only giving her a small(1/3 - 1/2 cup) amount every day and she 
    seemes to be used to it.  I give her 1/4 of a can of Iams at nite as
    a treat for coming in on time.  I don't give her all th eIams at once,
    that way when she beggs for more....I can give her some.

I've always had this problem, since Tenzing tends to be a porker.  My current
solution, which is working quite well, is to feed twice a day at a scheduled
time.  I feed Tenzing the Iam's Less Active, and Ryan (who's a young, thin guy)
the Iam's regular.  I watch them while they eat to make sure that Tenzing 
doesn't scarf down Ryan's before he's through.  Piece of cake.

When I was living with my soon-to-be-ex-husband, it was a little harder because
Tristan (one of the cats Ed kept) tended to nibble, so I free-fed for years.  
Tenzing was always getting his leftovers when I tried to schedule their feeding.
But eventually he got the idea that he was only fed twice a day, and started 
finishing it.  

Good luck.  I know how frustrating it can be.  If it's any encouragement, 
Tenzing started out at 13+ pounds and now, after a couple of years, she's down
to 8 pounds.  She looks good, but has such tiny bones that she probably needs
to take off a little bit more.  Remember to go VERY slowly.  Cats are so small
that the weight loss can be hard to see.  But if they diet too fast they can
get unhealthy, just as a person can.  Your vet can probably advise you on how
fast to try.

Karen, Tenzing and Ryan.

    
    
       I too had to watch Sylvester while he was eating, so that he
    didn't inhale my other cats food.  Luckily my little girl eats just
    so much and then walks away from it and she doesn't go back, once
    she's done, she's done, this way I would just pick up her dish,
    so he couldn't eat her food too.
         
    It is hard sometimes cause he would run to eat her food first, then
    go back and eat his, this definitely added to some extra
    pounds.
    
    Good luck
    Diana
                       

        We only have ONE "Fat Cat" among the 5...Luke.. I told Julie that
    when he got so fat he can't jump up to the countertop where the food
    is, then he'll be on a self-imposed diet...but so far, even though he's
    at about 18+ pounds, he's still retained a lot of his agility...
    
        Actually, I think he's sort of stopped gaining and is in a fairly
    fat 'holding pattern'..
    
        (Mebbe he could see that another pound or two would have made him
    unable to jump that high and he stopped himslef.???)
    
    JM

    Excuse my ignorance, but what exaclty does free-feed mean?
    
    I'm feeding Sphinx 9-Lives Dry at the moment.  I'll give him
    cupful before I leave in the morning, and when i get home it's
    usually gone, so will give him 1/2 cup, which _sometimes_ will
    last all night.
    
    I wasn't aware there was "lite" cat food, but I'll see if
    I can pick up some Cat Max lite, as suggested in .4

    free feed = leaving a bunch of food out for the puss to nibble
    when he pleases, as opposed to anything-you-don't eat-in ten minutes
    (or whatever time interval) gets thrown away.
    

re .9 (Karen) 

>   free feed = leaving a bunch of food out for the puss to nibble
>   when he pleases, as opposed to anything-you-don't eat-in ten minutes
>   (or whatever time interval) gets thrown away.

More like ten seconds at our place :-)

Of course, that's canned food... 

Jill

      This all depends on the cat(s).....before we got the black version of
    Garfield, we could leave food out for the other 4 with no
    problem...they'd nibble a bit, go about whatever business cats have,
    and return from time to time to nibble some more. Now that Luke's on
    the scene though, they eat when they're fed the canned stuff, because
    they know by now that he'll finish off whatever remains... Dry is not a
    problem, cause he doesn't particularly like it...
    
      JM 

if your cat eats too much canned food, why not just feed dry?  I found the
only way to keep our cats' teeth clean AND keep the weight down on all but
one cat, I had to stop feeding canned food except to the one guy that needed
to GAIN weight.  Canned food packs on pounds - both because it is high fat
AND because the cats LIKE it enough to overeat.  I feed Max Cat dry kibble
and all nibble as they wish - free feeding.  Noone gets EXCITED over the
dry kibble so, providing nothing happens to force Hannah into nervous
eating (having her bathroom torn up for 3 months due to a contractor 
dispute added a pound to her body - she's now lost 1/2 of it), no cat gets
too fat.  I feed canned to the skinny cat twice a day - and only to him.
I simply close the other cats away from the area in which I feed him and
the others think he is getting groomed or something.....

Unless you cat refuses to eat dry kibble, or there is some problem with
teeth and gum disease or your vet recommends differently, dry kibble will
keep a cat perfectly healthy - especially if you use a premium cat food.
And the cat will have healthier teeth and gums for sure.
When I say REFUSES to eat, I mean if the cat actually loses weight on
kibble - many cats will play "starving baby" to get their canned food, 
but after a few weeks, you will notice they haven't gotten skinny - they
just eat when you aren't looking....hoping to get you to give them canned
food again.

    re: .12 - I'm pretty sure that dry food is far higher in calories
    than canned because canned contains so much water.  
    
    You may have a point however, about them likeing the canned much
    more.
      
    re: multiple cats - I have yet to find a way to deal with this and
    I also need to add supplements to the food of the lactating cats.
    If I add only to their food they inevitably leave it after a bite
    or two and go eat the other, non-supplemented food.  My only
    alternatives are to either supplement the entire batch of food, which
    won't hurt the other cats, or feed them in a separate room.  Right
    now I'm using the former method.
      Nancy

    Just took Tenzing and Ryan to the vet yesterday for their yearly shots.
    I've recently moved, so it was a new vet, and I specifically asked him
    about Tenzing's dieting progress.  I filled him in on her weight when
    we started, how I've handled her diet, and so on.  Anyway, when I took
    her out of the carrier he said she looks great!  That even though she
    still has a bit of a pouchy belly, she looks healthy and I can maintain
    her at this weight.  She weighs 8.7 pounds.  
    
    A friend, knowing that she started out at 13+ pounds commented "you've
    lost half a cat!".
    
    Anyway, I'm thrilled, and will very slowly increase her food until I
    find a maintenance amount.
    
    Karen, Tenzing and Ryan.

    A lady I used to show with recommended putting each kitty's portion
    of food in their bowl and leaving it for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes
    whatever wasn't eaten was put away.  When I do this properly (I
    get lazy easily) it works very well for me.  My cats usually spend
    about 5 minutes at their own bowls then walk away.  I'm sure they
    each come back later and nibble from other bowls, or polish off
    the remaining food that belongs to someone else.  In fact, Amelia
    is usually the first to leave and the first to return with the kitty
    food vacuum.
    
    The other recommendation she had, if you have a multi-cat household
    with 1 "fat cat" and the rest normal, was to use the 30 minute feeding
    rule but feed "fat cat" in another room (or the bathroom) with his
    lo-cal kitty food and the others where ever and whatever you normally
    feed them.  
    
    I haven't tried this 2nd method yet because all of mine could use a bit
    of reducing.  In fact, their main sustenance is Science Diet Lite
    Maintenance.
                                         
    Jan