need weightloss food ideas

Five cats in the home, no diabetics, one Persian 10 years old approaching morbidly obese.
We free feed wet and have Royal Canin SO (urinary care) kibble for nighttime eaters. The very last thing I need right now is another diabetic cat.
The wet food ranges from FF Salmon for picky Lewis to get his thyroid meds into him to Science Diet Urinary Care for the other four.
Sam is last in the pecking order so he eats last and likes both wet and kibble. He eats almost in secret and we never see him scarf down entire cans, without a camera down here I have to assume he's eating a lot of the kibble. The obvious answer there is to pull the kibble at night but I'm wondering if anyone has had genuine success with weight control food wet or dry. Most pet stores will tell you in private their food doesn't work, the cat just eats more of it. Other than dental Sam has never had major health issues and exercise isn't going to happen.
This is what took Noah's brother Simon from us, I'm not to let it happen again.

 

Has he been checked for any medical conditions that might cause the weight gain? Thyroid is normal? If so, the issue is probably the free feeding, to be honest. The weight loss food likely only works if you’re planning to portion it out, otherwise he’s likely just going to eat more of it which won’t help him lose weight.

Some cats do fine with free feeding and can self-regulate, others can’t. I have never been able to free feed mine because she scarfs it all down and then promptly pukes. Some cats are also “competitive eaters” especially in multi cat households, where they eat more than they need to so the other cats can’t have it. That might also be possible since you said he’s at the bottom of the pecking order

 

When I worked and volunteered at the local shelter, we had a bunch of "fatty" kitties. Someone thought it would be a good idea to put them in their own room and feed them "weight control prescription" food. I think it was R/D and W/D. They had access to both wet and dry versions of it. The shelter had previously been a house, so they had a "bedroom" of their own to wander around in but could only eat what we put out. We did limit how much dry was put out each day and weighed them regularly. News flash - the weight control food didn't work. They got put back in with general population cats who were on mostly donated foods, which was mostly Wellness canned at the time. Move forward a year or two, I adopted one of those fatties. That was Neko's companion Theo. He started losing weight when I removed the dry food (just a couple Tbsp per day) when Neko became diabetic. I think he actually did better even when I moved them both to raw food, primarily because of his idiopathic cystitis/crystals. Timed mini meals also helped, neither of my kitties were grazers, they were hoovers.

 

Thanks to both of you. Sam was abused by a neighbor and is now one of the most well adjusted and happy cats I've ever had but he's always been a big boy. He's terrified of the outside world so his happy place is sleeping on our bed, coming down for food and the box is his only exercise. Now he's having problems grooming himself which triggers my alarms. No more kibble left out all night for starters, check his thyroid, think about a food change.
The competitive eating thing happens here with Lewis, moving from dish to dish because the grass is always greener. Makes me bonkers. Lewis also picks on Sam, he has alpha male issues that none of the other four want any part of. If I can make Lewis happy having his cheeseburger FF down here while the others eat upstairs in peace I'll do that.
Next stop may be a Hans and Franz Liposuction

 

I have/had a couple of “thick” kitties too — most often they’ve been the strays who were hungry/starving when they arrived and maybe they never really trust that the food bowl will remain full.

Ditto what Wendy said about weight loss food. Most of it seems to be especially high in carbs, which tends to pack the weight on, not cause weight loss. I’m pretty sure that many years ago I helped kill a cat by recommending r/d weight loss food to an adopter. If only I knew … (but I was trusting what the vet said)

These days I just free feed everyone canned food at several feeding stations. They eat what they want, when they want, and that seems to reduce the competitiveness, “hunger angst,” and drama. Sure, a few might have a bit of extra weight on them, but quality of life matters too and they all seem happier and less stressed when the pipeline of food is steady.

To be honest, I do put down some dry food too. That’s probably the source of any extra weight in my crew, not the free-feeding of canned. In a perfect world there’d be no dry here, but you do what you have to do and I have a couple of dry food addicts (one of whom actually gags at raw food, lol). But eliminating dry food is still my long-term goal. If you have the ability to do that, you might be surprised at how much it can help.

As for the cleaning the back end issue, you can have the area shaved (if long hair is getting in the way) or clean gently with baby wipes or a warm washcloth. Sometimes they just need a bit of an assist.

Medical issues: never hurts to run bloodwork. It’s my understanding that true hypothyroidism is exceedingly rare in cats — most of the time low T4 values are either euthyroid sick syndrome from another illness or secondary to having undergone radioactive iodine treatment for hyperthyroidism, etc. Acro of course can cause weight gain, but there are usually other symptoms too. Most of the time I think being overweight it simply a result of a high carb food and the inactive lifestyle many indoor cats live.

 

If grazing on kibble is a problem, there are microchip feeders you can program so one only opens for Sam and another one opens for the other cats. The downside is they are very expensive. But you could measure out the amount of kibble you want Sam to be able to eat in a day in his feeder and he won't be able to get at the kibble in the other cats' feeder.

 

I have a chunky boy too. His problem is he is a member of the "let's clean everyone's bowl" club. To help solve that problem I now use microchip feeders for all of the other cats. Yes it is expensive when you have multiple cats, but it has worked to get some of the weight off of him.

 

Hi,

I've had cats before on the weight control stuff, and it never worked. However, what might work for you is a feeder that doesn't open for your chunky one. With my diabetic cat and my other cats being grazers, I have 2 of the Sure Pet Care Feeders, which allow my other cats in, but deny my diabetic cat Gizmo. It works by recognizing the cats microchips and only allowing in the ones it's programmed for. I had a bit of trouble at the beginning as Sherlock was docile enough that Gizmo could get into the feeder while Sherlock was eating. I devised a bit of a "tunnel" to get to the food (I found ideas on You-tube), and when that still wasn't completely working, I called the company, and found out they have a setting called "intruder detection"(or something like that). At any rate, my diabetic cat now can't get to the dry kibble, but my other cats can still graze as they wish.

That might help with your overweight guy.

Angela