You may have bought an expensive modern cat bed for your cat, and she is laying on it all day, eating and gaining weight. An overweight cat may have significant issues come with it. Their lifetime may be severely reduced, they can damage themselves by jumping up or down because of excessive strain on their joints and ligaments. It is also possible that they may have elevated blood pressure, which, just like in humans, may cause strokes and heart failure, and they may also develop feline diabetes. Not just this but an overweight cat would not be able to run around in your house, play, or enjoy life as much as a slimmer cat might have. So, it's important to help your cat lose weight if it wants to. Here are few ideas on how to do this.
1. Cat Diet Food
You should replace normal food with cat diet food. This is particularly helpful if your cat is repeatedly harassing you for a bowl of food and just seems to feel whole. For dietary food at least, you can be confident that they can somehow minimize their calorie consumption. This will need to be ordered by the vet, and it's a good idea to find out more about the diet and how it can help, from a specialist when you're going to buy it.
2. Raw Meat
Adding lean and unprocessed meat to your cat's diet can also be helpful in weight loss. However, meat alone is a bad idea—your cat won't get all the requisite nutrients out of it— but meat combined with their other food will potentially make them consume better and more nutritious diets. It's good for their teeth, too, and helps to regulate their metabolism.
3. Automated Cat Feeder
If you're out during the day and want to adjust the schedule of your cat and incorporate the concept of getting more meals, an automated cat feeder may be the perfect option. This will weigh out the required meals that your cat needs. And with time, your cat will be used to the sound of the opening of the feeder. This way, you won’t be worried about feeding your cat during working hours, and it will benefit them a lot.
4. Limit the Dry Food
Many of the calories your cat eats are included in their dry food, so it's a smart idea to limit the amount of food they consume and substitute it for wet food wherever possible. This is because dry food has only a relatively small amount of water in it, while wet food is mainly (maybe as much as 80 percent) water.
5. Avoid Large Meals
Have you ever counted that how many times a day you feed your cat? If the answer is two or maybe three larger meals, you could do more harm than good. Cats prefer to eat smaller meals but they like them more often, with the optimum number of smaller meals being seven for a fully grown cat.
6. Provide a lot of water
When you add water to your cat's diet, you're going to help keep your cat hydrated. Eventually, it's going to help fill them up further as the food continues to spread. This fits better for dry cat food, but you can do it with wet food if you put it all together.
7. Puzzle toys
While a calming cat bed is good for the comfort of your cat but you cannot allow you can to be laying on it 24/7. You can solve this problem by using puzzle feeders. Puzzle feeders can slow down greedy eaters, avoid hunger, and can provide extra exercise. They encourage cats to eat more instinctively by encouraging them to eat after hunting for their food.
8. Regular monitoring
Keep a detailed record of food consumption, exercise, and weekly weight data. Weigh your cat at the same scale every week at the same time of the day. It will help to make appropriate changes to the weight loss plan.