Cleo needs to lose weight!

I have 2 cats, a male and female, both tabbies, but Cleo is more than twice Romeo's weight now! Last vet visit, she was up to 18 lbs; granted, she IS a large-boned cat, but the big belly and fat neck are a dead giveaway that she's badly overweight. I've tried everything, except what our vet suggested, which is to lock her up in a separate room and feed her separately. This is not practicall, since we have a small ranch house and my husband and I need to move from room to room in the morning to get ready for work. Plus, cats are not like dogs; you can't put food down and expect them to just "finish" it; they like to graze sporadically. We do not free-feed the cats, and I put less food in Cleo's bowl, but she tries to sneak and eat the foot in Romeo's bowl, too. They are both indoor cats, but Cleo has always had a very slow, laid-back personality, whereas Romeo naturally bounces off the walls. They are exact opposities of each other; i'm trying to think of some way or toy to encourage Cleo to get more exercise. Have any of you had any experience with these outdoor enclosures? Do they encourage cats to move around more? I can just picture Cleo being outside and just lying like a lump, like she does at home.... Part of the reason she's like this is that we got her from a woman who was fostering 30 cats in her home, so Cleo probably had a lot of competition for food when she was very little.

Another thing I've done is to mix a bit of diet dry food in with the Hill's regular dry we give both of them. If anyone has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them!!

I personally feel that the best thing for weight loss is wet food, although it hasn't helped Ginger any (But he is very lazy), and you do need to combine it with exercise. it is possible to get a cat to lose weight in a multi cat houshold, but it does take a lot of determination (meal times here are a nightmare, making sure they all eat the right food!!). A lot of people have had success with lazer pens and Da Bird - i haven't found anywhere in teh UK that sells Da Bird yet, and laser pens haven't really gone down well with my oldies. STring (supervised only) goes down well, but you might have to do trial and error. I also make Tom eat at the top of the stairs so he has to get some exercise to get to his food bowl, and he does have outdoor access.

Even though it's a huge hassle, you're going to need to follow the vet's advice if you want your kitty's chances of developing weight related, health problems to be lessened. There is no "easy" way, unfortunately.