Cat over-eating - how to help a cat with an eating disorder?

Just wondering how to tackle this, it's been vexing me for ten months now since I adopted Sabbath.

When I got Sabbath from the cat rescue, I didn't actually notice he was 'obese' (15lbs) until the girl put the cat carrier on the floor before getting me to finish filling in some forms.  It wasn't until I picked up the carrier that I was almost certain I must have just adopted four cats...the weight seemed excessive for a cat...I'd never known a cat to be so heavy.

My mother went through months of telling me that nothing was wrong with Sabbath other than he was "big boned" and "sturdy".  But I was always concerned from the get go as he has a low hanging tummy (quite a big primordial pouch) and when he flops down on the rug he's like a beached seal.  He can still run, jump pretty much, but I've always been terrified of feline diabetes.

His obsession with food got worse.  I would feed him twice a day, he'd clean the bowls, and then be complaining for more. I'd never heard of this "stray cat eating syndrome" until I got Sabbath, and how apparently if a cat has been stray they become quite opportunist towards food and will always be eager to find the next meal and be convinced they're hungry because they're not sure if they'll be fed again.  Ten months on and Sabbath still hasn't quite got the gist that there will always be food (I guess to be fair he might have thought there was always going to be food at his last owners then somehow ended up stray which might have changed his thinking a bit).

Now I give him half a pouch of his favourite wet food (Whiskas...beef, turkey, chicken and lamb flavours in gravy) and I give him a small scoop of his favourite dry food at night.  He still acts as if this isn't enough and that he is starving.  Earlier I had a nap before dinner and when I woke up he started whining at me to feed him (every cat owner knows their cats whine for food), when I got downstairs my mother confirmed she'd already fed him (nice try, greedy little bugger, no second dinner for you!).  It's getting a little bit beyond the joke now.

I took him to the vet in July for an eye infection but the vet was more worried about his weight and told me he was far too obese and needed to lose serious weight, and I got railroaded into buying an expensive food (I think Hills was the brand) that I could give him a cup a day of and he was meant to get energetic and lose weight.  I swear, I've never seen the cat so miserable in all my life.  In a month, he sat depressed, would hide and wouldn't come out, had no energy, nothing.  Then I read some HORRIBLE reviews on this food brand they'd made me buy which said a lot of cat owners cats had gone into renal failure from this food!  I was horrified and took him off it immediately.  Low and behold, same day gave him some wet food, he was jumping around as if he'd been put on Speed.

Now my problem is trying to get his weight down the sensible way without starving him.

I've tried staggering his dry food, as he's always whining for food I'd keep the food in the scoop and only dish out a tiny bit every couple of hours (as if I gave them all at once he'd eat the lot and then complain for more later), but he hasn't lost any weight this way.  I really can't stand the thought of him being hungry, especially as he's quite a vocal cat, but at the same time...he's yanking chicken off guests plates and begging (yes, begging) at meal times while the family are eating.  He also likes to hang around where his treats are kept in the hope I'll throw some down for him.

How much food should I really be giving him to get him from 14lbs to a sensible 10lbs perhaps?  He's healthy now, but I don't want that going downhill.  I really don't know how to help a cat with an eating disorder.

JadeLeaf said:

Just wondering how to tackle this, it's been vexing me for ten months now since I adopted Sabbath.



When I got Sabbath from the cat rescue, I didn't actually notice he was 'obese' (15lbs) until the girl put the cat carrier on the floor before getting me to finish filling in some forms.  It wasn't until I picked up the carrier that I was almost certain I must have just adopted four cats...the weight seemed excessive for a cat...I'd never known a cat to be so heavy.



My mother went through months of telling me that nothing was wrong with Sabbath other than he was "big boned" and "sturdy".  But I was always concerned from the get go as he has a low hanging tummy (quite a big primordial pouch) and when he flops down on the rug he's like a beached seal.  He can still run, jump pretty much, but I've always been terrified of feline diabetes.



His obsession with food got worse.  I would feed him twice a day, he'd clean the bowls, and then be complaining for more. I'd never heard of this "stray cat eating syndrome" until I got Sabbath, and how apparently if a cat has been stray they become quite opportunist towards food and will always be eager to find the next meal and be convinced they're hungry because they're not sure if they'll be fed again.  Ten months on and Sabbath still hasn't quite got the gist that there will always be food (I guess to be fair he might have thought there was always going to be food at his last owners then somehow ended up stray which might have changed his thinking a bit).



Now I give him half a pouch of his favourite wet food (Whiskas...beef, turkey, chicken and lamb flavours in gravy) and I give him a small scoop of his favourite dry food at night.  He still acts as if this isn't enough and that he is starving.  Earlier I had a nap before dinner and when I woke up he started whining at me to feed him (every cat owner knows their cats whine for food), when I got downstairs my mother confirmed she'd already fed him (nice try, greedy little bugger, no second dinner for you!).  It's getting a little bit beyond the joke now.



I took him to the vet in July for an eye infection but the vet was more worried about his weight and told me he was far too obese and needed to lose serious weight, and I got railroaded into buying an expensive food (I think Hills was the brand) that I could give him a cup a day of and he was meant to get energetic and lose weight.  I swear, I've never seen the cat so miserable in all my life.  In a month, he sat depressed, would hide and wouldn't come out, had no energy, nothing.  Then I read some HORRIBLE reviews on this food brand they'd made me buy which said a lot of cat owners cats had gone into renal failure from this food!  I was horrified and took him off it immediately.  Low and behold, same day gave him some wet food, he was jumping around as if he'd been put on Speed.



Now my problem is trying to get his weight down the sensible way without starving him.



I've tried staggering his dry food, as he's always whining for food I'd keep the food in the scoop and only dish out a tiny bit every couple of hours (as if I gave them all at once he'd eat the lot and then complain for more later), but he hasn't lost any weight this way.  I really can't stand the thought of him being hungry, especially as he's quite a vocal cat, but at the same time...he's yanking chicken off guests plates and begging (yes, begging) at meal times while the family are eating.  He also likes to hang around where his treats are kept in the hope I'll throw some down for him.



How much food should I really be giving him to get him from 14lbs to a sensible 10lbs perhaps?  He's healthy now, but I don't want that going downhill.  I really don't know how to help a cat with an eating disorder.

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First of all you need to find a vet that cares about feline nutrition. Your's seems to only care about making money as they make a fortune off that food, and it's mostly corn.

I too have a kitty with said "stray starving kitty complex" or whatever it's called. My Oksana was abandoned by her mother as a kitten b/c she had distemper. The lady I got her from rescued her and her littermates who were half starved to death.

She cries for food, when the bowl still has food in it. I don't think she'll ever realize that there's always going to be food. I think it's more akin to PTSD, than a syndrome. Idk...

I would cut out the dry and feed only pate cat food to start. Whiskas is not very healthy, Friskies pate is much better if on a budget. Grain free is always best, but it's a little more expensiven.

See a vet who understands pet nutrition, and find out how many kCal he's supposed to have per day. Feeding fresh raw is the healthiest way to go, but some people don't want the mess.


Good luck.

The problem with the dry food is, that's Sabbath's "night" food.  He sleeps in my room (as he pretty much goes where I go) and I can't have wet food in my room because he has a habit of taking wet food out of his bowl and putting it on the floor before eating it (weirdo).  He seems to need to eat at night or he'll jump about the bed and cry, waking me up if nothing is offered.  When I get up to go pee or whatever, generally I drop a tiny bit into the bowl (ten pieces of it maybe), otherwise in an hour I'll find him jumping on me crying.  He really does seem to be quite convinced he's starving.

I tried feeding him fresh chicken and a bit of fresh fish to see if it would change his diet and make him want less "junk food" but he still gripes for food like his life depends on it.  I suppose it's hard to imagine what real starvation must have been like and it's understandable if he DID starve why he would feel like that. I honestly don't know if he was ever skinny or malnourished when he was stray, the cat rescue never specified there was anything unusual about his eating habits.

I'm starting to get the full picture here. There's a very,similar thread active right now regarding a kitty who wakes his mom up to eat in the middle of the night. I'll tell you like I told her, you are reinforcing his bad behavior by giving him what he wants.

Feed him 3 times a day with lower calorie wet food

his last meal should be right at your bedtime

play with him with a string toy for 15 minutes or so before his last meal to tire him out.

If he tries to wake you up in the middle of the night, lock him out of the room.


This is the behavioral side. The dietary side needs to come from a good vet who knows cats.

JadeLeaf, I think Bigperm20 has given you excellent advice.

Maybe you can try giving Sabbath some vegetables (cooked carrots,cooked frozen green beans and peas) as a snack and slowly back off of all the dry food. And no early morning feedings when you go to the bathroom, starting now.

Please don't feed Sabbath in your bedroom. You can cuddle with him and talk to him there but no food, ever. Any future partner will not appreciate the smell of cat food in the boudoir and a lot of cats take their food out off their bowls--sensitive whiskers and replicating the feed in the wild.

And perhaps you want talk to your mom and ask her to not feed Sabbath since you're trying to get him on a schedule. She means well, and hearing a "starving" cat isn't fun, but everyone has to be on the same page.

We keep our bedroom door closed in an effort to keep the room as dander free as possible, but our kitties sit in the hallway and TALK, loudly, until my husband gets up to feed them, but he always gets up at the same time and has his schedule--bathroom, feed cats, clean boxes, etc. . . so they're on a schedule and know what to expect.

It's going to take a couple of weeks of strict enforcement before you see changes.

When Sabbath demands food when it's not feeding time, ignore him and then make a big deal of when it is feeding time, calling him to dinner and letting him smell the food before you put it down.

Please  let us know how it's gong. And good luck.

You have received excellent advice. One other point you might like to try is to get him a treat ball that he can roll round the floor and gradually get the kibble out. I would not give him any dry food except the little that is in the ball - dry is full of high calorie fillers. And a ball will keep him occupied for ages.

JennyR is so right--Sabbath might play with he ball which gives him exercise and a treat of a tiny bit of dry food at the same time. 

Just try to remember that hunger or dieting isn't fun for anyone. When we get hungry we get cross because our sugar levels are out of whack. Sometimes just a tiny piece of crunch will satisfy us, and I've always found that a good scratch and kind words go a long way. 

Hope you let us know how Sabbath is doing.

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get back to this page, life has been busy in the house hold, blah!

I've been thinking and rethinking over the strategy. I agree I have probably reinforced his behaviour, but that was me trying to find a solution to his scoffing down food from his bowl all at once and then keeping everyone awake all night wanting more later.  I was trying to figure out an alternative to try and keep him and everyone else from getting annoyed with his griping.

Quite frankly, in reference to the suggestion I keep him out of my room, it'd be a good idea in theory but it's not realistic in this case, our hallway is tiny and he is a black cat.  I can't leave hall lights on all night (ever lived with someone who complains even about energy saving bulbs using up too much electricity? lmao) and there's no socket for a nightlight.  Also...biggest problem would be I have two parents here with weak hearts...having a black cat lying in the hall at night in the dark...no, not gonna play with that idea, lmao.  Sab has a habit of planking himself down at the top of the stairs when he's in the hall so...it's just asking for trouble.  This is his bedroom as far as he's concerned, where there's a window (the hall has no window he can see through), his water, his toilet (small house, nowhere else litter box could go) and his bed.  Also...me, whom he doesn't really like being away from too long.

Anyway, as I was saying, I'm thinking about strategies, (sorry rambling).  Right now, I can't get out to get more wet food with better qualities for his health.  In the meantime I have a good stock of Whiskas in the house and I'll be feeding this until I can get out and try to determine what would be best to get (healthiest) and what's available and on budget.  I'm a housebound social phobic, so simply going round to the corner shop and picking up their best solution isn't likely.  I don't want to order from online as the prices seem rather high, so I need to wait until I can get to the supermarket (which means relying on the parents to do the food shop, lol).

I'm rambling again (sorry, took my anti-depressant, head a bit fuzzy, I tend to go off track and make no sense at times).  Anyway, strategy...(again, trying to get on point here)...

I'll probably be chided for this but I really don't believe in suddenly changing a cats diet, I did it once and Sabbath was very unhappy and not himself.  For now, what I'm going to try and do is gradually wean him away from the dry stuff by decreasing it week by week and increasing the wet food at the same rate and hopefully I'll start to see a change in his weight.  He's currently 14lbs (I checked the other day) and I'm going to see if any of this helps.  I'm hoping it'll also try and ease him into the idea of eating less at night without messing him up too much.   In the end I'm hoping his dry food will suffice as a treat substitute.  I'm also in the middle of trying to convince my mother to stop feeding him at dinner time (she's still in this "You're starving that cat" mindset.  She's convinced I need to be feeding him a pouch per day PLUS two scoops of food.  I don't know if she wants a cat or a blimp, but he's her "grandchild" substitute (*sigh*) so she keeps doting on him with bits of chicken, pork, bacon, anything on her plate he'll eat.  I told her if he ends up with diabetes, SHE'S paying for his vet bills

Also, now, when he runs to his bowl when I return from going to the loo at night I've started picking him up (which he hates), giving him a cuddle, and putting him back where he sleeps to try and enforce it's not food time (I also read somewhere that sometimes cats will whine for food when they really just want attention so I'm trying the substitute with affection thing in the hopes he'll get hacked off and stop complaining for food - he really does not like getting picked up, he'll tolerate it, but he'll dig claws in all the same).  I don't know if this will enforce anything, but anything is worth a try.

Note on the vegetables thing, someone told me vegetables weren't good for cats as their stomachs aren't meant to properly digest them?  I do know he gets a little carrot and peas in some of the Whiskas, but other than that, I don't think he'd touch them (he certainly likes to smell them from my plate but he's never attempted to take any which I suppose says a lot lol_

On the treat ball idea...won't work.  He's a snot nosed brat who will NOT play with any toys I get him.  I've tried various things like that and he's a pain, all he wants to play with are rolled up bits of paper and ribbon (I should be thankful I suppose that he doesn't cost me a fortune in toys).

PS.  I agree dieting is no fun.  I'm on a diet.  I've lost 7 stone (100lbs) in two years.  None of it was fun (ironic, isn't it?  I should be better at this).  Hopefully it won't be as gruelling for fatso (Sabbath) as it is for me.

Good luck.

I found some pate foods at the local supermarket yesterday, , the back recommends three tubs a day which is going to be a bit expensive at 78p a tub for the sheba. I found own brand pate for 25p a tub but I haven't tried it on fatso yet. He loved the Sheba finesse though. I found a few sites recommending no more than 300 cals a day for Sab so ill have to do my research and figure that out in tins, etc, without starving him.

The lower biscuits quantity seems to be working with less complaint. I put out only half a scoop last night but gave him a little pate at bedtime. It's probably thrown him off a bit but he doesn't seem too whiny (still picking him up and putting him back to bed lol). No scrapings from the dinner plate, got mum warned.

Might be coincidence that he didn't kick up fuss last night. Maybe he'll adjust faster than I thought.

JadeLeaf said:

I found some pate foods at the local supermarket yesterday, , the back recommends three tubs a day which is going to be a bit expensive at 78p a tub for the sheba. I found own brand pate for 25p a tub but I haven't tried it on fatso yet. He loved the Sheba finesse though. I found a few sites recommending no more than 300 cals a day for Sab so ill have to do my research and figure that out in tins, etc, without starving him.

The lower biscuits quantity seems to be working with less complaint. I put out only half a scoop last night but gave him a little pate at bedtime. It's probably thrown him off a bit but he doesn't seem too whiny (still picking him up and putting him back to bed lol). No scrapings from the dinner plate, got mum warned.

Might be coincidence that he didn't kick up fuss last night. Maybe he'll adjust faster than I thought.

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Are they the little cans of Sheba for 78p? Wow! That is expensive. Surely a pet store may have a special on wet food. Do you have Friskies in the UK? The Pate' version of Friskies is probably just as healthy as Sheba.

Wet food will do more to fill him up. Most dry food is the equivalent of feeding cheesy poofs. A cat is hungry again very quickly as it doesn't fill them up.