How to help a cat lose weight?

My cat went for her shots and a check up yesterday. The vet mentioned that she is getting a little pudgy so besides cutting her food down a bit (we already follow the recommendations on the bag, we don't free feed) is there anything else we can do to help her lose the extra weight?

She is going to be going in for her spay surgery soon and I'm worried that it will make her weight problem even worse.

play with her lots so she gets loads of excercise.

Hide her food so she has to work for it.

Put up some high shelves for her to climb and jump on or get a nice big cat tree.

play games like hide and seek with her or use a cat dancer if your too tired!

hope that helps!

I think sometimes the makers of cat food put their recommended amount too high - especially as not all cats are the same, digestively speaking! Our Milly for instance is what's known as a good do-er, and she has lower than the recommended amount of food for her size. Any more and she balloons, so please don't feel bad for following the amount on the bag, maybe your cat is a good do-er too.

there are quite a few threads on this subject in the Health forum. The numbers on some bags of food is high. You need to find out from your vet the amount of Kcals your cat needs just to live (sort of their basal metabolic rate) and feed to that amount. I think you might be able to find out online as well. For example my Lucky is on a diet, she needs about 230kcal per day at her current weight. The food I have says 1 cup/day which is actually almost 500kcals....so I can either give her 1/2cup/day of dry, or what i've done is switch over to wet food (better for weight loss). Most manufacturers can tell you (or on their site) how many kcals in their food.

You might want to read this site, it's REALLY informative

http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/catweight.html