If your cat is obese do not make a sudden diet change, this could cause other problems to occur. Examine the food your cat is on. If corn is in any of the first three ingredient spots you can be sure the food is not a good quality food. You need to find one with meat as the main ingredient (eg. Chicken meal, lamb meal). As such part of your cats weight loss program may involve finding a new - better cat food.

Start by feeding the same amount of food you normally would but feeding ¾ the regular food and adding ¼ new food.

You may find the cat avoids eating the new food. That is because it simply does not recognize good food when it smells it and has become so addicted to eating the “junk” food. You might warm up the new food for a few seconds in the microwave to bring out its natural oils and smells.

Stop feeding treats to your cat – most have no nutritional value and are fatty. No milk either! If you wish to give your cat a treat, a tiny piece of cooked chicken is okay.

Start giving your cat more exercise. Buy a new toy, or find a toy the cat has not seen for a while – they like toys they think are new. Honeysuckle toys are good too. If your cat is resting, move it to another place of the house (far from its resting area or food), so that it has to walk, remember though that it is normal for cats to sleep 14 – 16 hours a day. Do not move your cat up or down stairs if it has arthritis or other joint pain..

After about a week switch your cat to ½ old food, ½ new food. Monitor how much food the cat is eating in a day. If the cat was also getting canned food in addition to dry, start reducing the amount of canned food it gets at each feeding.

For the third week switch to ¼ old food, ¾ new food and start reducing the total amount of food the cat gets in the day. If you know how much total food your cat eats in an average day, reduce this slightly, have the total amount of food for the day and break it up into 4 meals throughout the day.

By week four the cat should be eating only the new food. You should note that the food may have a feeding guideline on the side of the bag. Better food means the cat should not need to eat as much, but your cat's brain may still think it needs to eat more. As well if you reduce the amount of food too quick you could cause other metabolism problems. Note the amount of food your cat should be eating for the weight your cat should be (your vet can give you idea what your cat's ideal weight is), and work toward that goal over several weeks.

Until your cat naturally regulates its eating (cats are natural browsers, eating a bit of food here, a bit there, but your cat might not have this self control after being addicted to food), you should decide how much food your cat should eat every day and break this into 3-5 smaller meals throughout the day. Do not fill the cat's food bowl up only once when you are restricting the amount of food the cat will eat. It may just eat too much and then feel hungry later in the day which may tempt you to feed it more.