Bengal cat weight and boredom eating

Bengals are high-energy cats stuck indoors, which is a recipe for boredom eating and creeping weight gain — so you're right to get ahead of it now at two years old. Cats are obligate carnivores with specific nutritional needs many commercial foods don't fully meet, and wet food is almost always the better choice because hydration is critical for long-term kidney health. To point you in the right direction: is your Bengal male or female, what's their current weight, and what are you feeding them at the moment?

4.5kg and on the higher end tells me you want to act now rather than wait. The dry kibble twice a day is likely part of the problem — it's calorie-dense, low in moisture, and doesn't keep cats satisfied the way wet food does. Bengals in particular are grazers when bored, and a big bowl of kibble sitting out is an open invitation. Can I ask — does she wolf the food down immediately, or does she pick at it throughout the day?

That pattern — fast eating, then pestering — is classic for a cat that's not getting enough satiety from her food. Dry kibble digests quickly and doesn't fill them up properly. Switching to a high-protein wet food fed in smaller, more frequent portions will make a real difference. What I'd recommend is Applaws Natural Wet Cat Food in the 70g tins — it's very high in named meat protein (around 75%), low in carbohydrates, and the high moisture content means she'll feel fuller for longer. For a Bengal at her weight, three small tins a day split across three meals is a reasonable starting point. The smaller, more frequent meals also help break the boredom-eating cycle because she has something to look forward to more often.

For weight management I'd go fully wet if you can — mixing keeps the calorie count harder to track and the kibble will remain the more appealing texture for a lot of cats, so they'll eat around the wet food. If you're worried about dental health, which is the usual reason people keep some dry in the mix, a weekly raw chicken wing does more for teeth than kibble ever will. Transition her gradually over two weeks — swap one meal at a time — so her gut adjusts without any digestive upset.

Food puzzles and slow feeders are genuinely useful for Bengals — they slow down eating and give her something to work for, which matters for a breed that needs mental stimulation. But the single biggest lever you have is diet: get the food right first and you'll likely find the pestering and the weight both improve within a month. Weigh her every two to three weeks so you can see the trend clearly.