Cat feeding issue

Question
Hi, I have 3 kitties who are 9 years, 2 years, and 12 weeks. My oldest girl was an orphan who was found with her siblings at about 2-3 weeks old. We bottle fed her but she has always been worried when her food bowl gets empty. She'll always eat- even if she isn't hungry. We're having a few problems here, though.
A- she is 17 pounds and definitely needs to lose some weight.
B- When the food bowl gets empty (or even close) and we refill it, she eats so much so fast that she throws up.
C- Because of the throwing up, we have always free fed the kitties. This works perfectly for our 2 year old, who only eats when she's hungry and is a nice 10 pounds. I'm not sure about the baby kitty, since we've only had her about a week. But she seems to have solid eating habits- eating little bits here and there when she's hungry.
The girls are on Taste of the Wild dry food but I'm pretty sure this is not allergy related. We have had them on Evo before TotW and other brands before that. Also, it only happens when we've let the bowl get close to empty and she reminds us to fill it.
We tried for a while a couple years ago to do two meals a day with separate bowls of food but the 2 year old would have none of that! She refused to eat out of a different bowl.
The 2 year old and the kitten are playful and love running around and chasing laser pointers, wrestling, etc. The 9 year old, though, will not play with anything. She ignores toys and if we try to play with her, she gets mad and scratches or runs off (I'm sure this is something WE did when raising her...).
So my basic question is: How do I help her lose weight and save her esophagus without causing problems with the other two? I feel like we're stuck with the situation but I'm worried about her health.

Answer
Hi Brittany,

I certainly feel for you! I have resorted to free feeding for this exact reason. Cats would throw up at feeding time. Free feeding has resulted in a cat or two over the years who's been a little chubby, but fortunately for us, no one has become very obese. Unfortunately for you, I think your only option to help your nine-year-old lose weight is going to be very time consuming and labor intensive. You would need to feed all of the cats controlled portions several times throughout the day. The portions will need to be so small that no matter how quickly the nine-year-old gobbles it down, it won't make her vomit. It will take some tinkering to determine just how small that portion is, and then you will need to figure out how many times a day she needs to eat to reach her recommended daily feeding, based on the amount she eats per meal. You may want to try soaking the food in warm water to see if this will ease in the digestion and reduce vomiting. Uneaten portions need to be discarded within an hour.

To lighten your workload, you could consider getting timed feeders, which will divide the meals up to feed the cats automatically. Premeasure the meals so the cats only eat so much at each meal. You can get feeders that will feed up to six times daily. You would need to get a feeder for each cat, however, and set the timers to feed them each at the same time. Then, hope each cat will go to their own bowl. If your two-year-old won't eat from her own bowl, this method might not be entirely effective.

The only other suggestion I have is to talk to your vet about feeding a prescription weight loss food that uses a high-protein approach as opposed to a low-calorie approach. This won't be harmful to the other cats who need to maintain their weight. In all honesty, though, the Taste of the Wild and Evo are very close to these foods nutritionally, and I doubt you'll see much of an improvement with the use of a prescription food over the use of these foods.

I wish I had a magic answer for you, but it is certainly hard to encourage weight loss in a kitty who is very opposed to exercise and when you must free feed in a multiple cat household.

Best wishes!

Jessica