My family has always restricted my pets’ food supply, because we’ve always had multiple pets. If we left food out for our three cats, our dog would probably eat it all.
With cats, we’ve almost always had sets of siblings. And strangely, the same pattern tends to happen with the siblings: there’s a “dominant” one, who’s generally mellow but kind of a bully, who eats much more and gets overweight. The “submissive” one is usually more quirky and skittish and stays relatively thin. Therefore we regulate the food so the dominant one doesn’t eat it all.
Two of my current cats (brothers, one of them is currently my icon) were feral and are absolutely obsessed with food. We got them when they were 3 weeks old and fed them by hand with bottles. Perhaps it was that lack of a mother cat to help them with feeding that they became so obsessed, or just their feral instincts to eat as much as they can. Anyway, now they act hungry all the time and, when given the chance, will eat until they’re sick. As it is, when we feed the brothers we have to watch them like hawks so the bigger one doesn’t steal the smaller one’s food, then lock him in a separate room when he tries to.
I guess I envy people who can just leave out a big bowl of food for their animals. It would be a lot less work. But in my experience, the more you feed a pet personally, the more they like you and respond to you. So in that sense I don’t really mind it.