A full stomach is not the point of the performance
When your cat trots to a visitor, stares up, chirps, and pats a knee minutes after finishing a full meal, hunger is rarely the driver. She is working a learned opportunity. At her normal mealtimes she faces you, a person with rules, measured portions, and a memory of what she has already eaten. A visitor is different: new hands, new smells of food they ate earlier, an lap with no history, and a much higher chance that charm will be paid. Cats map those odds quickly. One successful evening when a guest slipped her a morsel from a plate teaches her that arrivals predict windfalls. Novelty sharpens the effort too. The scent on a guest's fingers or the rustle of unfamiliar snack packaging is more interesting than her own bowl, even when her belly is comfortably full, in the same way a person who has finished dinner still looks at a dessert trolley.
How the begging gets stronger every visit
Each reward, however small, is training. Intermittent rewards make the habit especially durable: a guest who holds out for ten minutes and then gives in teaches persistence better than one who feeds her immediately. Attention alone can also pay her. Being picked up, laughed at, and fussed over for begging tells her the performance earns company as well as food. Watch the body language that separates opportunism from genuine hunger. A recently fed beggar is bright, mobile, and focused on people and plates, then loses interest once the gathering moves away from food. A cat who begs constantly, loses weight despite eating, or empties her bowl frantically at every meal is showing something different and should be discussed with a veterinarian rather than managed as manners.
Briefing guests before she starts her routine
The fix is decided before the doorbell rings. Give willing guests a sanctioned alternative: a small pot by the entrance with a few pieces of her own treat allowance, counted out for the evening, so the kind-hearted can hand over one piece on your terms and then be done. When the pot is empty, it is empty. If she escalates, redirect rather than scold: call her to a puzzle feeder, a cardboard box with scrunched paper and a hidden treat from that same allowance, or her perch in another room while plates are out. Feeding her evening meal just before guests arrive, in her usual spot, also helps because a cat settling to groom after a meal is less inclined to patrol the table.
Holding one rule across everyone who feeds her
Inconsistency is what keeps this habit alive, so the rule needs to live somewhere everyone sees it, not just in your head. Write down her meal amount, that visitor tidbits come only from the counted pot, and which human foods are never to be offered. If a sitter or family member feeds her on other days, they need the same note, because one weekend of free handouts rebuilds what a month of firmness undid. Expect a brief extinction burst: when begging stops paying, she may try louder and longer for a visit or two before concluding the new guests are as dull as you are. That is progress, not failure. Record the meal plan and the approved visitor treats in KinsLe through Care Teams, so the person feeding her, greeting guests, or sitting for the weekend all work from the same instructions and her charm stops earning a second dinner.