Feed Me, Baby

Chapter 1

Letting myself get fat was the smartest decision I've ever made. I say that without irony, without apology, and without the nervous laugh people expect when a woman admits something like that out loud. I'm in my early thirties now, which feels old enough to know better and young enough to still surprise myself, and when I look back at who I used to be, I barely recognize her. She was always holding back, always waiting for permission, always acting like her body was something she needed to manage instead of something she could actually live inside.

My name is Derora Gould, I'm thirty-two years old, and I work in digital media. If you had told me when I was a chubby high schooler struggling with my weight and my self-image that one day I would not only embrace gaining weight, but actually welcome it, I'd have said you were crazy-but here we are.

I didn't just wake up one day and decide to gain weight for fun. It happened slowly, the way real changes usually do. I stopped punishing myself for being hungry. I stopped pretending that wanting more meant there was something wrong with me. Food stopped being a negotiation and started being a pleasure, then a comfort, then a language I used to understand myself better. Somewhere along the way, my body got bigger, softer, heavier, and instead of panicking the way I was supposed to, I felt calmer than I ever had before.

Getting fat forced me to pay attention to myself in a way I never had when I was trying to stay small. Every inch I gained made me more present, more honest, and more aware of what I actually wanted instead of what I thought I should want. I learned how to take up space without flinching, how to enjoy being seen, and how to laugh when people didn't know what to do with me. The confidence didn't come first; it followed the weight, like my body was teaching my mind how to relax.

This isn't a redemption story where I hated myself and then learned to love myself in a neat little arc. It's a bit messier than that. I'm still figuring things out, still growing in more ways than one, still learning how to exist as a fat woman in a world that pretends it doesn't want us while staring at us anyway. This is the story of how I stopped shrinking my life to fit other people's expectations and started building one that finally felt like mine.

I eat when I'm hungry, I eat what I want, and I eat without narrating it in my head like I'm on trial. There's an ease to it that still surprises me sometimes, the way a meal can just be a meal instead of a moral event. Late at night, early in the morning, alone on the couch or out in public, it all belongs to me now. That freedom tastes better than anything I ever denied myself back when I thought control was the same thing as strength.

Being large goes hand in hand with that freedom. I take up space physically, emotionally, socially, and I no longer apologize for it with my posture or my tone of voice. My body spills into chairs, presses against people, announces itself before I do, and for the first time in my life that feels like relief instead of failure. I like the weight of myself, the way I move through rooms with presence instead of caution. Existing loudly in a big body taught me that I'm allowed to be here just as much as anyone else.

That sense of permission was a long time coming. I grew up in a house where everything was regulated, measured, commented on, and quietly judged. Food was controlled, emotions were discouraged, and bodies were something you managed carefully so you didn't embarrass yourself or anyone else. I learned early how to be small, how to behave, how to disappear into good manners and good choices. Wanting more was treated like a flaw you were supposed to outgrow.

It took me until my thirties to finally unlearn all of that. Somewhere along the way, I realized that the life I'd been promised if I followed the rules never actually felt like mine. Letting myself eat freely was the crack in the wall, the first thing that made the rest of the rules start to fall apart. Once I claimed that freedom, the rest followed, and I finally understood what it meant to live inside my own skin without asking permission first.

Once I crossed that line, I knew there was no going back. This wasn't a phase, a detour, or some temporary rebellion I'd eventually apologize for. This is who I am now, and more importantly, who I plan to keep being. The idea of shrinking myself down again, of reintroducing rules and guilt and constant self-surveillance, feels exhausting in a way I can't even pretend to romanticize anymore.

I'm going to be fat for the rest of my life. Saying that out loud feels grounding, like setting something heavy down and deciding not to pick it back up again. My body will keep changing, keep growing in its own way, and I'm at peace with that trajectory. There's comfort in knowing I don't have to negotiate with myself about it anymore, that the question has already been answered.

What surprises me most is how much joy lives in that certainty. There's happiness in choosing a path and staying on it, especially when it's one you were told never to take. I'm done with before-and-after fantasies and imaginary future versions of myself that only exist to be "fixed." This is the version I chose, and she makes me genuinely, deeply happy.