A Lot to Be Thankful For

Chapter 1

“I can’t believe I’m really doing this,” I said aloud to myself as I stared down the literal mountain of food in front of me. “This is over the top–even for a fatty like me!”

The table was set for one, but you wouldn’t have known it by the sheer volume of food in front of me. It looked like I was hosting an entire football team. My dining room table, one of those old oak ones that could survive a tornado, was groaning under the weight of my Thanksgiving feast-for-one. Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, gravy, pumpkin pie—you name it, it was there.

And I was ready for all of it.

I leaned back in my chair, giving my belly a couple of pats for good measure. "This one’s for us, big girl," I murmured, more to myself than anyone else, though if anyone had been around to hear it, I probably wouldn’t have cared. I’d had this shirt—the one I now affectionately referred to as my "pig out shirt"—for at least a decade. It was faded and food-stained, with a neckline that had stretched out so much it looked like it might slide off my shoulder at any moment. And it was tight. Oh, was it tight! The hem barely made it over my middle, and my big, soft belly spilled out from underneath like a crescent moon rising over my waistband.

At the moment, I couldn’t have cared less about the way that I looked. Perhaps in years past I would have, but this year my Thanksgiving was not about looking cute. No, this Thanksgiving was about one thing and one thing only: eating.

I picked up my knife and fork, eyeing the steaming plate of turkey slices in front of me. The smell was intoxicating—rosemary and thyme, garlic butter, and all the other good things that made the holiday worthwhile. I grabbed a napkin, wrapping it around my neck like some kind of old-timey butcher, and licked my lips. I was going to savor every last bite of this meal.

Alone or not, I was making this Thanksgiving count.


My name is Mazy, I’m a divorced mother of two, living a life that’s equal parts chaos and comfort. I’m in my late thirties—though I prefer to say “just this side of forty” because it feels less like a ticking clock—and most of my days revolve around my kids, my job, and trying not to completely lose my mind in the process.

I’d been looking forward to Thanksgiving for weeks. This year, I had plans to host a proper, big family dinner. You know the kind—one where you cook enough food to leave everyone in a turkey-induced coma and send them home with Tupperware containers full of leftovers. My teenage daughter, Ellie, and my ten-year-old son, Jack, had helped me plan the menu. Ellie, who’s just beginning to care about calories and appearance, asked for something “healthy but still good,” which translated to me making a roasted vegetable platter that no one would eat. Jack, on the other hand, requested things like “extra gravy” and “can we have bacon on the turkey this year?”

I should’ve known something would go wrong. It always does when you plan too much.

It started with my ex-husband, Rob. He called a week before Thanksgiving to announce he’d bought tickets for he and the kids at a ski resort in Vermont. He wanted to take them for the holiday, some big bonding experience that screamed, “Look at me, I’m the fun parent!”

My first instinct was to object. Thanksgiving had always been my holiday, and I’d put so much work into planning it, but when I saw how excited Ellie and Jack were, their faces lighting up at the idea of skiing and cozy cabins and hot chocolate by a roaring fire, I caved.

What else could I do? I didn’t want to be the bad guy.

Still, I told myself, it wasn’t the end of the world. I’d have my family dinner. I’d invited my sister and her kids, a couple of cousins, and even one of my work friends who didn’t have plans. It’d still be a house full of people, with kids running around and way too much food.

One by one, however, the cancellations started rolling in.

A snowstorm in the Midwest grounded my sister’s flight. Then my cousin called to say her husband had the flu, and she didn’t want to risk bringing it to my house. By the week of Thanksgiving, it was just me and a fridge full of enough food to feed at least a dozen people or more.

Standing in the kitchen that Monday evening, staring at a fridge packed tighter than my fat ass packs into a pair of leggings, I knew that I had a choice to make. I could try and cram it all into the freezer in my garage—or I could lean into the situation and treat myself to the most epic Thanksgiving feast in the history of single motherhood.

The choice was self-evident. I mean come on, what did you think would happen if you left a hungry fat girl all alone in a house full of food?

I guess you could say that the whole “eating my feelings” thing had become something of a consistent theme in my life; it’s not as if this happened overnight. I mean, you don’t just wake up one day with a belly so big you have to lift it out of the way to button your pants. It’s been a slow, steady climb—thirteen years in the making, really, if I’m being honest with myself.

Back when I met my ex-husband Rob when we were still in college, I was five foot three and weighed about a hundred and sixty pounds—a little chubby perhaps, but nothing that turned heads, unless I was wearing a tight dress or something. Rob used to call me “curvy,” and I loved how he made it sound like a compliment. I guess, in those days, I was young, confident and comfortable in my own skin.

Thirteen years ago when I gave birth to my daughter Ellie, like so many new moms, I wasn’t able to “bounce back” the way those magazine articles always said I should. Then three years later when I had Jack, I was carrying an extra fifty or sixty pounds that just wouldn’t budge no matter how many salads I ate or yoga classes I pretended to enjoy.

The real turning point though was the divorce. That’s when things really started to spiral. Rob and I split up three years ago, and it felt like my whole world flipped upside down. Food became my anchor, my comfort, my reward at the end of a long, exhausting day. If I had a bad day at work? Pizza. If the kids were being particularly difficult? Ice cream. And if I was just feeling lonely—well, why not bake cookies and eat half the batch before they’d even cooled?

Somewhere along the line, my “indulgences” became habits. The scale started creeping higher, and my clothes kept getting tighter. Eventually, I just gave up trying to fight it. What was the point?

The last time I weighed myself was a few months ago, at the doctor’s office. I stepped on the scale, and the nurse had to slide that big metal weight all the way to the end. When the number popped up—three hundred seventy-eight pounds—I felt a mix of shock and something like surrender. I was more than two hundred pounds heavier than I’d been when I met Rob. Somehow, seeing it in black and white made it real. I wasn’t just “a little heavier” or “carrying baby weight” anymore.

I was fat. Really, truly fat.

And you know what? I’m starting to think I don’t care. Life’s too short to be miserable about it. If I’m going to be big, I might as well enjoy the perks, like this massive Thanksgiving feast I made just for me.

Sure, I used to get really depressed about how fat I was getting. There were days when I’d stand in front of the mirror, poking and prodding at my belly, my thighs, my arms, wondering how on earth I’d let it get this far. The strange thing was though, the heavier I got, the less it bothered me. In fact, over time I actually came to sort of like it. The softness, the heaviness, the way my body filled up the space around me. I guess you could say that it was comforting, in a strange way.

Of course, Rob never felt the same way. The more I gained, the more distant he became. He never said it outright, but I could tell he hated it. The subtle comments about my “portion sizes,” the way he pushed me to join a gym, even though I was already so busy with the kids. By the time our marriage started really falling apart, I felt like I was tiptoeing around my own appetite, like I had to apologize for enjoying food, for enjoying myself.

Once the ink was dry on our divorce papers, it felt like the floodgates opened. No more trying to squeeze into clothes that weren’t made for me. No more ordering a salad when what I really wanted was a burger and fries. For the first time in years, I could just be me, and if me happened to love pasta and pie and second helpings of everything, then so be it!


Now, here I was, sitting at a table covered in more food than I imagined I’d be able to finish. My belly pressed snugly against the edge of the table, full and heavy even before I’d taken my first bite, and all I could think was how much I wanted to eat it all, how I wanted every last crumb and morsel inside of me. I wondered, as I speared a piece of turkey with my fork, if this would finally push me past the next big milestone.

“What does four hundred pounds even feel like?” I mused aloud, giving my belly an affectionate pat. “Maybe after this Thanksgiving, I’ll finally know for sure.”