Winona Dimeo-Ediger

If you’re at an amazing restaurant, eat the amazing food there! Enjoy it! Don’t limit yourself to one bite of expensive entree because you frantically forced down a pound of undressed salad before the bread basket showed up. Eat salad for its own sake. Eat it because you want to eat it, not because you’re trying NOT to eat something else.

Will you ever find a chair you like? Are there any good chairs left in this world? Why are so many people in your neighborhood attempting to sell “lightly used” sex chairs? What is a sex chair?

For example, if you’re having gastrointenstinal distress, resist the urge to hashtag it with something generic like #diarrheacramps. Instead, include your first and last name and the date to make it your own: #LynnSmithDiarrheaCrampsFebruary2016.

The side effects of weight loss are not—gasp!—all positive.

Make a u-turn into the darkest recesses of your psyche. Wonder about your life purpose: Were you put on earth to stare at computer screens and pay bills and die? Cringe while imagining what your idealistic college self would think of you now. Conclude that your life lacks creativity and meaning and simple joys.

"If you’re not married, you’re doomed. This is such a load of BS. Relationship timelines are complicated and unpredictable and unique to each of us. There’s no age that determines your romantic future. Women don’t have an expiration date."

I’ve always hated shopping for dresses in general (I’m seriously supposed to track down one garment that fits properly on my chest, waist, arms, and hips simultaneously?), and finding the right thing to wear to a wedding is always tricky (do they really mean casual?).

Justin: I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice. Me: Once or twice? Really, Justin? Justin: And by once or twice I mean maybe a couple a hundred times. Me: Right. Now we’re on the same page.

The hardest thing about transitioning to an in-office job after working from home for a long time? Not being able to tell your boss, “I’m gonna take a quick shower to clear my head” after a stressful team meeting.

The thing is, we soak in these body-judging lessons from a very young age, before we even know how damaging they are. Some of the messages are implicit, like when we see a fat girl getting made fun of on the playground (or, for many of us, when we are the fat girl getting made fun of on the playground) and learn that being fat is not just wrong, it’s a punishable offense.