Manifesto & FAQs.

Who dis be?

Hi. My name is Andrea. I'm twenty-something and I live outside of Wilmington, NC. I have a weight problem. Without going into a lot of detail, my upbringing and adult life have always been less than idyllic. Seeking solace from the things I was going through personally, I tried to heal my wounds with eating. Then, at some point, what was making me feel better became my source of pain. I have finally decided to change my life.

On May 19th, 2012 (my birthday, if you really must know), I stepped on a scale. Since I'm a couple of hairs short of five foot nine, my weight tends to sneak up on me. I, in fact, did not look the weight the scale was telling me that I was, but I did feel every bit of that 280 lbs. So, given a litany of obesity-related medical problems in my family (type I & II diabetes, heart disease, asthma, etc.), I decided that I was going to change my life for once and for all.

I, uh, like your enthusiasm! Can you explain what the Flanery Diet is now?

For sure! I think it was a John Green book (Paper Towns, maybe; I'll have to reread) that had a passage about a character's mother putting a framed photo in her refrigerator to guilt-trip her out of eating. The Flanery Diet is conceptually the same. At the beginning of my lifestyle change, I wanted some really yummy eye candy to keep me motivated.

As it happened, my last high calorie hurrah was on a Sunday with my father. Dad and I go out once every couple of months to see a film and have dinner at a Chinese buffet. The film that we saw that weekend was the Avengers. I came out of the movie completely energized (I mean, the movie was dope). I had two thoughts: a.) I want to look like Scarlett Johansson did in that movie and b.) I want to be attractive enough to date people as gorgeous as Chris Evans. I realize that these are completely shallow reasons for starting a diet, but my opinion is that if you can find inspiration in it, then there can't be anything about about it. Thusly, the Avengers Diet was born.

That same weekend, I went around adding a few folks to twitter (@Eggface for example). I also added two amazeballs actors that I've loved for ages, Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus. I thought, 'these two men are super spicy,' so I ordered an Avengers poster for my wall and a Norman Reedus photo to put on my elliptical.

For those of you who don't know much about Sean Flanery, he is an actor, but he also has another passion. Sean is an incredibly advocate for people who want to change their lives and get healthy. No kidding, he's called out a number of people on their weight, given them a date by which they must lose a certain number of pounds, and a rate at which they must do so. He also writes amazing, inspirational, and, yes, sometimes brutal blogs about never losing focus of your goals. Basically, this became the Flanery Diet because, for me, he is my inspiration.

So, why are you writing a blog?

I have made a lot of friends who struggle with their weight and/or want to be healthy, but they don't know how to do it. I was asked to share recipes with friends and it seemed like a blog was a good way to share my ideas with lots of people without having to email them individually.