{"id":1494,"date":"2015-10-03T00:24:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T00:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=1494"},"modified":"2015-10-03T01:39:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T01:39:31","slug":"this-is-not-a-diet-its-my-life-noel-mannings-journey-to-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/?p=1494","title":{"rendered":"“This is not a diet–it’s my life,” Noel Manning’s journey to health"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Ellen Laws<\/p>\n

Three years following an alarming doctor\u2019s visit and a family intervention, Noel Manning, associate vice president of Communications and Marketing at Gardner-Webb, now weighs 60 pounds less and continues to take charge of his health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children told me, \u2018Dad, we want you to be around. We\u2019re kind of worried about you and worried about your health.\u2019 That\u2019s when I knew I had to make my lifestyle change,\u201d said Manning.<\/p>\n

\"Noel<\/a>
Noel Manning, right, before his weight loss.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His fast metabolism had always kept him from gaining weight when he was younger, but he slowly but steadily gained weight in his 30s and started having health problems. He started taking heavy doses of pills for high blood pressure and cholesterol related issues.<\/p>\n

During a regular checkup in June 2012, Manning\u2019s doctor told him that due to the 15 pounds he had gained earlier that year, he was in danger for diabetes and a list of other illnesses based on his blood work. His doctor told him that there wasn\u2019t a quick fix or a magic pill that would allow him to get healthy and lose weight. The next day, after hearing the bad news from the doctor, his children finally had an intervention with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother and I started encouraging him to exercise and lose weight. We both just knew he wasn\u2019t as healthy as he should be,\u201d said Kathryn Manning, Noel Manning\u2019s daughter and Gardner-Webb sophomore.<\/p>\n

Manning started walking for 30 minutes a day and gradually increased to an hour a day. He walked, weight trained and used MyFitnessPal, a free online calorie counter, in order to help him get healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal was to run a race with my son because he was a runner. I lost 65 pounds before I started running,\u201d said Manning. \u201cOnce I ran my first 5k I learned that I love running.\u201d Noel has continued running since that day.<\/p>\n

\"Noel<\/a>
Noel Manning, right, and his son after a race.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve definitely noticed a change in his personality, and how much energy he has,\u201d said Kathryn Manning. \u201cWe used to take walks as a family, and he would be always lagging behind. Now, we are the ones trying keeping up with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having already made a drastic change in his pill dosage, energy levels and general health, Manning continues to draw inspiration for his new lifestyle from his wife and kids. He has overcome many obstacles, from struggling to gain weight in his youth to struggling to lose it in adulthood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a lot of weight on you people do look at you differently\u2014sometimes not in a positive way. Some people can say some pretty nasty things to you, and I have been on both sides of that,\u201d said Manning. \u201c<\/em>The best advice I can give is to be patient and take it as slow as you need to because it is something that can become a change in your life,\u201d said Manning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ellen Laws Three years following an alarming doctor\u2019s visit and a family intervention, Noel Manning, associate vice president of Communications and Marketing at Gardner-Webb, now weighs 60 pounds less and continues to take charge […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[108,197,198,199,195,196],"class_list":["post-1494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-feature","tag-ellen-laws","tag-health","tag-kathryn-manning","tag-myfitnesspal","tag-noel-manning","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gwu-today.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}