GROWING PAINS
In October 2020, DREW MANNING, a then-39-year-old personal trainer turned fitfluencer best known for his unique brand of weight-loss challenges, stood in front of a camera inside his kitchen in Salt Lake City, Utah. In front of him was a large pile of Halloween sweets.
“Are you guys ready for this?” Manning asked before rolling up his black T-shirt to reveal an ample stomach, stopping just short of what he’d taken to calling his man boobs. “I need some breathing room for my belly,” he told the camera, slapping his stomach a few times with an audible smack-smack-smack.
The challenge was simple: over the next 15 minutes, Manning would try to eat as much of the pile as he could, bingeing his way through chocolates and other sugar-laden treats. The stunt joined several other extreme eating sessions, posted to his Fit2Fat2Fit YouTube channel and promoted to his million-plus followers across Instagram and Facebook. Every episode lasts about 12 minutes, with close-up shots of whatever he’s gorging on, from pancakes to steak and potatoes.
After each stunt, though, Manning felt terrible. “You literally can’t do anything for the next six to eight hours,” he tells Men’s Health. “So, we always had to schedule [these shoots] towards the end of the day so that I could just lay down. I kind of hated doing these because I knew they were for entertainment. They would get a good amount of views, but at the same time it’s just like a day of your life wasted.”
For the Halloween video, he’d added some variety by comparing his efforts with those of his girlfriend, Julie, who documented
