Managing to shed some weight

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Phillies manager Charlie Manuel remembers the night he knew he had to lose weight.

It was early last season, and he was at home, watching a replay of a game.

"I walked to the mound," he recalled in his office here. "I went out to congratulate the guy" for winning. "I was pulling my pants up, and my belly was over my belt. I knew I was heavy, but I didn't know how heavy I was."

Manuel weighed 286 pounds - 125 pounds more than he carried on his 6-foot-4 frame at Parry McCluer High School in Buena Vista, Va., and about 85 pounds more than his typical weight over his 15-year career as a player.

Though Manuel said some of his players would rib him about his weight, it was no joke. Manuel, now 66, was a type 2 diabetic with a frightening health history. Twenty years ago, he suffered a heart attack and had surgery. Fourteen years ago, at 52, he had another heart attack. Ten years ago, his colon ruptured after a bout with diverticulitis and he underwent four surgeries in less than a year and a half.

Manuel said he had tried quite a few diets, including a juice diet that knocked off 25 pounds in two months, but the weight came back.

"One of the biggest problems I have is I love to eat and I eat a lot," he said.

Manuel typically arrives at the ballpark early. "I'd turn on the stock market channel . . . and the Nutrisystem ads would be on there - [Dan] Marino would come on there and I'd see that," he said.

He asked his agent to set up a delivery from the Horsham-based diet company, which mainly sells directly to consumers. "He called me back and he says, 'I've talked with these people from Nutrisystem, and, Charlie, they take this real serious. You got to stick to it.' I said, 'I'm serious.' "

Nutrisystem put him on the "D" plan - a low-fat, high-fiber, "good"-carbohydrate regimen designed for people with diabetes.

Manuel went all last season, from Bright House Field in Clearwater through Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, on Nutrisystem, packing his computer case with the shelf-stable food for road trips. He supplemented meals with salads, fruit, and low-fat milk, and worked out daily - mainly walking.

The Phillies made sure he had a microwave oven in his hotel room. "I found the diet wasn't all that hard to not go over 1,500 calories a day," he said in his spring-training office, where he stashed his food. "There is variety, and you could pick and choose." He enjoys the lasagna, "all the canned stuff, pasta and baked beans, chili, spaghetti and meatballs." He particularly likes the blueberry lemon and double chocolate snack bars - "they're just as good as any candy bar you'd buy in the store."

Executives monitored his progress and signed Manuel to an endorsement deal only last September, after he had lost about 50 pounds. (Diet companies try to minimize the risk that an endorser will backslide, as Eagles coach Andy Reid did after he dropped weight several years ago on LA Weight Loss.)

Manuel's weight has stabilized since the World Series. He said he looks so much slimmer this season because of his new wardrobe, especially a smaller baseball uniform. His belt is now a 38 and there is no "dunlap." This month, he said he weighed about 230 pounds and would like to get to 220 to 225.

His fiancee, Melissa Martin, is on Nutrisystem, too.

Asked if he cheated, Manuel, in his typically straight-up style, acknowledged: "I'd say about once a week, but the portions I eat is a lot less than I used to eat because since I've been on Nutrisystem D, that has cut my appetite. If I sit down and eat a steak dinner, I don't eat 12 or 16 or 18 ounces. I might at the most eat five or six ounces."

Manuel has been tested. His favorite stop in New York is the Burger Joint, a hole in the wall tucked behind the lobby curtain at Le Parker Meridien Hotel; he said he resisted. He still frequents Famous 4th Street Deli in Queen Village, but orders huge salads.

He has received good feedback from his players. "They look at me and they think I've got some willpower," he said. "To me, losing weight is hard but at the same time, if I can do it, anyone can. Nobody in the world likes to eat as much as I do." This will be the subject of Nutrisystem commercials, which begin airing the week of April 5.

The lighter Manuel has given up Janumet, his diabetes medication. "I have a lot more energy. It's helped my knees," he said. In February, he said, "I had the best physical I've had in 12 years."