How to exclude the last post from a category(featured for example) from the main loop?

Question

I am using 2 loops on the main page, one that shows the last post from the featured category and a general one with all the posts. The problem is that i get the last post in the featured category in both loops on the same page. It basically duplicates the post on that page. I can only seem to find how to exclude the entire category and I know how to do that. That is not what i need. I only want the latest post from the featured category excluded.

I was thinking i could somehow pull the ID of the post from the featured categ that I am already showing, store it in a variable and then exclude that variable from the main loop. However I am a beginner with both wordpress and php and am not quite sure how to do this.

Any thoughts ?

edit: this is the code i want to change:

            <?php
            $myPosts = new WP_Query( 'category_name=Featured&posts_per_page=1' );while (     $myPosts->have_posts() )
            : $myPosts->the_post();
            ?>
                <?php 
                if (has_post_thumbnail( $post->ID ) ):
                    $image = wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id( $post->ID ), 'single-post-thumbnail' );
                endif;
                $image_url = $image[0];
                ?>
                <div class="index-featured-post" 
                style="background:linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(26,26,26,0.8) 0%, rgba(110,110,110,0.5) 50%, rgba(26,26,26,0.8) 100%), url(<?php echo $image_url; ?>)">
                    <div class="row">
                        <div class="large-8 large-centered columns">
                            <span class="cat-index"><?php the_category(); ?></span>
                            <?php the_title( sprintf( '<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="%s" rel="bookmark">', esc_url( get_permalink() ) ), '</a></h1>' ); ?>
                            <span class="post-tag-line"><?php the_field('post_tag_line'); ?></span>
                            <p class="ert-featured"><?php acn_estimated_reading_time() ?></p>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
            <?php endwhile; ?>
            <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?> 


            <?php if ( have_posts() ) : ?>

                <?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>

                    <?php
                        get_template_part( 'content', get_post_format() );
                    ?>

                <?php endwhile; ?>
           <?php endif; ?>

Answer 1

If you store your last post ID in a variable from the first loop you can use post__not_in in the second loop to exclude the Id.

Example adapted from Wordpres Class Reference/WP Query

$query = new WP_Query(
    array(
        'post_type' => 'post',
        'post__not_in' => array( $excluded_post_id )
    )
);

You can exclude any number of posts by padding their ID's in post__not_in. Just make sure you get the ID for the post you want to exclude in it's loop or you'll likely end up trying to exclude the current page.