Many of us have seen Jared in the Subway commercials. Here's his story:
Jared Fogle weighed 425 pounds as a freshman at Indiana University. “I was literally a boulder on my own road,” he writes. Since his father was a doctor and his mother always served nutritious foods, he really did not blame his problems on his family. He writes that he always did “know better” than to use food as a form of self-destruction.
Jared’s weight immobilized him and kept him from many normal activities such as going out on dates or participating in sports. He isolated himself in his dorm room, eating and playing video games all day. He grew so heavy that he began sleeping more than twelve hours at night and nodding off during the day. In fact, the incident that prompted him to lose weight was falling asleep at the wheel and almost killing himself in an auto crash.
The next day he went on his self-designed “Subway diet”. The Subway Diet took him down from 10,000 calories a day to under 2,000. He not only had been consuming large meals three times a day, he had been snacking and drinking soda in-between meals. Before bed, he would always “pig out” on an extra-large pizza with extra cheese and meat from Pizza Hut. When he began his diet, his greatest obstacle was getting his mind off food, because food had always been “my best friend.”
Still spending his days playing video games and surfing the web, he avoided websites that mentioned food and did not participate in any support groups based on dieting. In fact, he told no one he was dieting. His book is very inspirational.
He advises dieters to “set a big goal not a series of little ones” and to “change yourself for life. Once you kick your bad habit, you never go back there.” The last chapters tell about how losing 245 pounds within eleven months changed his life. While “losing weight did not turn me into a Don Juan,” he did manage to goo out n his first date. “Ironically,” he writes, “the first girl I asked out was a part-time assistant manager at Subway.” He also began to socialize at ordinary college gatherings like bars and card games and doing things he had been unable to do before because of his weight. “Losing weight meant I am spiritually and mentally free,” he writes.
Fogle, Jared. Jared the Subway Guy (New York: St. Martin’s Press), 2006.
Created:
2006
Categories:
Low Fat, Prepared Meals
Website:
Meetings:
No
Books:
No
Sample Menu:
His diet is simply:
BREAKFAST
Coffee
LUNCH
Six-inch turkey submarine sandwich, no mayonnaise or cheese
DINNER
Twelve-inch Veggie Delight with a bag of baked chips or pretzels
SNACK
All the diet soda you want throughout the day
When Subway closes on Christmas or other days, eat two “healthy modest meals.”