lowcountry parent & family life 
Half the man he used to be
The Subway Guy finds health and a career from getting off the couch and picking up a sub
Jared Fogle says he was a normal weight before the third grade, but life changed for the youngster once he discovered video games. After hours spent dedicated to gaming, Fogle started putting on the pounds.
“It was a love of eating, which a lot of kids I suppose have, but on top of that I can trace it back to [that] … For me, it meant I had instant access to play whenever I wanted to and that wasn’t a good thing for me.”
By the time he was 20 years old, the Indianapolis native weighed more than 425 pounds and wore pants with a 60-inch waist.
Fogle finally attempted to do something about his weight in 1998, while he was a student majoring in business management and marketing at Indiana University. He moved out of the dorms into an apartment that was next door to a Subway restaurant.
“It was one of those crazy ideas I had, what if this could actually work? I didn’t know for sure if it would work, but it was definitely worth a shot.”
So Fogle ate two low fat subs a day, switched to baked instead of fried chips and diet instead of regular soda.
“It really just clicked. Within the first three months, I’d lost 94 pounds.”
At that point, Fogle could walk easier without losing his breath, so he implemented walking into his schedule as much as possible – at least a half hour a day. After just a year, he lost 245 pounds.
Eventually, the Subway Corp. picked up an article written about Fogle for the Indiana University student newspaper. They approached him about doing a test commercial telling his weight loss story. The first commercial was shot in 1999 and Fogle has been coined the “Subway Guy” ever since.
“Somehow it took off,” Fogle says.
Eleven years and hundreds of pounds later, Fogle now travels more than 200 days a year worldwide making appearances for Subway and giving speeches on fitness and healthy eating.
“It’s been pretty intense,” says Fogle of his busy lifestyle.
For the “Subway Guy,” putting down the video game controller and picking up a sub has not only given him health, but also a long-term career.
The Jared Foundation
The Jared Foundation offers programs for kids 6 to 14 years as well as tools for educators, parents and healthcare professionals that educate about maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
The program has an online club for children where they collect points they can use to get special prizes.
“I started the Jared Foundation a couple of years ago as a way to really try to take this the fight against childhood obesity to the next level. I feel very fortunate and very lucky to be in the position I’m in not that I have a ton of influence – but I do have some – and our whole mission is to hopefully at some point down the road become the biggest childhood obesity foundation in the country and really develop some worthwhile programs for kids. The ultimate goal is to make sure kids today don’t go down the same road I went down and don’t have to suffer the way I suffered as a kid.”
For more information, visit Jaredfoundation.org.
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