Published: September 03, 2008 07:10 am      

"Subway Guy" Visits Somerset

Pop culture icon Fogle speaks to Chamber

“I loved food ... the way it tasted ... the way it smelled.”

Jared S. Fogle simply loved to eat. His father was a doctor and Jared knew how to eat properly. But he didn’t.

“I ate too much fast food ... too much junk food,” said Fogle, speaking Tuesday during the September membership meeting of the Somerset-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.

At normal weight in the third grade, Fogle ballooned to 425 pounds by the time he was a junior at North Central High School in Indianapolis, Ind. He attributed his weight gain to a sedentary lifestyle with computer games and plenty of food that he often slipped outside his house to get.

“I lived in denial. I didn’t want to change,” said Fogle. “The worst thing that could have happened was opening a (fast-food) restaurant in the dorm where I lived while attending Indiana University. The fast-food restaurant was open until 3 a.m.”

Later, Fogle’s room-mate, a pre-med student, recorded sounds during his sleep and let him listen. The student correctly diagnosed Fogle with sleep apnea and his father told him he might not live past 35.

Eventually, Fogle tried to lose weight.

“I tried all kinds of diets ... and fell flat on my face,” recalled Fogle. Then he became interested in Subway's low-fat, low-calorie foods and enjoyed his first turkey sub sandwich. He developed his own "Subway diet,” consisting of a 6-inch turkey sub for lunch and a footlong veggie sub for dinner.

“During the first three months (after beginning the Subway diet) I dropped 94 pounds,” Fogle said. He stuck with the diet and soon began to walk as much as he could, rather than using transport. He would walk up the stairs rather than take an elevator. By the end of the diet Fogle had lost over 240 pounds.

Ryan Coleman, a former dorm mate, wrote an article about Fogle’s weight loss after he saw Fogle and hardly recognized him. “Men’s Health” magazine saw the article and included the “Subway sandwich diet” in an article about “Crazy Diets that Work.”

Officials of the Subway restaurant chain heard about Fogle’s weight loss, and, after proving he really existed, eventually launched an advertising campaign featuring Fogle.

The first spot aired on Jan. 1, 2000, introducing Jared and his story, complete with a disclaimer: "The Subway diet, combined with a lot of walking, worked for Jared. We're not saying this is for everyone. You should check with your doctor before starting any diet program. But it worked for Jared." Subway has 29,805 restaurants in 87 countries.

The commercial was a stunning success, and the day after it aired, Subway’s Chicago advertising agency President Barry Krause began receiving calls from USA Today, ABC News, Fox News, and Oprah. Fogle has become an international celebrity and speaks to thousands of children about fitness and a healthy lifestyle. He spoke to Somerset Christian School Tuesday morning and Science Hill Elementary School Tues-day afternoon.

Since Fogle's advertising campaign began, Subway sales have more than doubled to $8.2 billion, though the portion of the gain attributable to Fogle and his more than 50 Subway commercials cannot be determined. In 2008, a Subway campaign celebrated Fogle's maintaining his weight loss for a full decade, with Fogle's announcement that he would retire his old pair of 62-inch pants likely to a museum after a final "Tour de Pants", a humorous reference to the Tour de France.

Fogle, affectionately known as the “Subway Guy,” currently weighs 190 pounds. He is 6 feet, 2 inches tall.

About representing Subway, Fogle says he loves what he does.

“I don’t have a real job. I don’t want a real job. I love what I do,” he laughed.