What is the Subway Diet?
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Everyone is familiar with the Subway Diet featuring Jared, the guy who lost 245 pounds in a year by walking and replacing two meals a day with Subway sandwiches. Now, as Paul Harvey would say, it’s time for the rest of the story. Read further for a brief history of the subway diet.
Like man college students Jared Fogle worked a part time job, his at an adult book store, to pay for college. His weight reached 425 pounds thanks to sitting around all day – in class and at work – munching on snacks. Needless to say his weight and health situation had become critical. Jared wanted to find a way to lose weight.
He tried various diets, but they didn’t work because he still had all those hours behind a counter during which to cheat. One day he noticed a Subway sandwich store about a mile and a half from his apartment. Without knowing it he was inventing the Subway diet. Jared changed his daily diet to nothing but a sandwich, baked chips and a diet soda for lunch and dinner, walking the 3 mile round trip for each meal. His caloric intake plummeted from about 10,000 calories each day to only 900, with 6 miles of walking added for good measure. The result of Jared’s personal Subway diet was a loss of 245 pounds in only a year.
How did this Subway diet become a national ad campaign for the Subway chain? After losing the weight Jared ran into a friend who worked with the school paper. After Jared told him how he had lost so much weight, this guy turned it into a feature for the paper. Someone at Men’s Health magazine read about Jared and decided to include his diet in a feature about crazy diets that work. When a Chicago Subway owner read the story he contacted his advertising agency about making it into an ad. They took the ad idea to Subway’s national ad agency who disliked the idea, so they created a local campaign for Chicago featuring the Subway diet.
Soon the Subway diet was a success. Suddenly Jared and his Subway diet were everywhere – in newspapers, on television, even on Oprah. The national ad agency came back, egg firmly on face, to ask if the ads could be run nationally.
Many people have had success with the Subway diet. But keep in mind that Jared’s extreme program of calorie cutting and extreme weight loss are, in general, potentially dangerous. In general limiting calories while exercising is a well accepted formula for success
This style is pretty similar to other online diet programs out there that are rising in popularity. Short, yet intense workouts are the new trend. The diet plans are more flexible allowing you to enjoy your food and still get a flat stomach. There is one program that stands out and is written by a bodybuilder, Tom Venuto. Get more information on his simple yet powerful way to get super lean fast by reading my review of Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.