In March of 1998, as IU students celebrated the first day of Spring Break by leaving campus for traditional destinations, Jared Fogle was poised to use the week off from classes to work at a local video store in Bloomington.
Much to his dismay, Fogle, a junior at the time, was only scheduled for eight or 10 hours of work for the week. He was crushed.
”It was a blow to my self-esteem,” Fogle said. “That was the night that started it all.”
At the time Fogle was living in an apartment located adjacent to Subway on Atwater Avenue.
”I think I was going to get a steak and cheese or meatball sandwich,” Fogle said. “But that night the low-fat menu caught my eye.”
Fogle made a pact with himself that night. He was going to spend his Spring Break eating healthy and staying committed to losing weight. He weighed in at 425 pounds at the time, making even daily activities like going to class difficult.
Three years later and 245 pounds lighter, Fogle is in the middle of a tour of the country to promote his “Subway Diet.” He recently filmed a documentary for TNN that will air in January and is now writing a book. He lives in Indianapolis.
Fogle actually had to plan out his IU classes so he could find adequate seating for a person his size -- he was too big to fit into certain desks.
But this wasn’t the first time Fogle had tried to motivate himself to lose weight.
”I had tried every other type of diet out there,” Fogle said. “None of them had inspired any lasting results.”
Fogle promised himself that this time would be different. This time he would keep the weight off.
”There wasn’t anyone else around to distract me,” Fogle said. “I thought that if I could just get through the first week, I could keep on the diet.”
Eating two Subway sandwiches a day, Fogle stuck to his “Subway Diet.”
”I would only eat the foot-long veggie and the 6-inch turkey. No mayonnaise or cheese,” Fogle said.
Before that fateful day, Fogle was consuming more than 10,000 calories per day. He cut that amount to 1,100 to 1,200 calories a day.
Three months later, Fogle weighed himself. He had lost 94 pounds.
”I knew that if I could see a large enough of a difference, then I would be motivated to stick to the diet,” Fogle said. “Losing that first 94 pounds was a huge motivation.”
Since losing large amounts of weight can often be a shock to a person’s system, Fogle had blood-work and check-ups done every couple of months.
”The weight was going to kill him,” Fogle’s father, Dr. Norman Fogle told the IDS in April of 1999. “With severe obesity, his ability to live past the age of 35 was a major concern.”
After he lost that first 94 pounds, Fogle started walking again.
”Before I started losing the weight, I would literally take the campus bus 15 minutes out of my way to save five minutes of walking,” Fogle said.
In just under a year, Fogle lost 245 pounds, and cut his waist size from 60 inches to 34 inches.
”It was all a matter of believing in myself,” Fogle said.
”The main reasons this worked for Jared is because he stuck to the plan, he’s young and that his metabolism could speed back up very quickly,” Dr. Fogle said.
Fogle feels that with the weight gone, he can do just about anything.
Fogle now looks forward to doing things he could only think of doing before he lost the weight, Jared’s wife, Elizabeth, said.
”He is very optimistic about his future,” she said. “He is happy now.”
And while Fogle sees an unsure future filled with numerous possibilities for helping people in the same situation he was once in, one thing is for sure -- Fogle is “reborn.”
”I have my self-confidence back,” Fogle said. “It was always there -- it was just suppressed by all that weight”
