KEN IGE / KIGE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Subway pitchman Jared Fogle was at the chain's Restaurant Row location yesterday making sandwiches and meeting with fans. The company found out about his weight loss from a story in his college newspaper.
Subway’s Jared Fogle
filming isle commercial
There was a new sandwich maker behind the counter at Restaurant Row's Subway yesterday.
Four-and-a-half years ago, you wouldn't have recognized him. But, today, 26-year-old Jared Fogle is widely known as the person who lost 245 pounds in one year on a two-sandwich-a-day Subway diet.
Fogle, who is in Honolulu to film a Subway commercial in conjunction with the Queen's Physicians Group, weighed 425 pounds in March 1998 when he was a junior at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. Then, one day, he walked over to the Subway next door to where he was living, picked up a nutritional chart, began adding up the fat content and calories, and got an idea.
For one year, he restricted his food intake to a six-inch turkey sandwich for lunch and a foot-long vegetable sub for dinner. He also added a bag of baked -- not fried -- Lays potato chips and a diet soft drink. For physical conditioning, he walked one to 1 1/2 miles a day, five days a week.
The pounds fell off faster than Fogle could say, "Hold the mayo." Fogle, who also restrained from putting oil and cheese on his sandwiches, now weighs between 190 and 195 pounds and still eats at Subway "a couple times a week to help keep the weight off."
Fighting the battle of the bulge "is a challenge, but a manageable challenge," said the 6-foot-2 Fogle, whose Hawaii commercial will air in November and focus on obesity, diabetes and overall health.
Fogle, who majored in business marketing, now travels all over the world as Subway's spokesman.
"It's good work if you can get it," Fogle said.
