Ten years ago Jared Fogle was just a typical college student. Or two college students. Or three.
The man now known as “the Subway guy,” who became famous for shedding the equivalent of a small offensive lineman, is celebrating a decade of keeping the weight off.
Fogle kicked off this celebration, called the “Tour de Pants,” Tuesday in Times Square.
Fogle said he will spend the next year traveling the country and raising money for the Jared Foundation, which he started in 2004 to fight childhood obesity.
Jared said he hopes to raise $2 million, and at the end of the year will “retire” his original size 60 jeans.
Jared said his friend Michael Strahan, a defensive end for the New York Giants who is coming off his recent Super Bowl victory, joined Fogle Tuesday in Times Square for the announcement along with Fogle’s friends and family. Strahan and Fogle will also both reveal milk mustache ads for the Got Milk campaign later this year.
But before Fogle was an advertising icon known by his first name, he was once an oversized IU student who spent his first two years living at Read Residence Center.
Unfortunately for Fogle, his freshman year was the first year a McDonald’s was put in Read, where he ate every day.
“Double quarter pounder with cheese with extra cheese and bacon,” Fogle said. “And always super-sized.”
Fogle said he was happy when he learned the McDonald’s closed after last year.
“The college lifestyle is not an easy time to be healthy, but it’s important because the habits you form at IU are very much the habits you carry with you,” he said.
For his first two years at IU, Fogle’s weight dictated what he could do. Fogle said he spent most of his time studying and wasn’t socially outgoing.
“When you are as heavy as I was, a situation around people was awkward or had the potential to be,” Fogle said. “I really didn’t do too many extracurricular activities because I didn’t want to put myself in that situation.”
Fogle had to plan his classes carefully, making sure the rooms’ seats were big enough for him.
Then came his junior year.
Rather than living in Read again, Fogle moved into an apartment on the corner of Atwater and Woodlawn avenues.
Instead of living above a McDonald’s, Fogle’s apartment sat above a Subway.
This change would become monumental for Fogle during spring break 1998. While most of his friends were in South Padre, Texas, Fogle was in Bloomington, with more than a week until classes started again.
It was then that he walked into Subway and picked up a nutritional brochure. The rest is legendary.
After only three months eating Subway sandwiches twice a day, he had lost almost 100 pounds, more than a pound a day.
Because Fogle was thrust in the spotlight as a spokesman for Subway, he has tried to inspire kids to stay physically fit.
Now 30 and married, he lives in his hometown of Indianapolis and tours the country like a rock star, giving motivational speeches at schools and educating adults.
Fogle said that if he hadn’t changed his habits, he might not be alive today.
He said that after he lost all the weight, everything in his life got better – and during his senior year, he was able to fully enjoy the college experience, which his weight had kept him from enjoying.
“It was carefree,” Fogle said. “That’s what college is supposed to be: a lot of social interaction and figuring out who you are, and that year I got a chance to really do those things.”
