Ten Delicious Questions for Subway’s Jared

Jared Fogle, who was made famous by Subway for losing an amazing

245 pounds in under a year, made a special appearance in northern

Colorado last week as a response to the popular promotion at home

games.

The promotion is a free six-inch Subway sandwich when the Eagles

score six goals or more. A huge banner with the letters S-U-B-W-A-Y

is covered at the beginning of the game and each time a goal scored

a new letter is unveiled.

The result is a conniption fit from 5,211 fans as the Y is

revealed and a free sub is given to everyone with a ticket. It was

so popular and so prevalent in the first month that Subway had to

force people to buy a medium drink before redeeming the Eagles

ticket for the free sub.

Nearly six months and over 30,000 free sub sandwiches later,

Fogle came to the Bud Barn and took pictures, signed photos and

talked to Eagles fans before last Friday’s game.

1. How did Subway find you?

“A buddy wrote an article about me in the campus paper about a

month after I had lost all the weight back in Indiana University

and that one article really started everything. It got picked up on

the AP wire, it got picked up by Men’s Health Magazine and before I

knew it, it was a quasi-national story. From there I eventually got

a call from Subway. Then they did a few test commercials, which

were produced in Chicago and then it just took off. Quickly it was

all over national television.”

2. What other diets did you try before Subway?

“Everything. I mean, if it was out there, I tried it for at

least a few days whether it was diet pills, milkshakes or microwave

dinner entrees that were low in fat and low in calories, really

anything. I did shakes twice a day, all that stuff. But I happen to

live next door to a Subway when I was in college. I happened to

walk in there one day and I noticed their low-fat menu. I looked at

what was on it and the idea sort of hit me that, ‘Hey. Try two of

these a day and see what happens.’ It seemed like a crazy idea at

first but I just stuck with it.”

3. What was your initial reaction when Subway contacted you?

“I didn’t believe them at first. I didn’t even know who they

were so I really didn’t call them back at first. They kept coming

at me and so I was pretty excited because I thought it would be a

one-time deal. I didn’t think in a million years it would turn into

a campaign for Subway on national TV. They told me, you know, that

the chance of these commercials making TV is not very likely, but

you never know. Sure enough, they did.

4. So why do you think you are so popular?

“I think it’s the story. I think people can relate to the story

because I’m no different than anybody else. I think people see me

on a commercial and they realize that they are just like I am. I

think that’s really what people relate to. I’m not an actor. I’m

not a musician. I’m not a sports athlete, you know? I’m just Jared.

I think it’s funny in a way, but I think people like that and I

think people also like that it’s a positive news story. There’s so

much negative news coming at us, I think people like the fact that

it’s a positive story.

5. What did you do with all your fat clothes?

“Well, most of them I gave away to charity. I kept them for a

little while and in fact I usually carry my big pants, my 60-inch

pants, but I gave away most of them to Goodwill and Salvation Army

and whatnot. At one point I had about 55 trash bags full of clothes

in my garage.”

6. Is there a weight limit in your contract that you can’t go

above?

“There is. It’s sort of an undefined one I guess. Obviously I

would never want to even get close to what that would be but it

hasn’t been a problem and I hope it never will be.”