SUBWAY DIET
The Subway Diet was made famous with the star of the show, Jared Fogle; an overweight, 28-year-old University student. Jared took ‘the Subway challenge’ and ate only subway sandwiches for a year. He lost 245 pounds by choosing from the Subway ‘6 grams of fat or less’ menu and became a weight-loss icon.
Foods Emphasized: Low-fat Subway sandwiches
Foods Restricted: Mayonnaise, cheese and oils and any other non-Subway foods
Premise and Guidelines: Jared Fogle, now a diet ‘celebrity’ from his television commercials, accepted the Subway challenge because he was so overweight that his health was compromised. He acknowledges that his eating patterns, consumption of over 10,000 calories a day, were largely based on emotional causes and poor eating choices. For an entire year, he ate only Subway sandwiches and split his size in half. He has managed to keep the weight off for the past seven years.
Admittedly, this was a marketing strategy by Subway to target busy lunch-goers who don’t have time for longer lunches and need to make healthy choices. With Jared’s unforgettable weight-and-sandwich saga, Subway selections were fresh in people’s minds as they took their lunch breaks. The weight-loss plan is a no-brainer; eat a diet of two Subway sandwiches a day and include regular exercise. Eating the healthy subs, only having one pack of chips per day (preferably the diet chips), and even having diet soda and coffee is the plan that Jared took to losing the weight. He also avoided adding cheese, mayonnaise and oils. After losing a large amount of weight, he began a light exercise routine of walking daily for 1.5 miles.
This plan is pretty simple and involves no grocery shopping or cooking; which could be a bonus in itself! However, the caveat is that only Subway foods are allowed, and restricting the body to one type of food can have negative side-effects, even malnutrition and fatigue. Although we have visual proof that the diet does work, Subway probably doesn’t expect us to follow the exact same pattern. You could potentially make a compromise and eat only Subway for lunch, but either way, eating their low-fat sandwiches could be a healthy addition to a balanced regimen.