Everyone is familiar with the Subway Diet featuring Jared, the guy who lost 245 pounds in a year by walking and replacing two meals a day with Subway sandwiches. Now, as Paul Harvey would say, it’s time for the rest of the story. Read further for a brief history of the subway diet.

Jared Fogle was a student at Indiana University who worked at an adult video store in order to pay his way through college. He sat long hours in a class room, sat long hours behind the counter at the video store while eating snacks, and as a result ended up weighing 425 pounds. Finally Jared understood that he was in trouble unless he could lose some weight.

He tried and failed with many diets because he had too much time and too much temptation to cheat. One day he noticed a Subway sandwich store about a mile and a half from his apartment. Without knowing it he was inventing the Subway diet. Jared changed his daily diet to nothing but a sandwich, baked chips and a diet soda for lunch and dinner, walking the 3 mile round trip for each meal. His caloric intake plummeted from about 10,000 calories each day to only 900, with 6 miles of walking added for good measure. For Jared the yet named Subway diet made 245 pounds disappear in the span of a single year.

OK, but how did it become a commercial success? A friend of Jared’s, who worked for the University newspaper, ran into him. This buddy barely recognized Jared, so he decided to write an article about his amazing weight loss. Men’s Health magazine picked up the story as part of an article about weird diets that work. A local Chicago Subway owner read the Mens Health article, brought the diet to the attention of his advertising people who contacted Jared to verify the story. They took the ad idea to Subway’s national ad agency who disliked the idea, so they created a local campaign for Chicago featuring the Subway diet.

Soon the Subway diet was a success. Suddenly Jared and his Subway diet were everywhere â?? in newspapers, on television, even on Oprah. The national ad agency came back, egg firmly on face, to ask if the ads could be run nationally.

The Subway diet has worked for a lot of people. But keep in mind that Jared’s extreme program of calorie cutting and extreme weight loss are, in general, potentially dangerous. In general limiting calories while exercising is a well accepted formula for success.