Jared Fogels Life

As a student at Indiana University, Jared talked with his pre-med room mate and his dad (a doctor) and began his weight loss plan in March of 1998. It was spring, but he was no spring chick at 425 pounds with a 60 inch waist.

He tried other diets but all of them failed him so he did it his way, the Sub-way. His diet consisted of cup of Joe for breakfast. For lunch he had a 6-inch turkey sub (no mayo, oil or cheese of course) with baked chips (not cookies), and a Diet Coke. For dinner he did a 12-inch veggie sub (still no oil, mayo or cheese) with a Diet Coke.

Three months and 94 pounds later, he added walking and a little bit of stairs to his diet. He lost a total of 245 pounds in less than a year.

He was featured in a local college newspaper, then in Men’s Health magazine, then nationally. He got hired to do a commercial and since then has appeared in more than 50 highly successful and emotionally moving commercials.

In 2004, he founded The Jared Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping morbidly obese children become more slender, attractive and healthy. He traveled the country and the world preaching the benefit of not being morbidly obese (74.1% of American’s are overweight) while also appearing at numerous restaurant ribbon cutting ceremonies. He even carried the Olympic torch in true American style; he did it in the back seat of a convertible.

Jared’s Private Life

Jared was more than the public man we all came to know and love, he was veritably the private man with whom we all wished we could have split a bag of baked Lay’s. Like any onion, you start peeling the skin and you find another layer, another and another, each one as eye-wateringly sad as the one before it.

Buddy, we miss you and we always will.

Jared played him some mean table tennis (ping pong, if you prefer) and could beat even the best players in a best 3 out of 5 more often than not.

He had a retro Asteroids machine in his garage he used to challenge us to, but he had the high scores on it, and it seemed like, no matter how grand any of could aspire to become, once we returned, all the scores were once again reset to his own, as if by divine intervention.

Jared was married but later divorced. He leaves behind no children, only fans and friends.