Sub weigh? Eat less

The first time I saw Jared Fogle, I was hungry.

He was walking down the street on his way to Subway for a nice healthy veggie sub with no oil or vinegar. I was sitting on a couch eating a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips while watching him on television. Maybe I was predisposed to detest him.

Now, all of America knows how this man dropped from 425 pounds to a trim 180 in under a year on a daily diet consisting only of Subway sandwiches, baked chips and Diet Coke. Meanwhile, I’m still sitting on my couch wondering how this awkward, clean-cut, conservative and utterly anonymous looking man became the latest golden calf of the fad diet set.

For years, get-thin-quick plans such as the SlimFast Diet have tempted the average American consumer with the allure of shedding those few extra pounds by trading all variety in your diet for “a shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch and a sensible dinner.”

In the last year, fad regimens such as the Atkins Diet, the Hollywood Diet and Body Solutions cropped up faster than overweight Americans could cheat their way out of the diets they’re already on.

But now, the same Web sites that can teach you how to lose weight by eating nothing but heavy whipping cream and a pre-mixed juice drink list the “Subway Diet” as the newest weight loss wonder.

The fast-food chain has stumbled across the sleeping cash cow of advertising in America – making people feel uncomfortable about their bodies and promising that its product will change all that.

Over the past year, study after study has proven that obesity is a growing problem among American adults. In December, then Surgeon General David Satcher declared obesity America’s soon-to-be No. 1 killer. With the average American spending one-third of his food budget on fast food, fast-food chains are in prime position to make their customers feel bad and rake in money by offering solutions.

Now their commercials look less like the tame health-conscious advertisements and more like those of that maven of miniscule meals – Jenny Craig.

For years McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s have fought over providing healthier alternatives to their greasy fat-magnet meals, but the sandwich chain takes those audacious claims a step further – it’s a fast-food restaurant that promises you’ll lose weight eating its made-to-order processed deli meat.

Take for example the chain’s most recent commercial. This time Jared’s walking down the street with a group of 10 people. As they all go salivating off after their six-inch dry turkey subs, each one of them tells us about how they lost anywhere from 20 to 160 pounds eating Subway’s healthy sub sandwiches. Next come the before and after pictures, the now-skinny woman showing off her old pair of mammoth-size jeans, and then the tell-tale sign of any diet commercial – “Results not typical.”

The company’s own corporate dietitian admits that Jared’s diet is unhealthy and won’t endorse it. The company won’t endorse it, but it will exploit it.

And the strategy seems to be working. The firm’s stock prices have gone up by 15 percent since airing the Jared ads. Entrepreneur magazine rated Subway the No. 1 franchise opportunity in the country. If playing on body insecurities can work this well for fast food, just imagine what it could do for other industries.

“I lost 190 pounds on the Calvin Klein diet,” says a nymphet holding up her old pair of super-sized jeans. “His jeans made my butt look big, so I fasted and dieted for three months. Now, look at me!”

“I lost 26 pounds while on my Carnival Cruise,” says a slender spokeswoman. “All that rocking of the boat made me so sick I couldn’t eat for weeks.”

Once you believe that these are the secrets to rapid weight loss, you’re a Slim Fast-drinking, Subway-eating, Calvin Klein jeans-wearing, Carnival Cruise-riding customer for life to keep it off. But in all cases it’s not the product that’s effecting the change; it’s the change in habits.

Jared dropped 235 pounds not by scarfing down delicious garden patches on a bun. He did it by cutting his calorie consumption by one-third and exercising regularly.

Americans dieters can do it, too, with sensible calorie reduction, an effective exercise regimen and without the help of Subway, Jared or six-inch veggie subs.