|
Most of us have seen the commercial in which Jared declares he lost 235 pounds simply by eating Subway sandwiches. We witnessed the fit and slim Jared gallivanting around town with other Subway-sandwich-diet followers and even saw his old, giant-sized pants. But is the "diet" actually a safe and effective way to lose weight? Our search on the term "subway diet" led to a variety of sites offered more information on the subject. Our first stop was an opinion article from the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal titled "Nutrition facts derail Subway Diet." The article's author, Michael Miller, obviously doesn't think the
idea of an all-Subway-sandwich diet is necessarily a healthy thing and asserts that there is nothing magical about it. He cites Renee Curran, a nutritionist at the University of Michigan. Curran claims that Jared lost weight simply because he was consuming fewer calories (about 1,000 calories a day). "Regardless of where your calories come from, you must eat less calories than you burn to lose weight," says Curran. Our next stop was About.com's Walking section where we found a less contentious opinion on the Subway-sandwich diet. They lay it out for you -- Jared ate a 6" turkey sub and a bag of baked chips for lunch and a 12" veggie sub for dinner, with extra veggies and no cheese, oil, or mayo. That's only about 1,000
calories a day, a total that would cause weight loss in just about anyone. After Jared dropped a hundred or so pounds, he began to walk for exercise, which led to further weight loss. We checked one more health-related site, Asimba.com -- a health and fitness site that offered another perspective. It turns out that Subway doesn't officially endorse the "Jared diet," and the company's dietitian says, "I would rather he had eaten a balanced breakfast and more fruits and vegetables." The article doesn't really make judgments, and points out that the results seen by Jared were a result of portion and calorie control rather than the Subway sandwich. So, it looks like our sources
generally agree -- the Subway diet is effective, although the weight loss is actually just a result of eating fewer calories and has little to do with the actual food consumed. Now that we have that settled, the next question is when is Subway going to bring back the classic cut?
|
