Have you ever been sitting in a restaurant and wondered how many calories or grams of fat were in the meal you've got in front of you?

No? OK, so you're not as weird about that as me, but I wonder about it all the time, and after reading this maybe you should be too.

Some have the information available upon request, but most don't make it available.

Well, my aunt sent me an email that had the worst restaurant meals and their caloric content and nutritional breakdown.

Here's just a few examples.

McDonald's 5 piece Chicken Selects with ranch sauce has over 800 calories with 55g of fat. 55 Grams of fat! That's insane. Especially when you consider that they advertised them under the guise of healthy food because they were supposed to be chicken breast, but even chicken breast isn't healthy when it's doused in batter and deep fried.

My favorite, though was the smoothie from Jamba Juice. When you hear smoothie you probably think it's healthy, right? That's how they're marketed after all. But this smoothie from Jamba Juice had 900 calories, with 160g of sugar! That's unbelievable!

By the way, those two I just gave you were the "best of the worst". There were plenty with upwards of 1500 and 2000 calories. That's how many calories many people should be consuming in an entire day if they want to lose fat and these entrees (or some appetizers) have them in one shot.

Hearing numbers like that it should be no surprise to anyone that we have an obesity epidemic in this country. We simply eat too much, or don't pay any attention to what's going in our mouths, and don't notice until it's wound up as gooey fat sitting on our gut, butt or thighs.

You should be wary of any meal when dining out. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go out to eat. Quite the contrary. I think it's necessary that we get out of the house and frequent restaurants. I'd go crazy and get cabin fever if I didn't get out of the house and eat at restaurants. What I am saying is that you need to understand that many meals and drinks are not prepared with the idea that they're going to keep your waist line in check.

They are made to taste as good and but as cheaply as possible because restaurants need to make money, after all. So in order to make many foods taste better, they are fried, sautéed, or otherwise prepared to increase the fat, because fat makes food taste better, or are smothered in sugar and fat loaded creams and sauces.

So here are a couple tips to watch out for when dining out.

First, avoid the appetizer. Appetizers are usually loaded with fat, and this includes the veggie dishes because they come with some sort of dipping sauce.

Next, avoid anything fried, sautéed or cooked in some sort of sauce. It may sound healthy because it's salmon or chicken or vegetarian, but if it's fried, sautéed or cooked in sauce, it's high in fat and loaded with calories.

Last, if you've decided that you're going to eat poorly when you're eating in a restaurant, at least get a half order. The proportions on full orders are so out of whack they could feed an entire village in some starving country. So do yourself a favor and just ask for a half order, or split it with whomever you're dining.

Another easy thing to do is to take a drink of water between every bite. Water will fill you up a little faster, which means you won't be able to eat as much, which means you won't store as much fat.

I hope I've enlightened you a little bit, and will begin to eat a little more consciously when you're out and about.

Copyright (c) 2008 Ed Scow